May Your Mercies Reach the Bird's Nest: On Morality, Jewish Law, and Interpreting the Torah (Column 260)
With God's help
A few weeks ago I exchanged emails with someone about the commandment of sending away the mother bird. Along the way, several aspects came up that touch on the reasons for the commandments and the interpretation of the Torah, and of course also on Jewish law and morality. I thought it would be worthwhile to present some of those points here.
The commandment of sending away the mother bird
This commandment appears in the Torah in Parashat Ki Tetze (Deuteronomy 22:6-7):
If a bird's nest chances before you on the way, in any tree or on the ground, with fledglings or eggs, and the mother is sitting upon the fledglings or upon the eggs, you shall not take the mother together with the young. You shall surely send away the mother, and the young you may take for yourself, so that it may go well with you and you may prolong your days.
At first glance, this is speaking about a person who wants the young, and the commandment is to send away the mother. In the plain sense, this reflects compassion for the mother, so that she should not see her chicks being taken; therefore she is sent away before they are taken. Unlike its usual practice, the Torah here also promises a reward to one who does this. As a result, it will go well for him and he will live long.
However, in Hullin 142a the Talmud says:
And if regarding a minor commandment, worth but an issar, the Torah said, "so that it may go well with you and you may prolong your days," then all the more so regarding the weightier commandments of the Torah.
That is, one should not infer from the reward written here anything about the importance or centrality of this commandment. On the contrary: precisely because it is light and marginal[1] the Torah chose to place the promise of reward here. For the other commandments, all the more so, we will receive reward. It is hard to escape the associative link to the promise of long life for honoring parents.
The basic tension
The Sages chose precisely here to focus attention on the axiomatic aspect of Jewish law. The following mishnah appears in two places (Berakhot 33b, Megillah 25a):
If one says, "May Your mercy reach the bird's nest," or "May Your name be mentioned for the good," or "We give thanks, we give thanks"—he is silenced.
The Talmud (in both places) presents a dispute between amoraim from the Land of Israel in explaining this rule:
Granted, "We give thanks, we give thanks"—he is silenced because it appears as though there are two authorities. "May Your name be mentioned for the good" as well implies: for the good and not for the bad; but we learned that a person is obligated to bless for the bad just as he blesses for the good. But as for "May Your mercy reach the bird's nest"—what is the reason?
Two Amoraim in the West disputed this—Rabbi Yosei bar Avin and Rabbi Yosei bar Zevida. One said: because he arouses jealousy among the works of creation; and one said: because he makes the attributes of the Holy One, blessed be He, into acts of mercy, when they are nothing but decrees.
From the Talmud's continuation it seems that the conclusion follows the second view:
There was a certain man who went down before Rabbah and said, "You who had pity on the bird's nest, have pity and mercy on us." Rabbah said, "How well this young rabbinic scholar knows how to appease his Master." Abaye said to him, "But we learned that he is silenced!" And Rabbah too said it only to sharpen Abaye's mind.
Seemingly, there is a debate here whether the basis of the commandment is moral or whether it is simply a scriptural decree. Perhaps one can see here an expression of a broader dispute about morality and Jewish law in general (does the Torah care about morality or not?), or perhaps about whether there is a distinctive Jewish morality as opposed to the ordinary morality found in the world (natural morality).
As is well known, many interpretations have been offered around this mishnah and this Talmudic passage, and quite a few of them try to “save” the moral dimension of the commandment and of Jewish law in general, explaining why even the second amora does not deny its moral basis.[2] In truth, this seems to be an attempt to save the plain sense of Scripture, which, as noted, appears directed toward the moral issue here (that is, compassion for the bird).
In the above correspondence, I was sent an interpretation of this commandment from two sources, one by Rabbi Elimelech Bar-Shaul and the other by Shadal. This interpretation offers a moral explanation of the commandment, but one unrelated to compassion, and thus it apparently fits well with the language of the Talmud. I would like here to examine this interpretation briefly, and then return to the broader moral question.
