In Memory of "Big Bird," my pet rooster

I am sad to report that Big Bird, the ten-pound yellowish-white rooster who appeared with me on posters and the cover of my latest book, has crossed the Rainbow Bridge.  He was the victim of a predator attack, probably coyotes, that also took the lives of two other chickens and a guinea fowl.  They will all be very much missed.

Big Bird was going on 11 years old -- a very long life for a chicken -- and was spending a lot of time in a cage anyway, because he could no longer fly up to the roost at night.   But he still loved going outside with the other birds on nice days.  So I let him take the risk and enjoy a more natural life as a free-range chicken.  At dusk he would come back to the coop, where I would put him in his cage for the night.  Last night he did not return, and stayed outside somewhere, along with a few chickens and two guineas who had taken to roosting outside instead of inside the building.  I looked for him but could not find him in the dark.  This morning I found the carnage, including the destroyed nest of a barred hen named Rockette who had been secretly incubating in the bushes.  I knew she was broody by her behavior when she came it to eat, but had been unable to find her well-hidden nest.  Last night the coyotes obviously did.

It is always very sad when this happens.  Nature is not Disneyland, and in the real world animals do attack and eat each other.  That's the reality of that "circle of life" that everyone is romanticizing lately.  Life is not a cartoon, and finding piles of feathers and other remains in the yard is not pretty.  I feel terrible when I lose a bird to predators, but at the same time, I still feel they would rather run free than be caged all the time.

I suppose it's a lot like letting your children run free instead of "helicoptering" them everywhere.  Yes there are dangers and risks, but there are also the joys of freedom and exploration.  I feel sorry for many of today's kids who don't have the "free range" experience I had back in the 1950s, when I rode my bike all over town and played for hours alone in the woods.  That experience shaped my love of nature and helped make me the writer that I am today.  Nowadays, parents are being arrested in some cities for letting their kids walk a couple blocks alone to the park.
(See freerangekids.com for actual cases of these ridiculous ordinances.)


Big Bird was the poster child with me in the 2013 campaign against using chickens as Kapporos, by the Alliance to End Chickens as Kapporos.  (See poster above)

A different pose from the same photo shoot (My wife Caryl was the photographer that day) now immortalizes Big Bird on the cover of  my latest book, Kapporos Then and Now: Toward a More Compassionate Tradition,   In this book, I present the issue from both sides (practitioners and protesters), explaining why the vegan" meat is murder" argument does not work, and presenting other, more effective reasons for using money instead of chickens.

The best memorial  you could give to Big Bird is to buy a copy and educate yourself about the Kapporos controversy, then pass a copy on to your local Orthodox or Hasidic rabbi.  In this way, Big Bird will continue to help his fellow chickens live to lead longer, happier lives.

New Book: "Kapporos Then and Now: Toward a More Compassionate Tradition" by Yonassan Gershom

Every year, right before Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, there is a cultural war in certain Jewish neighborhoods over a ceremony called Kapporos, in which a chicken is slaughtered just before the holy day. The animal rights people show up claiming, “Meat is murder!” while the Orthodox and Hasidic Jews who practice this ceremony accuse the activists of antisemitism and violating their freedom of religion. Epithets fly and confrontations occur across the barricades, but nobody is really listening to each other.

In this book, I seek to build a bridge of understanding between these two warring camps. On the one hand, I oppose using live chickens as Kapporos, as I have written on this blog before. (Read More...)  Like many other religious Jews before me, I advocate giving money to charity instead. But on the other hand, I am a Hasid who understands and believes in the kabbalistic principles behind the ceremony and Hasidic life in general. In fact, it is that very mysticism that has led me not to use chickens for the ritual.  And I believe it is essential for activists to understand and respect this mystical worldview if they want to be effective.

On the surface, my task in writing this book would seem easy: Explain to animal rights people the reasons why some Orthodox Jews use chickens in a religious ceremony, and explain to Orthodox Jews why animal rights people find this offensive and cruel in modern times. But there is much more to it than that. Beyond this specific ritual lies a vast chasm between two very, very different worldviews. On both sides of the issue I have found sincere, caring people who, in all good faith, believe in what they are doing. But at the same time, each side is appallingly ignorant of the other. Could I possibly write a book to bridge the gap?

