Polly Want Dignity: Commentary on Parashat Ki Tetze 5784
By Rabbi Jonah Rank, Rosh Yeshivah of Hebrew Seminary
Nature is cruel, but we don’t have to be.
—Dr. Temple Grandin
Vegetarianism was easy at first. God gave Adam and Eve nearly a whole garden full of greens from which to eat. In Genesis 2:16, God assured Adam, “מִכֹּ֥ל עֵֽץ־הַגָּ֖ן אָכֹ֥ל תֹּאכֵֽל׃” (“You can eat from any tree in this garden”) and gave only one exception to this rule (in the next verse). By the end of the next chapter though, Adam and Eve had broken their only dietary law (that darn Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Bad), and the palate of the entire human species expanded. Nine generations later, after God had sent a flood that wiped out almost the entirety of the homo sapiens population, God announced to Noah and his family a new lenient food policy in Genesis 9:3: “כׇּל־רֶ֙מֶשׂ֙ אֲשֶׁ֣ר הוּא־חַ֔י לָכֶ֥ם יִהְיֶ֖ה לְאׇכְלָ֑ה כְּיֶ֣רֶק עֵ֔שֶׂב נָתַ֥תִּי לָכֶ֖ם אֶת־כֹּֽל׃” (“any roaming thing that is alive is for you to eat; just like the greenness of the grass, I have given it all to you”).
Thus began a long and complicated relationship between the religion of the Torah and the eating of animals.
It happened right away. God immediately backtracked with Noah, commanding “אַךְ־בָּשָׂ֕ר בְּנַפְשׁ֥וֹ דָמ֖וֹ לֹ֥א תֹאכֵֽלוּ׃” (“do not eat from any flesh the blood of its soul”) (Genesis 9:4). The meat was fine, but the blood was off-limits. By the time God began instructing Moses in the ways of the Israelite religion, God had begun worrying about the cruelty of taking the family of an animal and turning them into food together. In three different places of the Torah, God instructed Moses “לֹֽא־תְבַשֵּׁ֥ל גְּדִ֖י בַּחֲלֵ֥ב אִמּֽוֹ” (“do not boil a kid-goat in the milk of its mother”) (Exodus 23:19, Exodus 34:26, and Deuteronomy 14:21). It may be nuisance to a goat when a human milks it, and slaughtering a baby goat demands that the butcher believe this fate to be the best path forward for the kid. But cooking a baby goat in its mother’s milk was a step too far for God. To know enough about the animal one is cooking and not to care for the potential love in the relationship between the animal and its relatives is to deny whatever divine imprint God may have placed in the souls of these animals.
Specific animals have evidently held a special place in God’s heart. Which animals should be kosher for sacrifices and which animals should be kosher for human dining purposes comprise multiple chapters of the Torah. Perhaps the God of all creation feared that an absolute omnivore—in its broadest definition—was someone with the ability to eat absolutely everything. Eating everything means undoing everything—which could be an offense to the God who made everything. (Of course, humans typically do not eat rocks, wood, other humans, and a variety of other beautiful and important forms of matter, reminding God and ourselves that we are of course not unchecked omnivores.)
As an egg-eating vegetarian myself, I coexist with the possibility that I probably—though rarely—consume fertilized eggs. Supermarkets tend to sell eggs contaning no developing animal life, but I know that I am in the camp of humans whose diets include some aspect of eating animals. In moments when I feel rushed and not particularly mindful of what I am eating, I tend to forget that the scrambled eggs I cook are rooted in the biological realities of poultry. The eggs did not just come from somewhere, and the eggs did not just come from something. If we are wowed by the high intelligence of Alex the grey parrot (1976–2007), Charles Dickens’ talking raven Grip (1839–1841), or the nursery-rhyme-reciting celebrity budgie Sparkie Williams (1954–1962), then we know that all eggs come from someone. (This is of course to say nothing of Sam Eagle, Big Bird, or Toucan Sam.)
