Neutering cats nowadays
Your Honor,
In our day and age, when according to experts (as I understand it) neutering cats is very important (for the cat itself), is there room for allowing it?
I’m talking about a cat that stays indoors (maybe we should approach the issue differently for street cats?)
Could it be that the halakha does not take into account today’s reality? (I am attaching a link to an article with sources explaining why this is forbidden: https://www.kipa.co.il/%D7%A9%D7%90%D7%9C-%D7%90%D7%AA-%D7%94%D7%A8%D7%91/%D7%A2%D7%99%D7%A7%D7%95%D7%A8-%D7%95%D7%A1%D7%99%D7%A8%D7%95%D7%A1-%D7%A9%D7%9C-%D7%97%D7%AA%D7%95%D7%9C%D7%99-%D7%A8%D7%97%D7%95%D7%91/ )
I’m going through a lot of things and I can’t understand the huge gap between Halacha and reality (I’m trying to listen to the series on Halacha and Reality and it raises a lot of questions for me, thank you for that!)
Best regards,
uncle
It seems to me that there is room for permission if it is done to protect humans (like any use of animals for the benefit of humans (if killing them is permitted, then neutering them is permitted). And if it is for the benefit of the public, then there is room for permission even when the connection to the cause is remote (as here, where neutering one cat does not really affect the outcome). If the goal is to breed, in my opinion it is more difficult to permit, because the outcome concerns other animals and not the cat that you are neutering.
Rabbi Shalom,
What danger does a cat that remains in a closed house pose to the public, as the questioner has presented? It can also be said that the owner is responsible for its protection, and therefore the duty is on him to ensure that the cat does not mate with a female cat outside. In other words, how can a violation of the Torah prohibition be permitted in this specific case?
This is a public policy regarding all cats. It's not a question of one cat or another.
The question is whether there is a difference in policy between abandoned cats (or street cats) and a cat owned by someone. Could you please clarify the permit for a privately owned cat? What danger exists, provided that the cat does indeed remain on the owner's property, in order to allow neutering for this category?
Thank you.
It is clear that if he can be kept, there is no advantage to castration. The question (a question of reading) is what is the point of not castrating him if you prevent him from breeding and having sex. It seems to me a sin and perhaps a greater prohibition (because it is permanent. Like the prohibition on slaughtering versus eating offal for the sick on Shabbat).
I leave him the potential opportunity to breed (I may in the future let him mate, or I also have female cats or I will give him away in the future, etc.).
When you say sad, do you assume that if he doesn't breed, then it makes him sad? If so, could you please elaborate on what this is based on?
In general, it seems to me that there needs to be a fairly concrete and immediate (relative) danger to allow this prohibition to be waived, for the category of privately owned cats with a reasonable level of protection. I feel that this is a solution for the "lazy ones". Personally, I think that for street cats too, this should be a solution of last resort, but in this category it can still be considered if there are indeed clear findings about the risk of disease, etc. (sometimes it seems to me that this is just a misconception of people, such as a pig being perceived as a dirty/contaminated animal, but I am not familiar with the data). What do you think?
It is not appropriate to lock up the cat Shmil so that he cannot roam around, after all, he is named after Samuel, about whom it is said: ‘And he went year by year, and went around Bethel and Gilgal and Mizpah, and judged Israel in all these places…’ 🙂
With blessings, who is that?
A house cat that is not neutered and does not have a cat usually 1 runs away, God forbid disappears, gets injured, gets run over
2 The people he lives with go crazy from the damage he does, scratches, urinates, howls (also saddens the neighbors) In the worst case, they throw him out on the street, in the best case, they find him another home that is probably already there or they themselves will neuter him or what I wrote in 1 will happen
It is rare to find a home for every cat, people who also keep cats and let them bring kittens. Because it is already difficult to find homes for cats.
Whether we should not raise cats and leave them alone on the streets is another question
But a person who is already getting a cat used to living in a house has a responsibility and needs to know that it is very difficult for such a cat to get along in the wild
With the forgiveness of Rabbi Michi, the matter is simple and wrong.
There is a Torah prohibition on castration. There is no Torah prohibition on killing an animal.
Furthermore, it is puzzling and strange to so nonchalantly permit a Torah prohibition based on a false (as stated) belief.
To reach the Torah prohibition, we need to talk only about males, and about the removal of reproductive organs. Castration of females and castration in other ways is apparently not forbidden by the Torah. I distinguished between castration for human purposes and castration for another purpose. As for the קוהש, I still need to think about it (I will just note that in your opinion, the permission to free a slave to join the minyan should also not be permitted because there is a prohibition in the matter. There are situations in which the use is permitted, and therefore even when the thing itself is prohibited, if it is done for human use, it is permitted. What about castration done for medical treatment, for example?). And I don't have time to go into that now.
Leave a Reply
Please login or Register to submit your answer