To do this successfully, the book could be neither a vegetarian manifesto nor a "Torah-true" religious tract.   My methodology was to approach the subject as a combination of theologian, cultural anthropologist, and participatory journalist, examining the issue from the perspectives of both sides.   As Richard H. Schwartz, author of Judaism and Vegetarianism, wrote in his Foreword to my book:

“Rabbi Gershom has a very clear, conversational style of writing, scholarly yet very readable, and he explains complex issues very well. He is careful to put issues in context. He is not a polemicist, but seeks common ground and solutions. He uses examples from his own personal experience and also cites authorities.”

Chapter 1 opens with my involvement with the Alliance to End Chickens as Kapporos (Karen Davis' org), my reasons for leaving the Alliance over theological issues (read more on that...) but not the movement itself -- and how this ultimately led me to write this book.

In the rest of the book I trace the history of Kapporos and the impact of the modern meat industry on the ceremony, comparing it to my own experience raising and observing chickens in natural, free-range flocks on my hobby farm in Minnesota.   I explain how the very un-Jewish ideas of Descartes have affected Jews and gentiles alike.  And because I believe it is essential for activists to understand the mystical worldview of Hasidism, I devote an entire chapter to "raising Holy sparks," the question of whether animals have souls and/or consciousness, and how this relates to Kapporos.

In short, I explore the issue from many different perspectives and present what I believe to be a number of convincing arguments for why, in modern times, this ritual can best be accomplished by using money instead of chickens.  This will not be an easy book for either side to read, but I believe it fills an important educational gap on both sides.

You can order your copy now  on Lulu.com. Also available on Amazon but if you order thru Lulu you get a discount and I get a better deal as an author. Lulu also offers quantity discounts.

Kapporos chickens don't sing!

Every year before Yom Kippur, a small percentage of the Orthodox Jewish community performs a ritual called kapporos (or kapparot, depending on your Hebrew dialect) in which a chicken is ritually sacrificed.  In recent years, there has been growing opposition to this practice, urging people to use money instead of chickens -- a stance that I support.  (See my 2011 blog article, The Kapparot Ritual: How tradition has become a travesty).

In this article, which will be my last on this topic for this year, I would like to address one particular quotation that got wide publicity in a number of articles in September 2013.  According to Rina Deych, a Jewish activist in Brooklyn who has been protesting the ceremony for years:

 "Every year I’d see little kids tell their parents, ‘The bird is crying!,’ and the parents would say ‘No, it’s singing. It’s happy to help us.'   I’d come over and tell them the kid is right.”

Having viewed numerous videos of kapporos ceremonies on YouTube recently, I would agree that the chickens are definitely not singing.  Nor are they very happy.  The call heard most often on the soundtracks is the incessant, shrill, high-pitched peeping of terrified, distressed half-grown chicks.

Kapporos chickens crammed in a crate. 

In many kapporos centers, the birds being used are not yet mature enough to crow or cluck.  They are factory-farmed, eight-week-old broiler birds, not even fully feathered out yet.  They are crammed into crates stacked on top of each other, often without food or water, peeping in miserable baby voices.   Most definitely, the children are right.  The kapporos chickens are crying.

The only time I ever hear that distress call among my own free-range chickens is if a chick is in trouble, perhaps separated from its mother or lost outside the chicken wire fence.  Normally, chickens do not constantly peep or shriek in those shrill, high-pitched voices unless something is seriously wrong.

Chavah and Freidl,
two kapporos chickens rescued in 2012
and now living happily in a sanctuary.
(Photo by Richard Cundari)

So why would the parents think the chickens are singing?  It seems hard to hear those peeping chickens and not know they are crying.

 However, most of the people doing this ceremony are urban Jews who know little or nothing about chickens.  Most likely, the only time they ever see or hear a chicken is at kapporos time, when the birds are all peeping in distress.  They never hear -- and probably do not even know about -- the 40+ different calls that chickens make in free-run flocks where they can express themselves in a natural environment.  So it is no wonder that people think the distressed call is normal.  They have no idea what a happy chicken really sounds like.

