Compassion or the Egg? Parashat Ki Tetze

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Parashat Ki Tetze
Deuteronomy 21:10 – 25:19

Our Torah portion includes the strange commandment of “Shilu`ah ha-qan – the sending away [of the mother bird] from the nest.” The Torah describes a scene in which a person encounters a bird’s nest and wishes to take the chicks or eggs from it. But the mother is sitting on them. The command is that one may not take the chicks within view of the mother. Rather the mother must be shooed away first. (Deut. 22:6-7)

Our tradition records many attempts at finding the meaning of this strange commandment. Nachmanides places this commandment within a set of additional mitzvot, all of which, in his view, describe limited actions that seek to remind us of two goals of broader meaning. One goal is ecological. We are to be careful not to decimate species unthinkingly. Tragically, this concern has reached crisis proportions today. Human beings have devastated the biosphere and continue to do so every day. We are in real danger of wiping out many species, major and minor, creating permanent, irreparable loss for the sake of temporary gain.

The other goal, says Nachmanides, is to instill in us feelings of compassion. Maimonides (- Rambam) brings this concern back to the need to take care of nature. He tells us – as Nachmanides quotes him – that we should not kill the offspring in the sight of the mother because “animals care deeply about this, and there is no difference between the feelings of a human and the feelings of an animal.” Thus, Maimonides alerts us to the deep bonds we share with animals on the emotional level. Again, current scientific work has made great efforts to raise our consciousness about our connection to our fellow animal creatures.

But, if the Torah is seeking to find concrete ways to train us in the path of empathy and compassion, how do understand a seemingly authoritative teaching of our Rabbis. They tell us (more than once!): “Should someone say, ‘Your mercies reach to the bird’s nest’ – we silence him! (Berakhot 5:3; Megillah 4:9) (And see my New Year’s card for this year.) Apparently we are not to ascribe a concern for mercy to this mitzvah! It is simply something that God commands and that we must follow.

Maimonides has a shocking response to this teaching. He angrily and completely rejects it, describing it as deriving from “a sickness of the soul.” We could say that this teaching springs from “compassion phobia” – fear of emotional vulnerability and outpouring. Rambam teaches that it is impossible that the commandments have no message for us, for they are given to us by a Compassionate God precisely to guide us to learn compassion.

There is one more point that follows from Rambam’s words. We see that Maimonides did not hesitate to admit the possibility that devoted and learned Jews might, nevertheless, be afflicted with fears that prevent them from understanding Torah correctly and that actually drive them to try to punish those who think differently from them. The Mishnah records their words and proposals. Rambam tells us that we must consider the import of any teaching and weigh them against our fundamental values and convictions. Ultimately, we must make a choice of how we shall hear God’s voice in the Torah. It is up to us.

Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi David Greenstein

 


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image: courtesy US Department of Agriculture

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