The reason for the commandment of sending away the mother bird
Rabbi Elimelech Bar-Shaul (the writer directed me to his book Mitzvah VaLev, but I did not find the passage there, and I present it here only second-hand) explains this law as follows. First, he prefaces that contrary to what people usually think, the Torah is not speaking here about someone who wants eggs or chicks. It is speaking about someone who wants the mother. Therefore the Torah explicitly warns: "You shall not take the mother together with the young.." That is, the person wants the mother, and he is warned not to take her from upon the young. The Torah is referring to a person who is specifically looking for a bird that has a nest with chicks or eggs, because it is difficult for him to catch an ordinary bird. It is much easier to catch it when it has a nest with eggs or chicks over which it is protecting. Rabbi Bar-Shaul explains that the essence of the commandment is not to make cynical use of the mother's strong bond to her young, because that involves demeaning the very concept of motherhood. The mother wants to save her young and therefore does not flee, and the human being exploits this in order to take control of her.
He proves that this is not about compassion for the bird from the fact that, in principle, one is permitted to take her young after sending her away. Others prove it from the fact that one is permitted to slaughter her and her chicks. He therefore explains that the concern underlying the commandment is the injury to the maternal bond, not the injury to the mother. In other words, the prohibition is against harming the intergenerational bond, the adhesive that joins parents to their children. Therefore the reward for this commandment is exactly the same as for honoring parents – "so that your days may be prolonged.". This is measure for measure, since respect for that bond brings continuity across the generations, and therefore one who is careful about it merits long life. Note well: this is not about compassion, but about a commandment whose purpose is the preservation of intergenerational continuity.
Similarly, Rabbi Yaron Ben-David writes, and in the course of his discussion cites Shadal, who says similar things:
When a person approaches the nest, were it not for her compassion for her children, the mother would flee to save herself and leave her chicks. But she – out of love for her children – casts her life aside and remains there to save them, and does not flee to rescue herself. Therefore it is not fitting to take her. For if a person were to take her, the act of righteousness and love with which she loved her children would become the cause of harm to her. The aim of this commandment, then, is to honor good qualities and to establish in our hearts that no loss comes from righteousness. For if it were permitted to take the mother because of her love for her children, the human heart would absorb the impression that compassion is something bad, a foolish practice that brings harm upon its possessor; whereas now that taking her is forbidden to us, the precious splendor of the quality of compassion will be engraved deeply in our hearts.
Shadal explains the matter similarly to what we saw, but with a nuance. He turns the arrow inward, into the human being: the goal is to fix within our own souls the importance of the attitude toward one's offspring, and to prevent our own disparagement of it.
The Sages say (Jerusalem Talmud Peah 1:1) that honoring father and mother is one of the gravest of commandments, whereas sending away the mother bird, as we saw, is one of the lightest. Yet the reward for these two commandments is identical: long life. In light of what we have seen here, the explanation may lie in the fact that the commandment of sending away the mother bird does not concern the bird and the chicks, but the bond between a person and his children. The commandment of honoring parents concerns the child's obligation to his parents, and the commandment of sending away the mother bird concerns his obligation to his offspring. One who wants long life – that the days of his life should form a connecting link between the different generations – must be careful about these two links: respect for parents and responsibility for offspring.[3]
Critique
First, if we look carefully at the verses above, it is hard to accept that this is speaking about someone who specifically wants the mother. The Torah says: "If a bird's nest chances before you on the way, in any tree or on the ground, with fledglings or eggs, and the mother is sitting upon the fledglings or upon the eggs,". I encounter chicks and eggs on the road, except that the mother is crouching over them. If I were looking for a mother and not chicks, why would there be any need to say that chicks or eggs came before me? It is therefore more reasonable that this is speaking about a person who wants the chicks and not the mother. The problem is taking the chicks while the mother is crouching over them. Beyond that, the command is "You shall surely send away the mother, and the young you may take for yourself.", meaning that this commandment speaks about the proper way to take the young, not the mother. According to the interpretation of Shadal and Rabbi Bar-Shaul, we should have said that we send the mother away from atop the young and then take the mother herself.
Indeed, in Rashi there might perhaps have been room to understand as they do, for he writes: ""You shall not take the mother"—while she is still upon her young.", and the Siftei Hachamim (letter tet) infers from this: "But if she is flying in the air above the young, it is permitted to take her." (see also Maimonides, Laws of Slaughter 13:7). But according to our approach above, it seems more plausible to say that his intent is only to clarify that, in terms of Jewish law, it is permitted to take the mother if she is not on the chicks; that does not mean that the commandment is directed to someone who wants to take the mother rather than the chicks.[4]
This interpretation seems to me forced, its purpose being to save the moral significance of the commandment without paying in the coin of compassion (that is, in a way that accords with the language of the Talmud). True, it is not concern for the suffering of the bird, but it is concern for the intergenerational bond (which in some way still belongs to the moral dimension, even if not to compassion). Much more could be analyzed here in light of various details of the laws of sending away the mother bird, some of which point one way and some the other.