The next question concerns why they would say the chicken is "happy to help us."  This statement is more about Hasidic theology than chicken biology.  What I am about to present will probably seem strange, maybe even offensive to many readers.  And yet, this "happy chicken" statement is based on a kabbalistic belief that is central to Hasidic philosophy.   Understanding this POV is necessary for learning how to meaningfully dialogue with Hasidim -- a skill you will need if you ever want to convince Hasidic Jews not to sacrifice chickens.  So, my activist friends, I ask you to set aside your pre-conceived prejudices about Orthodox Jews, put on your multi-cultural hats, and follow me into the world of Jewish mysticism.

To understand why the parents in the Rina Deych quote would say the chicken is "happy to help us," we must go to kabbalah and a doctrine called "raising holy sparks."  Briefly summarized, it goes like this: The "holy sparks" are fallen refractions of the Original Light of Creation, which have descended into lower levels of the material world.  These "sparks" (or spiritual "energies") need to be mystically elevated back to their proper places in the universe. This process is part of what kabbalists call tikkun olam, or "repairing the universe."

Eating kosher food is therefore a sacred act that facilitates this process, provided that the proper blessings are said with the right focus and intention.   (For an in depth discussion of how this doctrine can be reconciled with vegetarianism, read and/or download this interview that Richard Schwartz did with me for his book, Who Stole My Religion?)

Based on this teaching, many Hasidim and other Orthodox Jews see meat-eating as an essential part of planetary healing, because it raises the souls of animals to a higher spiritual level which, in turn, elevates the energy of the entire universe.  I have many times been told that the chickens are hoping to be eaten by Jews at a Sabbath or other sacred meal, and thus have their own spirits elevated through this service to God.  I have also seen this explanation given in the Comments sections of articles and videos as to why the person commenting still eats meat.

And yet, this teaching is rarely, if ever, discussed among those activists who are trying to end chickens as kapporos.  Or, if it is discussed at all, it is only to put it down as, in the words of one activist to me, "a solipsistic conceit" to believe that humans have this kind of central role in the world.  This kind of judgemental attitude only hinders the dialogue.

So, before all you vegans out there go calling the Jews a bunch of medieval barbarians for believing in this teaching, let me remind you that there is a similar story in Buddhism, a religion that is widely upheld among vegans as the epitome of nonviolence.  And yet, Buddhists tell the tale of the selfless rabbit who offered to give his own body to a holy man as food -- and was rewarded by becoming Moon Rabbit, the "rabbit in the moon."  (Read the story here.)   Folktale?  Maybe.  But Moon Rabbit is widely believed to have been an earlier incarnation of the soul that would become the Buddha.  His story is told to Buddhist children as the epitome of self-sacrifice.

Native Americans (Indians) also have similar tales, such as the story of Jumping Mouse, who selflessly gave up parts of himself to help others, and was reborn as a eagle.  We should also remember the widespread custom among Native hunters of thanking the animal for giving its life so the people may live -- a prayer that is not unlike the traditional blessing said by Jews before slaughtering an animal.  In both Native and Jewish traditions, failing to treat the meat of the animal with respect is seen as a sin that can affect the well-being of the entire tribe or nation.  Among the Eskimos, it was widely believed that if one did not honor the spirit of the seal or fish that one ate, then the animals would not reincarnate and the humans would starve.

So, as we talk about the Hasidic belief in "raising holy sparks," please see it in the light of these stories from other, better-known (and often better respected) cultures besides Hasidic Judaism.  If you can honor the teachings of Buddhism and Native Americans, then at least try to understand similar ideas within Judaism.  In fact, the idea that animals might consciously allow themselves to be eaten in order to serve a higher purpose is very widespread around the world.

The positive side of these stories is that they all date from a time when people believed that animals have a form of consciousness or soul, and that they can make decisions about their fate. (Read Do animals have souls?, the most popular post on this blog, for an explanation of the soul concept in Judaism).  The ability to understand the language of the animals was attributed to Solomon and also to later Jewish sages and saints.  In Psalm 150, "everything that has breath" is praising God.  So clearly the ancient view among Jews and others was that animals have a form of consciousness.

