Encyclopedia of animal rights and animal 512

Religion and Animals: Judaism | 469 the sea, the birds of the sky, and all the living things that creep on the earth” (Verse 28) Some recent writers have claimed that these statements support the right of human beings to treat animals as they please This impression is immediately tempered, however, by the next verse’s call for vegetarianism: “God said, ‘See, I give you every seed-bearing plant that is upon all the earth, and every tree that has seed-bearing fruit; they shall be yours for food’” (Verse 29) On the one hand, humans are thought of as created in the image of God and fundamentally superior to animals, which they are permitted to use for their own purposes On the other hand, humans must take the wellbeing of animals into account, and the exploitation of animals for human ends must be regulated by moral considerations While the Written Torah contains no explicit general principle concerning animal welfare, many individual laws are concerned with particular aspects of it These are understood to supply examples of a general prohibition against tza’ar ba’alei hayyim (Hebrew for “suffering caused to animals”), which is usually considered to have the legal force of an explicit biblical commandment Judaism’s self-understanding of its concern for animals has developed in ways that parallel developments in Western moral philosophy Some thinkers, such as Moses Maimonides (1135– 1204), believe that the wellbeing of animals is of intrinsic moral importance, while others, such as Moses Nachmanides (1194–1270), believe that while only humans are intrinsically deserving of moral consideration, people must treat animals humanely in order to properly cultivate their own moral virtue The Limits and Applications of Tza’ar ba’alei Hayyim The general idea of tza’ar ba’alei hayyim is that people should not inflict needless suffering on animals Almost every parameter of the application of tza’ar ba’alei hayyim has been subject to multiple interpretations in the Jewish legal tradition Some authorities exclude pests and insects from the rule’s purview, and there are those who say it only applies to domesticated animals, a position that would seem to be contradicted by Jewish prohibitions against hunting for sport There is also disagreement regarding the minimum intensity of suffering that is prohibited, and about what kinds of human benefits gained from animal suffering are sufficient to keep it from being considered needless It is unclear whether the otherwise painless death of an animal constitutes tza’ar ba’alei hayyim, and to what extent a person must prevent suffering inflicted by one animal upon another Beyond all of these strictly legal debates and considerations, Jewish discussions of animal welfare make constant mention of midat hahassidut, the virtue of piety, that is, the expectation that people should go beyond the letter of the law in demonstrating compassion toward animals Human Obligations toward Working Animals While wanton cruelty towards any animal is forbidden by Jewish law, anyone who owns or works with an animal has many additional obligations towards it For instance, Jews are required to make sure that their animals have been fed before sitting down to eat themselves