As a marginal note, I would add that the proofs brought to show that this commandment is not rooted in compassion are rather dubious. The fact that the Torah does not forbid slaughter is because our need to eat overrides the harm done to animals. The fact that we were not forbidden to take the chicks after sending away the mother may also stem from the same reason. How can one prove from this that at the root of this commandment there is no basis of compassion? Moreover, even if the commandment is not based on compassion, it is obvious that the Torah and God do care about animals, as the verse says (Psalms 145:9), "The Lord is good to all, and His mercies are upon all His works.", and many other verses like it. So why indeed were we not forbidden to slaughter? We are forced to conclude that our need to eat meat overrides the concern of causing suffering to animals, not that the Torah is indifferent to it.
Fundamental questions
I am not sure that the difficulty these interpretations come to answer even exists. As noted, it is clear to everyone that the Torah does indeed have compassion on animals, and therefore it is very strange to think that this commandment is unrelated to that. That is why interpretations arose that offer a moral meaning for the commandment. Parenthetically, I would note that the interpretation cited above of course does not solve this problem (because it does deal with morality, but not with compassion). But there is another assumption underlying this difficulty, namely that Jewish law itself is supposed to fit moral principles and even express them. That assumption, which many take as self-evident, is what I now want to place at the center of our discussion. To sharpen the point, let us first look again at the two interpretations brought in the Talmud. Each of those two opinions can itself be understood in two different ways.
A. because he arouses jealousy among the works of creation. (because he provokes jealousy among the works of creation)
Rashi explains the first amora's position as meaning that the works of creation will be jealous of the birds toward which the Holy One, blessed be He, showed pity. One way to understand this is that in truth God has pity on all of them, and this statement was prohibited because it gives rise to jealousy, since people will mistakenly think that God has pity only on birds. Will the fish think that? Or the elephants? It is more plausible that this refers to what human beings will think, and the term “jealousy” is only a literary presentation of that conceptual point. According to this, one ought to send away not only birds but all animals, and in fact perhaps this is not about sending away at all but about the prohibition of causing suffering to animals in general (that is, this would be a Torah-level source for causing suffering to animals).
A second way to understand this approach is that in truth the Torah has pity only on birds, but they did not want to cast jealousy into the works of creation (or at least did not want that idea to affect us in such a way), and therefore they prohibited saying this true statement. According to this, of course, these verses should not be seen as a source for the prohibition of causing suffering to animals, and sending away applies only to birds.
The difference between these two interpretations is that according to the first, this is a commandment that expresses compassion, whereas according to the second it appears that the matter of the commandment is something else.
B. because he makes the attributes of the Holy One, blessed be He, into acts of mercy, when they are nothing but decrees. (because he makes the attributes of the Holy One, blessed be He, into mercy, whereas they are only decrees)
All of this pertains to the first amora's approach. The second amora disagrees with him and argues that one should not base the commandments on moral principles.
As noted, here too there are two ways to understand the matter. The first is that this amora also agrees with the second interpretation of the previous opinion, namely that the basis of the commandment is not moral, that is, it is not about compassion for the mother. But unlike that interpretation, in his view the problem with this statement is not the jealousy it creates but the theological error itself.
A second possibility is that the basis of the commandment may indeed be moral, but our obligation to fulfill it is not derived from moral commitment; rather, it must be fulfilled as a royal decree. According to this suggestion, this interpretation addresses the manner of observance and not the reason for the commandment. This resembles the first interpretation of the previous approach, since here too the result is that God has pity on all animals, but unlike that interpretation, the reason for the commandment is not morality.
The parallels between morality and Jewish law
If so, in both of these amoraic interpretations there is at least a possible way to understand that the Torah does indeed have compassion on all animals, and that it also expects us to do so. In the first opinion this follows according to the first possibility, and in the second opinion according to the second possibility. But even if we adopt the other two interpretations, meaning that both amoraim agree that the basis of the commandment is not moral, there is still no necessity to infer anything from that about the Torah's morality. As noted, there are countless sources showing that God has compassion on all His creatures. Do these interpretations really dispute that?