The doctrine of "holy sparks" and other traditions mentioned here predate the French philosopher Rene Descartes, the "father of modern philosophy," who believed animals were nothing more than unfeeling machines.  It is the philosophy of Descartes -- not Judaism! -- that is most responsible for the insensitivity and abuses of animals we see today.  (Read my previous article on "animal souls" and Descartes.)

Unfortunately, the insensitivity of Descartes' philosophy has fully penetrated the Western World, including even the more isolated communities such as the Hasidim who use chickens as kapporos.  Thus, although the original "sparks" doctrine says that animals -- even those destined for slaughter -- must be treated with respect, the reality of today's meat industry makes that virtually impossible.  The parents who tell their children that the chickens are "happy to help us" in performing a ritual do sincerely believe this, but, at the same time, they are blocking out the suffering of all those chickens stacked in shipping crates without food or water.

Which brings us to the "down side" of the "holy sparks" teaching:  Just as it is possible to elevate energy through using the material world to serve God, so is it also possible to drag down the spiritual world through the misuse of the things around us.  The Ba'al Shem Tov ("Master of the Good Name"), founder of Hasidism in the 18th century, said:

Portrait of Rabbi Israel ben Eliezer,
the Baal Shem Tov

All things of this world that belong to man desire with all their might to draw near him in order that the Sparks of Holiness that are in them should be raised by him back to God... Man eats them, man drinks them, man uses them; these are the Sparks that dwell in the things. Therefore, one should have mercy on his tools and all his possessions for the sake of the Sparks that are in them; one should have mercy on the Holy Sparks. 

"Having mercy" does not mean we should never kill anything, and the Ba'al Shem Tov himself ate meat.  But he was also sensitive to animals as living beings.  He taught:

A worm serves the Creator with all of his intelligence and ability… A person should consider himself and the worm and all creatures as comrades in the universe, for we are all created beings whose abilities are God-given. -- The Baal Shem Tov (Tzava’as HaRivash 12)

Modern kapporos centers certainly are not "having mercy" on the chickens they sell and use for the ceremony, nor are they considering them "comrades in the universe."  Many have probably never heard these quotes from their founder.  It is doubtful in my mind whether the Baal Shem Tov himself would approve of the way these poor birds are being treated today.

As I explained in "The Kapparot ritual: how tradition has become a travesty," this is not the way things were done back in the days when Jews lived in small rural villages. and people raised their own animals.  Chickens were not raised on factory farms, trucked in for miles in open trucks, then left to go hungry for days on end.  Arguing that "they would be killed anyway" -- as some people do -- is no valid basis for treating them as if they are nothing but inanimate objects.  In fact, even inanimate objects (the "tools" referred to in the "sparks" quote above) should be treated with respect -- how much more so should one be gentle with living things!

"Raising sparks" is the Hasidic ideal, but today's attitudes often fall far short.  Some would condemn the whole culture for this insensitivity.  I place the blame on modern urbanization.  Since it is axiomatic that one cannot commit a sin to do a mitzvah, we must ask ourselves if the suffering of the chickens under modern conditions fails to raise the sparks and might even be dragging them down instead.  We must ask ourselves if the callousness often witnessed at these ceremonies is really the way a true Hasid should behave, or is it a goyishe attitude assimilated from the surrounding gentile culture.

I take the "holy sparks" teaching seriously, which is why I have devoted considerable energy to the question of whether or not it is being done properly.  Both in the above-mentioned interview with me by Richard Schwartz and this 14-minute video (below) that I posted on YouTube, I present arguments from within the Hasidic tradition as to why I believe "raising sparks" through eating meat is no longer possible under the conditions of the modern industry.  I encourage you all to study both of these resources, so that, next time you are told that kapporos chickens are singing in joy to "help us," you will know how to answer with respect and understanding.

UPDATE 2014:  I have written a one-page handout directed at Hasidim on the issue of not using chicken for kapporos. No, it is not vegan or even vegetarian, but it is not directed at vegetarians, it is intended for Hasidim and argues from within the context of Hasidic thought.  Download the PDF here.   Feel free to print and hand it out, adding your own local contact info at the bottom.

