Q&A: Killing an Animal That Killed
Killing an Animal That Killed
Question
In the portion of Mishpatim it says: "And if an ox gore a man or a woman, and they die, the ox shall surely be stoned, and its flesh shall not be eaten; but the owner of the ox shall be clear."
A question occurred to me: what is the ox guilty of that it needs to die? What good does its death do? After all, this is not like human beings, where we create deterrence for other people so they won't do this again.
Rather, the ox did it because of its nature / the current situation.
So why kill it? So that the family of the person killed will feel avenged? That sounds like a weak reason to me…
I also understand that a lion and a snake are killed too if they kill a person. What does that help? After all, it is in their nature to kill; that will not change, and it also does not sound especially fair to me.
Answer
This is not a question of guilt, nor are we trying to educate them (though such killing may perhaps have evolutionary significance), but in my opinion it is one of two things: 1. Eliminating evil (and perhaps also protection for the future). 2. Deepening the sense of the value of life and the prohibition against harming it.
Simply speaking, this is a punishment for the owner of the ox (a financial loss).
The fact that the ox is put on trial as though it were a person can be seen as an educational message to the owner of the ox: in truth, he should have been the one put on trial (because he did not guard the ox), but since his responsibility is not complete, they put the ox on trial in his place. And this is like the explanation for a sin-offering, where the animal is slaughtered as a message to the owner that this is really what should have been done to him.