Therefore, it is quite clear that what is at stake in this debate is the question of the relation between Jewish law and morality, not the question of morality itself. My claim is that even according to the views that disconnect this commandment from morality and compassion, all they mean to say is that Jewish law does not deal with morality but with religious values (see Column 15 and elsewhere). That is, at the root of the commandment of sending away the mother bird lies another concern, a religious value and not a moral value. But in addition to that there is of course also the moral issue, compassion for animals (not only with regard to birds), except that this does not belong to Jewish law. The one who says "May Your mercy reach the bird's nest." is silenced not because he is mistaken in his understanding of God. He is mistaken in his understanding of Jewish law and its significance.
If so, in both amoraic approaches, and according to all four ways of understanding them, one can understand that the Torah has compassion on all animals. The only question in dispute is whether that is the subject of this commandment (or of Jewish law in general). In other words, the dispute is not in the realm of morality, and no one intends to claim that there is a unique Torah morality. In the above-mentioned column and elsewhere I explained that morality, by definition, is universal. There is no Jewish morality and another morality. There may be disputes among individuals and groups about what morality says, but the correct moral principle obligates all human beings regardless of their ethnic or religious identity. Therefore the debate between the amoraim and the various interpretations here is exclusively in the theological and/or normative realm, not in the realm of morality. Morality is clear enough to all of us, and the Torah does not see a need to explain it to us. Jewish law comes to add, on top of the moral plane, another layer of Jewish law, and that is of course a layer unique to the Torah and to Jews.
The dispute between the esoteric and the exoteric over sending away the mother bird
As is well known, with regard to the commandment of sending away the mother bird, the kabbalists disagreed with the exoteric camp.[5] In the name of the kabbalists it is reported[6] that one should send away the mother even if one does not want the chicks or the eggs, because the bird that has been sent away bewails her bitter fate in the upper worlds and thereby arouses mercy for us.
But in the Talmud itself it is explicit that one sends away the mother only if one wants the young. One who does not want the young is under no obligation to send away the mother. This is precise in the Talmud itself (Hullin 139b):
The Rabbis taught: "If a bird's nest chances before you"—what does this teach? Since it is stated, "You shall surely send away the mother, and the young you may take for yourself," I might think that one should go searching through the mountains and hills in order to find a nest. Therefore it says, "if it chances"—if it happens before you..
And this is also explicit in the Ran there.[7]
This dispute clearly expresses the conception that according to all views the purpose of the sending away concerns the young, not the mother. In the conception of the Zohar, the goal is not to catch the mother after she has been sent away, but to send her away in order to arouse mercy somewhere above. But even in the exoteric conception, it is reasonable that one sends away the mother because one wants the chicks. Otherwise, the dispute vis-à-vis the Zohar is far more extreme.
It seems to me that in light of what we have seen above, it is very reasonable to conclude that one should not act in accordance with the conception of the Zohar. If indeed according to all views there is a moral problem in sending away the mother in order to take the young, then even if the commandment is not based on that consideration, it is still not reasonable to send away the mother when the person has no need whatsoever for the chicks. With all due respect to the crying of the bird that arouses mercy for us, I hope that the Holy One, blessed be He, will manage to have mercy on us even without our killing the chicks for no reason for that purpose (if we send away their mother, we are probably condemning them to death).
Conclusions
Two main lessons emerge from this brief analysis. One concerns the relation between Jewish law and morality, and the other concerns the form of our interpretation of the Torah.
On the plane of the relation between Jewish law and morality, if one accepts the assumption that God's mercies extend to all His works, and if in addition one also accepts the assumption that it is unreasonable for anyone to dispute that (after all, these things are explicit in the verses and in the words of the Sages), then the necessary conclusion is that this passage comes to teach us a lesson that is not about morality. The conclusion that emerges from it concerns, at most, the relation between morality and Jewish law. The one who says "May Your mercy reach the bird's nest." errs in his conception of the relation between morality and Jewish law (but not in his moral conception), and is therefore silenced. This passage is further proof of my claim in Column 15 that morality and Jewish law are two independent categories.
