Parahsat Emor – Of Man and Beast

This weeks Torah portion starts with various laws relating to the Kohenim (the Priests). Laws about them not touching dead bodies, expect those of close relatives. Laws about whom they can marry, who can eat from the food allotted for the priests… Then we get a listing of all the Holidays of the Jewish year. We close with a curious story about a man who blasphemed G-d’s name with a curse and a discussion of what the punishment should be. It is in this story that we get the famous verse “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth”.

“An Eye for an Eye” obviously doesn’t mean that you should be punished in the same manner of your crime. If you break a man’s arm, the punishment is not to have your arm broken. The principle is ‘proportional punishment” In the ancient world it was common for rules to execute people for trivial crimes. G-d makes it clear that practice is unacceptable. The punishment must fit the crime.

What I wanted to talk about is one line in this discussion about proportional punishment. We read “And one who injures an animal shall pay for it. And one who strikes a person shall be put to death.”[Leviticus 24:21]. Judaism is well known for its laws about kindness to animals. We are not to muzzle a work animal in the field; it should be able to eat from your crops as it harvests them. We can’t use animals of equal strength to pull the same cart, since it makes the weaker animal work too hard. We have to unload all our animals before we load other ones. The well being of animals is very important in Judaism. But it is important to note, that while animals are important and to be treated kindly, they are not human. That’s why we see a less severe punishment for striking an animal compared to striking a human.

The Torah is very clear, while animals are creations of G-d, they are on an lower level than Humans. Animal rights groups (like PETA) try to tell us that animals are humans are on the same level, and anything we would not do to a fellow human being, we should not do to animals. This is ridiculous. Animals and humans are not on the same level, and there is no way to raise an animal to the level of humans (since animals do not have a Neshama – human soul). The only way for PETA to achieve its goal of having humans and animals on the same level, is lo lower ourselves to the level of animals. That is just what they do.

By displaying billboards equating chickens in pens to Jews in Nazi concentration camps, PETA does not humanize chickens; they dehumanize humans (more specifically Jews). While I think PETA desire to improve the treatment of animals is noble, and I support it fully, they need to take a closer look at their methods to make sure that people are getting the right message.

Shabbat Shalom