Just as a baby goat should not be subjected to the known cruelty of cooking in the milk of its mother, God knew that bird families deserved their own humane treatment. Thus, Moses relayed God’s aviary ordinance in Deuteronomy 22:6–7:
כִּ֣י יִקָּרֵ֣א קַן־צִפּ֣וֹר ׀ לְפָנֶ֡יךָ בַּדֶּ֜רֶךְ בְּכׇל־עֵ֣ץ ׀ א֣וֹ עַל־הָאָ֗רֶץ אֶפְרֹחִים֙ א֣וֹ בֵיצִ֔ים וְהָאֵ֤ם רֹבֶ֙צֶת֙ עַל־הָֽאֶפְרֹחִ֔ים א֖וֹ עַל־הַבֵּיצִ֑ים לֹא־תִקַּ֥ח הָאֵ֖ם עַל־הַבָּנִֽים׃ שַׁלֵּ֤חַ תְּשַׁלַּח֙ אֶת־הָאֵ֔ם וְאֶת־הַבָּנִ֖ים תִּֽקַּֽח־לָ֑ךְ לְמַ֙עַן֙ יִ֣יטַב לָ֔ךְ וְהַאֲרַכְתָּ֖ יָמִֽים׃
If you chance upon the nest of a bird before you—on the path, in any tree, or on any land—and there are fledglings or eggs and the mother is crouching upon the fledglings or the eggs, do not take the mother from upon the children. Send away the mother, and take the children for yourself, so that this will be good for you. You will lengthen your days.
Fulfilling the mitzvah of shillu’ach hakken (שלוח הקן, “sending [the mother bird] away from the nest”) does not guarantee happy birds. After all, this ancient Israelite attempt at lightening the blow of turning birds (or bird candidates) into food could be hard on some well-attuned fledglings, and the mother might not care to be shooed away. Nobody would define shillu’ach hakken as the ultimate act of mercy—because the eggs or poultry still end up on somebody’s table. Instead, the act of shillu’ach hakken ritualizes our compassion for animals. Shillu’ach hakken provides us with a loose script for ensuring that we never forget how hard it is for a bird to live as prey and how complex it is for a human to live as a sensitive carnivore, knowing that all life is holy.
The imperfection of shillu’ach hakken—granting mercy but not to an extreme—tantalized the greatest of Jewish mystics. In the Zohar—the great epic of Jewish mysticism, first written near the end of the 13th century C.E. by the circle of the Spanish kabbalist Mosheh de León—the nest of the shooed-away mother bird was equated with one of the secret homes of the Mashi’ach (משיח, “messiah”), for whom Jews have longed since they first heard about the concept. The Zohar II:8a reflects at great length on the meaning of our passage in Deuteronomy and imagines the 2nd century sage Rabbi Shim’on bar Yochai and his companions on a journey, sharing lore and prophecies with one another, sparing each other few trippy details:
האי קרא אוקימנא ליה ואיהו חד מפקודי אורייתא גניזין ואנן אית לן ביה רזי דאורייתא גניזין שבילין וארחין ידיען לחברייא באינון תלתין ותרין שבילין דאורייתא, אמר רבי שמעון לרבי אלעזר בריה אלעזר בזמנא דיתער מלכא משיחא כמה אתין ונסין אחרנין יתערון בעלמא, תא חזי בגנתא דעדן דלתתא אית אתר חד גניז וטמיר דלא אתידע, ואיהו מרקמא בכמה גוונין וביה גניזין אלף היכלין דכסופין, ולית מאן דעייל בהו בר משיח דאיהו קאים תדיר בגנתא דעדן וכל גנתא מסחרא ברתיכין סגיאין דצדיקיא, ומשיח קאים עלייהו ועל כמה חילין ומשיריין דנשמתין דצדיקיא תמן ובראשי ירחי ובזמני ובשבתי משיח עאל בההוא אתר לאשתעשעא בכל אינון היכלין לגו, לגו מכל אינון היכלין אית אתר אחרא טמיר וגניז דלא אתידע כלל ואקרי עדן ולית מאן דיכיל למנדע ביה, ומשיח אגניז (ס”א אתגלי) לבר סחרניה דההוא אתר עד דאתגלי ליה חד אתר דאקרי קן צפור ואיהו אתר דכריז עליה ההוא צפור דאתער בגנתא דעדן בכל יומא, ובההוא אתר מרקמן דיוקנין דכל שאר עמין דאתכנשו עלייהו דישראל לאבאשא לון, עאל בההוא אתר זקיף עינוי וחזי אבהן דעאלין בחרבן בית אלהא עד דחמי לרחל (שמות י”ב ע”א) דדמעהא באנפהא וקודשא בריך הוא מנחם לה ולא צביאת לקבלא תנחומין כמה דאת אמר (ירמיה ל”א) מאנה להנחם על בניה, כדין משיח ארים קליה ובכי ואזדעזע כל גנתא דעדן וכל אינון צדיקיא דתמן געו ובכו עמיה, געי ובכי זמנא תניינא ואזדעזע ההוא רקיע דעל גבי גנתא אלף וחמש מאה רבוא משריין עלאין עד דמטי לגו כרסייא עלאה, כדין קודשא בריך הוא רמיז לההוא צפרא ועאל לההוא קן דילה ויתבא לגבי משיח וקרי מה דקרי ואתער מה דאתער, עד דמגו כרסייא קדישא אתקרי תלת זמנין ההוא קן צפור ומשיח וכלא סלקין לעילא ואומי לון קודשא בריך הוא לאעברא מלכו חייבא מן עלמא על ידא דמשיח ולנקמא נקמין דישראל, וכל אינון טבוון דזמין קודשא בריך הוא למעבד לעמיה, ותב ההוא קן צפור ומשיח לדוכתיה, ותב משיח ואתגניז גו ההוא אתר כמלקדמין.