On the interpretive plane, this is yet another illustration of the fact that one can take interpretations of the Torah anywhere one's heart desires, that is, that it is difficult to derive any conclusions from the verses as such. Usually we will arrive at conclusions we already thought beforehand. In particular, one sees here that we do not learn from the Torah moral principles that contradict our natural morality. If we were learning our morality from the Torah, we would have to conclude from here that the Torah does not care about causing suffering to animals. I do not think that anyone who identifies with the obligation of the prohibition against causing suffering to animals would accept such a conclusion (only those who deny the validity of morality would derive it from here). When there is a contradiction between a halakhic instruction and natural morality, the conclusion will depend on our point of departure: one who tends toward the view that there is a difference between the Torah's morality and natural morality will see this as further proof of his view. But one who does not agree with that a priori will not accept it from here either.
[1] See Column 235 on determining the status of commandments (light and grave).
[2] For example, Maimonides in Moreh Nevukhim III:48 wrote that the reason for the commandment of sending away the mother bird is like the reason we were commanded not to slaughter an animal and its offspring on the same day, because animals too experience pain when their young are slaughtered before their eyes, and the law does not follow this mishnah (or at least not the amoraic opinion that interprets it in this way). He explains that this mishnah follows the view that the commandments have no reasons, but the truth is like the view that every commandment has a reason. In Devarim Rabbah 6:1 as well (and in Tanhuma, Emor) it appears that the prohibition is because of cruelty, and such is also the view of Tosafot in Megillah 25a. Nachmanides (Deut. 22:6) also held that we were commanded regarding sending away the mother bird so that we should not become cruel, and he explains that the reason is not compassion for the animals but the cultivation of our own character traits (for if it were, slaughter itself would be forbidden), and therefore they said that "They are not acts of mercy but decrees.". See also Sefer Ha-Hinnukh commandment 545, and many others along these lines.
[3] From this explanation it would seem that the commandment of honoring parents is also not based on a moral consideration (obligation toward one's parents and gratitude toward them), but on the desire to continue the generations.
[4] In the responsa Havot Yair no. 67, he appears to have understood Rashi not as I do.
[5] See on this in the responsa Havot Yair no. 67.
[6] See several sources in Rabbi Yaron Ben-David's aforementioned article.
[7] Although in Havot Yair there he wrote that one may infer from the Talmud that one is not obligated to search for this commandment in the mountains, but if a nest happens to come before him then one is indeed obligated to send away the mother even if one does not want the chicks and eggs. But this is a forced interpretation.
Discussion
An additional comment
In my opinion, the interpretation of Shadal and Rabbi Bar Shaul can also fit very well with the view that holds (as seems implied by the plain meaning of the verse) that this is a commandment rooted in compassion.
Even if this is a commandment whose root is compassion, one still has to explain what is special about this case that calls for special compassion toward the bird. And the answer is that there is a special reason to have compassion for the bird here. She is especially deserving of that compassion precisely because she is acting in a way we are supposed to value. (Just as a righteous person is more worthy of our compassion than a wicked person.) Put differently, this is a striking case of cruelty toward the compassionate, whereas in other cases it is just ordinary cruelty, which is less severe.
Another reason to think that the basis of the commandment is compassion is the obvious analogy to the prohibition of slaughtering a kid in its mother’s milk and the prohibition of cooking a kid in its mother’s milk. There too the commentators struggled over the reason for the prohibition, and there too it seems that the Torah seeks to spare the kid, specifically in the context of the mother-offspring relationship.
In this connection I found an interesting quotation from Shalom Rosenberg, who indeed explains the prohibition of cooking a kid in its mother’s milk as based on compassion—but compassion that is called for specifically in the face of the compassion the mother shows her offspring.
Rosenberg’s interpretation of that commandment is very reminiscent of the interpretation of Shadal and Rabbi Bar Shaul regarding sending away the mother bird.
Here is the quotation:
"Many pagan practices are not the result of some artificial determination; they arise from deep layers of the soul. These layers are not always pure. They can express corruption, violence, and especially sadism. This sadism stands opposed to some of the Torah’s commandments that are not directly connected with idolatry, such as (Leviticus 22:28), ‘Whether it is a cow or a ewe, you shall not slaughter it and its young in one day.’ This prohibition constitutes a kind of preface to ‘You shall not cook a kid in its mother’s milk,’ an act in which sadism reaches its peak. The mother’s milk, the divine blessing that gives life to the offspring, becomes one of the tools that causes its death. Compassion becomes an instrument of cruelty, as though behind this idolatry there stands a depraved god who at times dwells in the depths of the human soul, a god whose values are opposed to the good and the upright, to kindness and compassion."
