Chullin 138 - Free Bird

0:00College football is back. So, Hilton called to me the superstition concierge to make your fan rituals a reality. Need a room to match your lucky number? We got you. Want to make sure our team doesn't wash your lucky jersey? Oho, that smells lucky. Hilton's unmatched hospitality can keep up with any superstition. Even a marching bandwink up call it 555 and 55 seconds. Hit it! When you need a team that will do whatever it takes on game day, it matters where you stay. Hilton, for this day. Hey there and welcome back to Take One, the podcast that brings you just one moving page of Tom with each day. I say moving and I mean it because on today's day of Cholene 138, we read about one of the most touching Mitzvot out there truly heartbreaking.

1:02The Mitzvot of Shiluach Hakim. Before you take eggs or young birds from a nest, the Mitzvot commands us, you must shoe away the mother bird. That sounds lovely and humane, but what is the rationale here? The answer to the question is a deep mchlocke or disagreement, a famous one between the Rambam and the Ramban, the Chmandaides and Maimandaides showing us the depth and beauty of Jewish thought. According to the great Maimandaides, the reason is simple. Because we send away the mother bird because we spare her feelings. Have a listen. He, meaning Hashem, also forbades slaughtering an animal and its young on the same day to take care to avoid slaughtering the young before its mother's eyes, for the distress caused thereby to animals great. There is no difference between the distress felt by human beings and the distress of other creatures, for a mother's love and compassion for the fruit of her womb is not guided by the intellect, but by the power of imagination which exists equally.

2:11This is also the reason for sending away the mother bird from the nest, for the eggs and which the mother nests and the fledglings that need their mother are not generally fit for food, and when a person sends off the mother and she goes away, she will not be distressed at seeing her young taken. In other words, says the Rambham, Maimandaides, we do not take eggs or fledglings from a nest before shewing the mother away because we wish to spare her the sorrow. Not true! Thunder's Nakhmanides or the Rambhan. First of all, he writes, if the Torah was truly interested in the feelings of animals, well, if it cared deeply about their emotions, if it truly believed that imagination exists equally in most animals as in humans like the Rambham believed, it could have had a simple solution, not allowing us to eat animals, not allowing us to slaughter them. But the Torah does allow it, in fact, it commands us to offer animals up as ritual sacrifice, which is sort of what our entire track date is about.

3:20Rather continues the Rambham, the rationale behind Shiloha Ken, behind this Mitzvah involving shewing off the mother bird before taking her eggs or her fledglings is very different, and it's twofold. First, it's because we are commanded to be good conservationists. Remember the two descriptions of Adam, the first man in Genesis, which Rabbi Solovacic famously called Adam 1 and Adam 2? One is told to have dominion over the land and all its creatures and do with it as it pleases, but the other is called to be a good custodian of all of God's creations. And both are obviously true, which is why we can eat meat, but not do anything that can really hurt other creatures needlessly or can really mess up our plant. And killing a baby bird in front of its mother, argued the Rambham, can be the prelude to, well, maybe killing off an entire species, behold. Scripture, he wrote, will not permit a destructive act that will cause the extinction of a species even though it has permitted the ritual slaughtering of that species, and he who kills mother and children in one day or takes them while they are free to play away is considered as if he destroys the species.

4:40But there's an even deeper purpose at play here, continue their on-bund, and it has nothing to do with birds and everything to do with human beings. While you can believe that animals don't maybe have imaginations or deep souls capable of feeling profound sorrow for their young, you may certainly believe that human beings do possess all of these things. And if you want to train human beings not to be cruel, murderous, callous creatures, you need to set boundaries on their behavior. The Mitzvah in other words was intended to improve the person, not protect the animal. As always, this discussion is much more interesting and informative than any attempt at a resolution, because the Mitzvot always contain multitudes, some of which we can understand in many we can't. And by discussing them, arguing about them, doing our best to understand them, we better understand everything around us as well. Not only the world, but also ourselves.

5:40This has been Take One. If you enjoy the show, and we hope that you do, you are really going to love the new-ish book by L. called How the Tomod Can Change Your Life, surprisingly modern advice from a very old book. You can get it now at your favorite local or online bookstore. Please go rate and review Take One on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Take One is a tablet studio's production. The show is hosted by L. Lee Bevitz and produced by Josh Cross and L.A. XlRod with Tall All-Roy. You can email us at podcasts at tabletmag.com. I hope we have made your day a little bit more Tal Mutek.