Encyclopedia of animal rights and animal 514

Religion and Animals: Judaism | 471 in most animals as it is found in man (Guide III, p 48; Pines, p 599) Several laws reflect concern for the human-parent relationship among animals Leviticus 22:28 prohibits the slaughter of an animal together with its offspring on the same day Maimonides (loc cit.) states that this law is intended to prevent situations in which the parent might witness the slaughter of its offspring Similarly, Leviticus 22:27 states that a newborn animal “shall stay seven days with its mother, and from the eighth day on it shall be acceptable as an offering by fire to the Lord.” Deuteronomy 22:6–7 states that a mother bird and her eggs should not be taken together, and that the mother bird must be shooed away before the eggs are taken from her nest Nachmanides argues that this last law is intended to preserve bird species by making sure that the mother bird will survive to produce a new future generation This interpretation offers a foundation for the value of biodiversity in Jewish law Two Contemporary Applications Sports and entertainment involving animal suffering not jibe well with the restrictions of tza’ar ba’alei hayyim, and as a result Jewish law has generally taken a quite negative view of hunting for sport, bullfighting, and the like Israeli Chief Rabbi Shlomo Moshe Amar has supported a recent ruling by Rabbi David Bardugo extending the prohibition to include horse-racing It states that, “one ought to instruct every God-fearing person not to participate in horseraces—neither in establishing them, nor by watching them: because of the pain to animals caused thereby ” The use of animals in medical and biological research is another question that has generated considerable interest and activism in recent decades In the conclusion to his comprehensive review of Jewish legal attitudes towards this question, Rabbi David Bleich writes: there is significant authority for the position that animal pain may be sanctioned only for medical purposes, including direct therapeutic benefit, medical experimentation of potential value and the training of medical personnel A fortiori, those who eschew [this] position would not sanction painful procedures for the purpose of testing or perfecting cosmetics An even larger body of authority refuses to sanction the infliction of pain upon animals when the desired benefit can be acquired in an alternative manner, when the procedure involves “great pain,” when the benefit does not serve to satisfy a “great need,” when the same profit can be obtained in another manner, or when the benefit derived is not commensurate with the measure of pain to which the animal is subjected See also Religion and Animals—Judaism and Animal Sacrifice Further Reading Bardugo, David 2006 Responsa on horseracing An English translation of the original Hebrew may be found at: http://www chai-online.org/en/campaigns/racing/e_rac ing_psak.pdf Bleich, J David 1989 “Animal experimentation” and “Vegetarianism and Judaism.” In Contemporary Halakhic problems, Vol III, 194–236 and237–250b New York: Ktav Publishing/Yeshiva University Press