With God’s help, 12 Kislev 5780
Even a commandment whose purpose is to benefit another, although it is rooted in the attribute of the goodness of the blessed Lord—once it has been established as an obligation, it has left the category of “compassion” and is now a full-fledged duty.
Thus, what the poor person receives according to the Torah is not the donor’s generosity of heart (“charity” in the secular tongue), but “tzedakah”—what rightly comes to him in justice, not in kindness. And so too the bird is granted its life as a matter of “justice,” not as a matter of “compassion.”
And from here one may derive a paradigm for all the commandments between man and his fellow man. Let not the one who acts boast that he is “doing someone a favor.” In performing the commandment, the benefactor toward his fellow is carrying out the “King’s decree,” which commanded him to do good. And as Rabbi Akiva explained to Turnus Rufus, the poor man would indeed receive what is due to him from the generous hand of the Holy One, blessed be He; rather, the Holy One, blessed be He, desires to grant merit to the giver through the doing of good.
And with blessings, S. Z.
By the way, the discussion on the subject of “commandment or compassion” is fitting for this week, which is after the Bnei Akiva Shabbat Organization, whose theme was “commanded and acting,” and before the Ezra Shabbat Organization, whose theme is “beyond obligation.”
And as Rabbi Akiva explained, “And you shall love your fellow as yourself” is a great principle in the Torah; it is the “essence of the law.” Piety goes beyond “your fellow as yourself.” Piety is to prefer the other over yourself: “What is mine is yours, and what is yours is yours.”
Another problem with defining sending away the mother bird as “the compassion of the Holy One, blessed be He” is that the benefit to the bird is very partial and extremely limited. The mother’s life is spared, but how much pain she has over the loss of her offspring (as the Zohar describes, the mother’s wail shakes the very thresholds and brings before God the “suffering of the whole world”).
A person who sent away the mother should not see himself as some great compassionate figure. He is merely “decent,” because despite his appetite for meat—which the Torah permitted him in the general fallen state prevailing after the Flood—he showed some measure of sensitivity by releasing the mother and allowing her to try to raise a new generation.
Sending away the mother after taking her offspring from her is “decent” behavior, but not great compassion. The one who merited God’s compassion in this story is actually the human being, whom God took into account in his weakness and desire, permitting him to cause pain to a living creature for this purpose (with a certain limitation—his obligation of “only against it do not stretch out your hand”). The bird and the angel appointed over it continue to cry out for the repair of the world into a state of redemption, in which human beings and animals will live together in peace, as it was “in the Garden of Eden at the beginning.”
With blessings, S. Z.
Hello Rabbi. Your position regarding morality is not entirely clear to me. What is its source, if not the Torah? How do we know whether a certain act is moral or not? What are the criteria if one has to decide how to act? Thank you very much.
The source is reason. Plain and simple. It may not come from the Torah, but its source is divine (in the sense that He expects us to respond to it).
If the source is reason, how is it that there are disputes over what is moral and what is not? Very often both sides rationally prove their view, and both sound reasonable. How do you decide in that case?
Since morality depends on reason, and each person has his own opinion—one must say that every person has his own autonomous morality 🙂
With blessings, Shimshel Foucault
Indeed, although a person has the right to hold his own autonomous moral outlook—it is worthwhile for him to listen also to the outlooks of others and their reasons, in order to reexamine his own correctness. And so says the wise man: “Hear, my son, [also] your father’s instruction”; “hear” in the sense of “listen,” even if you will not agree. And see also what Rabbi M. D. A. wrote in the column “Value Judgment in Matters under Dispute”….
But the plain meaning of the verse “Hear, my son, your father’s instruction” is: “Hear, understand, and accept,” for every one of the conflicting human approaches has a real rational consideration behind it.
For example, the one who upholds the attribute of justice is right that everyone should receive what he deserves; and the one who upholds the attribute of compassion is also right, that one should take human weakness into account.
And here the Torah, as the “order of the world,” must uphold both of these opposing moral demands, while assigning the proper measure to each pole. And in this your “father” has an advantage, because his moral judgment is founded on the words of the Torah and its sages throughout the generations.
With blessings, S. Z.
Two small additions:
1. In this week’s Torah portion Jacob says about Esau, “For I fear him, lest he come and strike me, mother with children.”
And in Hosea chapter 10: “A mother was dashed to pieces with her children.”
