Judaism's laws on being compassionate to animals and the Earth

Throughout our long and amazing history, the Jewish people have been leaders in many social, scientific, and moral movements that have profoundly affected the world. Today we face challenges of profound importance, problems that endanger the very survival of Israel, of the Jewish people, of our civilization itself.

Among these issues is the global environmental crisis, which threatens to overwhelm the earth’s ability to support the varied life forms that God created. And the massive abuse and suffering inflicted on billions of wild and farmed animals every year clearly violate the teachings of Judaism and cannot be justified by any person of faith and decency.

The Jewish people are charged with the mission of being “a light unto the nations” (Isaiah 42:6, 60:3), a “kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exodus 9:6), and “compassionate children of compassionate ancestors” (Beitza 32b). Thus, compassion for other creatures is one of the important legacies we have given the world, along with monotheism.

Compassion for animals is a central theme of the Bible, starting at its very beginning. Indeed, the first commandments given by the Lord concern the welfare and survival of animals and nature, and human stewardship responsibilities towards them.

God’s very first commandment (Genesis 1:22) was to the birds, whales, fish, and other creatures to “be fruitful and multiply,” and fill the seas and the skies. The first Commandment to humans (Genesis 1:28), was to “replenish the earth... and have dominion” over other creatures. Jewish sages have long interpreted “dominion” as meaning responsible stewardship rather than tyranny over the Creation.

Throughout the Book of Genesis, God creates and looks with special favor on “the swarms of living creatures,” blessing them, and repeatedly characterizing their creation as “good,” and commanding them to “be fruitful and multiply” (Genesis 1:20-25). God pronounces each life form created – the fish, whales, birds, cattle, “everything that creepeth upon the ground,” and the other “beasts of the earth” as “good” in themselves (Genesis 1:21, 25). And when the Creation is completed and united, the Lord declares it “very good” (Genesis 1:31), as if the resulting balanced ecosystem is ideal.

Later, when God promises Noah and future generations that the earth would never again be destroyed by a flood, included in the Covenant is “every living creature... the fowl, the cattle, and every beast of the earth” (Genesis 9: 8-17). The Lord restates the Covenant a total of five times, an emphasis that shows the importance to the Almighty of including “every living creature.”

Kindness to animals is not only stressed throughout the Bible, it is even required in the holiest of the laws, the Ten Commandments. God forbids us to make our farmed animals work on the Sabbath; we must give them, too, a day of rest (Exodus 20:10; 23:12; Deuteronomy 5:14). Indeed, this commandment might constitute the first written record of a law requiring kindness to animals, the first codification of concern for animals, a concept the Jews can be said to have pioneered some 3,500 years ago.

The last verse of Jonah (4:11) describes how the Lord decides to spare the city of Nineveh from destruction, saying, “...should not I have pity on Nineveh... wherein are more than six score thousand persons... and also much cattle?” Psalm 36 states: “...man and beast thou savest, O Lord. How precious is thy steadfast love...” Psalm 145:9 says that “His compassion is over all His creatures.” And Proverbs 12:10 suggests there are two types of people: “A righteous man has regard for the life of his beast, but the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel.”

Judaism has strict laws and teachings forbidding cruelty to animals. There is an entire code of laws (“tsa’ar ba’alei hayim,” the requirement “to prevent the suffering of living creatures”) mandating that animals be treated with compassion. Jews are not allowed to “pass by” an animal in distress or being mistreated, even on the Sabbath.

As the authoritative Encyclopedia Judaica observes, “In rabbinic literature... great prominence is given to demonstrating God’s mercy to animals, and to the importance of not causing them pain”; “Moral and legal rules on the treatment of animals are based on the principle that animals are part of God’s creation toward which man bears responsibility. The Bible... makes it clear not only that cruelty to animals is forbidden, but also that compassion and mercy to them are demanded of man by God.”

The Encyclopedia sums up the rabbinical law by saying, “The principle of kindness to animals.... is as though God’s treatment of man will be according to his treatment of animals.”

Similarly, the Universal Jewish Encyclopedia observes that “The Jewish attitude toward animals has always been governed by the consideration that they, too, are God’s creatures... [and] the obligation to respect and consider the feelings and needs of lower creatures... writings strongly urge kindness toward animals, declaring that one who harms an animal harms his own soul.”

In sum, the many teachings of the Torah and the Talmud, and the writings of our sages, rabbis, and elders over the centuries, have repeatedly stressed this mitzvah of compassion for other creatures. Thus, a renewed emphasis on the humane ethic would represent not a departure from traditional Jewish teachings but a return to them.

Sadly, the long Jewish tradition of raising animals gently and humanely is not now adequately appreciated. But it is exemplified in the story of the Slovakian farmer and Holocaust victim Itzik Rosenberg, who, while being taken away to be killed by the Germans, cried out to his neighbors, “But who will take care of my animals?”

As the great Jewish writer and Nobel laureate Isaac Bashevis Singer once wrote, “How can we pray to God for mercy, when we ourselves have no mercy?” ■