We uphold this [excerpt of] Scripture, and it is among the hidden mitzvot of the Torah. We have inside this [mitzvah] secrets of the Torah: secret paths and ways known to the companions [knowledgeable] in the 32 paths [of wisdom] of the Torah. Rabbi Shim’on said to Rabbi El’azar his son, “El’azar! In the moment when the sovereign Mashi’ach will awaken, how many signs and miracles will awaken in the world!? Come and see! In the garden of Eden—beneath it—there is a secret, hidden unknown place, and it is woven of several colors. In that [place] there are a thousand palaces of silver, and there is nobody who can enter it except for the Mashi’ach, who always stands in the Garden of Eden. Each garden is surrounded by great chariots [ridden by] the righteous. The Mashi’ach stands above them and above a [great] number of soldiers and encampments of spirits of the righteous there. At the beginnings of the months and [holy] occasions and Shabbatot, the Mashi’ach enters that place to take delight in all of those palaces within. Within all of those palaces there is another hidden and secret place that is completely unknown, and it is called Eden, and there is nobody who can know about it. The Mashi’ach remains hidden (or revealed) to no place surrounding it until there may be revealed a place called Kan Tzippor (‘קַן־צִפּ֣וֹר,’ ‘The Nest of a Bird’). This is the place that of which that [Mashi’ach] announces ‘This is the bird who is awakened in the Garden of Eden each day!’ In that place, there are woven images of the remnant nations [of the world], gathering over the people Israel to do bad to them. Their [divine] Father enters that place, lifts up His eyes, and sees that they are entered the destruction of the House of God, just as had been seen by Rachel, with tears on her face as the Holy Blessed One comforts her while she is unwilling to receive comfort, just as it says [of her in Jeremiah 31:15), ‘[that Rachel] refused to be comforted amidst [the hardships] of her children.’ As such, the Mashi’ach lifts up his voice and cries. The Garden of Eden shakes, andall of those righteous ones who are there moan and weep with him! They moan and weep a second time, and the Heavens above the Garden shake! 1,500,000 encampments enter until supernal thrones arrive. As such, the Holy Blessed One gives a hint that morning and enters that [God]’s nest, arriving by the Mashi’ach. What happens happens, and what arises arises—until within the holy throne, that [throne] is called three times ‘Kan Tzippor,’ and the Mashi’ach and all [of the others] rise above, and that [Mashi’ach] says, ‘Let the Holy Blessed One exonerate you of all of the sins of the world, through the hand of the Mashi’ach and through any vengeance that Israel avenges!’ The Holy Blessed One will then summon all of these good things, performing them for that [God]’s nation. Then the Kan Tzippor and the Mashi’ach will return to their place. The Mashi’ach will [then] hide within that place as in days before.”
Shillu’ach hakken would not solve the problem of the elusive Jewish messiah. Yet, in the minds of Jewish mystics, the proper performance of shillu’ach hakken along the site of the mother bird’s nest created a new space for messianic yearnings, a new throne where God could rest and a new hideout for the messiah in wait.
For Jews for whom the mystical visions of the Zohar feel irrational or the longings for a Messiah (or even some messianic era absent a personified messiah), the Zohar nonetheless offers us inspiration. The Zohar beckons its readers to consider the magnanimity of the ethical actions we assume when we adhere to mitzvot that exemplify our concern for tza’ar ba’aley chayyim (צער בעלי חיים, “the pain of animals”). Recalling that a redeemed world requires more than just what’s good for the Jews or what’s good for the humans; we must consider what’s good for animals and what’s good for the world. That is what’s good for God.
When we lighten the pain of a harsh situation, we heighten God’s presence in this world—and the birds will be grateful too.
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