From this, in my opinion, the Torah assumes that a person wants both the mother and her young, and the Torah limits him and forbids taking the mother.
2. Taking only the mother is also a death sentence for the young. Taking the young allows the mother to produce other offspring in the future.
With God’s help, 14 Kislev 5780
To Aryeh—greetings,
You did well to cite Jacob’s prayer and Hosea’s prophecy, from which it emerges that striking “mother with children” is total annihilation, leaving no remnant. Though there is a difference, for there the enemy wants to take neither the mother nor the young, and his whole intention is “to uproot everything,” whereas in the prohibition “you shall not take the mother with the young,” the Torah certainly was not speaking of wicked people who hunt only for destruction.
It is obvious that we are dealing with one who wants the bird and its chicks in order to eat them, and it is clear that his main interest is in the mother, since the amount of meat in her is greater. That is what the Torah forbade, because taking the mother would bring about extinction without residue—especially since every bird is exposed to hunting while sitting on its eggs or chicks, and permitting hunting in such a way could lead to the disappearance of the entire species.
And as Maimonides explained in the Guide for the Perplexed, Part III, chapter 17, among animals there is no providence over individuals (which in his view exists only for human beings who possess intellect), but regarding animals God’s providence is only over the species as a whole, that it not become extinct.
With blessings, S. Z.
One may ask: if so, why did the Torah not also forbid among hunted animals such as deer, gazelle, and fallow deer, etc., taking “the mother with the young”? Perhaps with them there is a greater possibility that the hunter will not slaughter the young immediately, but will wait until it grows, so that its meat will be more plentiful, and meanwhile it will also produce offspring. By contrast, with birds the possibility of raising them without the mother approaches zero, and therefore taking the mother could bring ruin upon the species.
My argument was not based merely on the mention of the chicks and eggs, but on the duplication in the verse. It appears twice, and from that it is clear that they are the objective.
Certainly possible.
As above.
The answer is in Mikhyon’s comment below. Moral reflection is carried out by means that were also implanted in us by the Holy One, blessed be He. The Torah itself commands us to do what is right and good without specifying what that means. It seems to assume that this is clear to everyone.
The fact that there are disputes proves nothing. Are there not disputes in halakha? And in science? And in law? It may be that one is right and another mistaken, and sometimes perhaps there are several correct answers.
Aryeh, very nice. Definitely interesting and seems possible.
It is worth noting that something similar to what is attributed here to Rabbi Bar Shaul is explicit in Maimonides, Laws of Shechita 13:
The Torah prohibited only catching her when she cannot fly, because of the young over which she hovers so that they not be taken.
Granted, this is the opposite of what was cited in the name of Rabbi Bar Shaul, because Maimonides speaks of a person who wants the eggs but takes advantage of the fact that the mother is there to take her too. That seems to be the plain meaning of taking the mother “with the young”—clearly it is the young that he wants, and what the Torah prohibited is taking the mother on that same occasion.
With God’s help, 14 Kislev 5780
To Ayin—greetings,
Your assumption that Maimonides is speaking of one who hunts for the sake of the young is based on placing the comma between “to fly” and “because of the young”… However, it seems there is no comma here. Maimonides says: “and she cannot fly because of the young over which she hovers.” Hovering over the young is the reason she is unable to fly, not the purpose of the hunting.
It is not plausible that a person would primarily want the chicks/eggs and not the mother. The mother is fit for reproduction and laying eggs, whereas the eggs and chicks are not fit for this use. And even for eating—the substantial quantity is in the mother’s body, not in the tiny bodies of the chicks.
With blessings,, Sh. L. Chirka-Fogo
To S. Z.
I do not know why you got hung up on the comma. The mother cannot fly because of the eggs over which she remains hovering, and therefore she can be taken easily. That is what the Torah prohibited.
It is clear from the verses, and also from Maimonides’ language, that we are speaking of a person who comes upon a nest with eggs, and he will take the eggs in any case—the question is whether he will now take advantage of the opportunity to take the mother as well, or whether he will send her away.
I would just note that if this interpretation fits with compassion, that is actually problematic, since the amora holds that there is no compassion here. I explained that this interpretation tries to gain the point that there is morality here even if there is no compassion.
