Encyclopedia of animal rights and animal 513

470 | Religion and Animals: Judaism The Torah contains a number of commandments which specifically deal with the working conditions of animals According to Deuteronomy 25:4, one is not allowed to muzzle an ox while it is threshing grain This commandment is understood to prohibit people from stopping any kind of animal from eating any kind of food with which it is presently working One corollary of this rule is that a pack animal must be allowed to nibble from whatever it is carrying (Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah, Laws of Hiring 13, pp 1–2) Deuteronomy 22:10 prohibits people from using a mixed team consisting of an ox and an ass to plow a field This verse eventually gave rise to rabbinic legislation prohibiting people from using any combination of animals belonging to different species to pull the same vehicle or object One explanation for these laws is that animals often find it stressful to be forced into close contact with members of other species (Sefer HaHinukh, Commandment 550); another possibility is that an animal from a weaker species will have trouble keeping up with a stronger work-partner Other work-related laws include the obligation upon humans to assist in the unloading of a pack animal that has collapsed under its burden (Exodus 23:5) and the obligation to help a fallen animal get back on its feet (Deuteronomy 22:4) A vast section of Jewish law deals with the prohibition of work on the Sabbath and festivals The Torah makes it clear that one’s animals must also be allowed to rest on those days: “The seventh day is a Sabbath of the Lord your God; you shall not any work—you your ox or your ass, or any of your animals” (Deuteronomy 5:14) “On the seventh day you shall cease from labor, in order that your ox and your ass may rest” (Exodus 23:12) Many laws derive from these verses; for instance, an entire chapter of the Mishnah (Shabbat 5) is devoted to the question of which items one may have one’s animal carry into a public area on the Sabbath A Jew is also not allowed to lend or rent an animal to a gentile who might force it to work on the Sabbath (Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah, Laws of the Sabbath 20, p 3) Interestingly, Jewish law permits humans to perform certain kinds of work necessary for their animals’ wellbeing on the Sabbath, even though those tasks would otherwise be prohibited by rabbinical edicts For instance, Jews are allowed to milk cows on the Sabbath in order to alleviate the pain caused them by swollen udders In Israel some milking parlors are fitted out with specially designed systems so that religiously observant Jewish dairy farmers can milk their herds on the Sabbath in a manner permitted by Jewish Law Laws Respecting the Parent-Child Relationship Among Animals Judaism places great stress on the importance of the human parent-child relationship, and this concern extends to parent-child relationships among animals as well In his Guide for the Perplexed, which is usually considered to be the most important work of medieval Jewish philosophy, Maimonides writes that when animals see their offspring die, they feel very great pain, there being no difference regarding this pain between man and the animals For the love and tenderness of a mother for her child is not consequent upon reason, but upon the activity of the imaginative faculty, which is found