And so too it is explained in Maimonides’ words regarding the reason for the commandment of “sending away the mother bird” (Guide for the Perplexed, Part III, chapter 48):
“For the eggs over which the mother is sitting and the chicks that need their mother are, in most cases, not fit for eating; and if he sends away the mother and she goes, she will not suffer on seeing the taking of the young. And in most cases this will be a cause to leave everything alone, for what he would take is, in most cases, not fit for eating.”
That is to say: the person’s main desire is to take the mother for eating, since the chicks and eggs are generally not fit for eating, and therefore the prohibition of taking the mother with the young will usually cause the person to refrain from bothering with that nest and to leave the mother and her young undisturbed.
With blessings, S. Z.
From Maimonides’ words in Guide for the Perplexed III:48 it emerges that the reason for the commandment really is compassion for the bird, that she should not see the taking of the young, and perhaps that the taking will be prevented altogether. Maimonides says there that the statement of the Sages, “One who says, ‘Your mercy reaches even the bird’s nest’—we silence him,” follows the opinion that commandments have no reasons; but in his book he proceeds according to those views in the Sages that commandments do have reasons.
By contrast, Nahmanides in his commentary on the Torah (Deuteronomy 22) holds that the purpose of the commandment is not compassion for the bird, since the Torah even permitted slaughtering her for human need. According to Nahmanides, the purpose of the commandment is to educate the person toward good character traits, “that we not become cruel and fail to have compassion,” or to prevent extinction of the species, “that Scripture not permit destructive acts that uproot the species, even though it permitted slaughter within that species”—God cares only for the species as a whole, that it not perish, and not for the individual bird.
Additional explanations given by the Sages and the medieval and later commentators for the commandment of sending away the mother bird may be found by the interested reader in the article “Sending Away the Mother Bird—A Collection of Sources” (on the Da’at website).
With blessings, S. Z.
“The correct moral principle obligates all humanity.”
Excuse me, but I did not understand. If until a few hundred years ago slavery was considered legitimate by everyone, and likewise attitudes toward women, etc.—everyone used their reason and reached the rational conclusion that this was the right thing. So when the Torah writes, for example, “Do not murder,” is it not coming to prevent a situation in which humanity will rationally decide that murder is okay (for example, in the movie “The Purge”)?
I did not understand the question.
Does the fact that humanity progresses mean that there is no correct moral principle? Are there not disputes and uncertainty in halakha as well?
“From a halakhic standpoint”—in your opinion, is there a prohibition of causing suffering to animals when one does not need the chicks and sends away the mother only in order to merit the commandment, or is this like any other need, for which causing suffering to animals is permitted when one does it for some need (especially if we take the view that the commandment has nothing to do with morality)?
If there is no commandment, then it is forbidden. If this is an optional commandment, it does not justify harming an animal. If it is an obligatory commandment, then of course it is permitted and one should do it.
If this is an optional commandment and I want to fulfill it, why is that forbidden? Why is it different from any other need for which causing suffering to animals was permitted?
Because a commandment is meant to advance the Holy One’s purposes, and He presumably does not want you to do so at another creature’s expense. Otherwise, He would have defined it as obligatory.
Thank you for the fascinating column, as usual.
I am familiar with the interpretation cited for sending away the mother bird in the name of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, but I do not remember whether I saw it in his book.
A comment regarding the critique of the interpretation of Shadal and Rabbi Bar Shaul concerning sending away the mother bird:
The column claimed that it is hard to accept that this is a person who specifically wants the mother bird, because:
A. If so, it is not clear why there is a need to say that chicks and eggs happened to come before him, rather than simply that the mother is crouching over them.
B. The command is to send away the young and take the mother, and it does not say to send away the mother and then take her.
In my opinion, both of these arguments are unfounded, and for the same reason: it is very difficult to catch a live bird in the wild without a trap. This is indeed a person who wants the bird, but he is not going out looking for a nest; rather, since a bird in a vulnerable state has happened to come before him, he wants to take advantage of this and catch it. This now makes it clear why there must be chicks or eggs in the nest, because otherwise it would not have been possible to capture the bird easily, due to her concern for her offspring. And it is also clear why it does not say that he should send away the mother and then take her, because this is not a person who went out hunting (as is proven by the wording, “if it happens to come before you”), and so he is not interested in chasing after a bird unless he can catch it easily.
The words “and the young you may take for yourself” should accordingly be understood as limiting the prohibition: only the mother are you forbidden to take, but the young are permitted to you (and not, of course, as the Zohar understood it).