To learn how you can be effective in this campaign, get my new book, just out on June 4:  Kapporos Then and Now: Toward a More Compassionate Tradition available on Lulu.com.  Neither a vegetarian manifesto nor a "Torah-True" religious tract, I approach the issue as a combination of theologian, cultural anthropologist, and participatory journalist, offering numerous reasons why using money is a better option today -- but also critiquing both sides for both their strong and weak points.  WARNING:  Whether you are for or against using chickens as Kapporos, this book requires an open mind to read. 

See also: The Baal Shem Tov did it with a chicken, so why are you telling me not to? -- my answer to this Frequently Asked Question I often get from my fellow Hasidim.

Coolio Cat and Nightshade: Did their love transcend death?

Do bonds of friendship between animals survive death?  This is an interesting question that may not be provable with hard evidence, but I believe that, in some cases at least, they do.


Coolio Cat

Consider the story of Coolio Cat and Nightshade, two of my cats who shared a lifetime together.  Three weeks ago, Coolio passed away peacefully at the age of 15 (Read his memorial story).  This past Friday, his lifelong friend, Nightshade, followed him into the light.  Now granted, Nightshade was 14 years old, and her health was not very good lately.  But what interests me is how quickly she went downhill after Coolio's death, and how her behavior changed.  I also had a sense that Coolio's spirit was still with us, and that he was hanging around with Nightshade, watching over her.

Nightshade in her Halloween cat stance

Nightshade was always an emotionally needy cat. She was a rescue who had a terrible, abusive kittenhood.  Once we had adopted her, she quickly bonded with us and with Coolio, a young stray cat we took in when we moved here.  Although Coolio was a year older than she was, he was still young enough to romp and play and teach her how to be a happy cat.  On the other hand, she didn't trust our dogs, and would puff up and hiss if they got too close. It was this habit of rearing up like a Halloween cat, along with her somewhat grumpy facial expression, that earned her the name Nightshade.

In terms of black cat superstitions, I used to joke that although a black cat crossed my path every day, I also had a lucky white cat that canceled the bad luck out. Sort of yin and yang. Of course, I don't really believe in any of this, it was just family fun. As Groucho Marx once said, "If a black cat crosses your path, it means the animal is going somewhere." (Oddly enough, Nightshade started turning white in her old age. When we adopted her, she was pure black, but in later years she had developed several white spots on her fur.)

Nightshade also loved to ride around on my shoulder -- so much so, that I used to joke she was a reincarnation of a parrot. This was cute, but also sometimes rather painful, because, as she got older, she would dig her claws in. Even as a kitten she was always afraid of falling, which led me to believe she must have been dropped, or even thrown, at some time before we got her, especially since she was distrustful of children. (Unfortunately, I don't have any photos of her doing the parrot act, to my deep regret.)

After Coolio died, Nightshade became even more clingy.  She wanted to be held constantly, and spent a lot more time riding around on my shoulder.  Meanwhile, her health took a sudden turn for the worse.  She developed breathing problems, ate less, and seemed to have trouble keeping warm.  I would often find her sitting on top of the fridge, or next to the crock pot when it was on.  She also sat on top of the stove when we were using the oven, and would snuggle against the other cats on the couch.  And she spent more time sitting in the sun, where, presumably, her black fur absorbed the warmth like a feline solar heater.

Nightshade in her younger days,
when she was pure black

On the day she died, I had let her outside with the other cats, where she liked to sit on the front porch.  An hour or so later, I found her dead on the grass in the front yard.  My first thought was one of guilt:  If only I had kept her inside, she would still be alive.  Which wasn't really true.  There were no signs of trauma on her body, no indication that she had been hit by a car or attacked by an animal.  She had simply passed away.  Had I kept her inside, she would have died inside.  As it was, she crossed over while doing something she really loved:  sunning herself in the grass on a warm autumn day.  (I am reminded of my brother-in-law Enzo, a licensed falconer, who died of a heart attack while releasing his hawk at a bird demonstration.   He, too, went while doing what he loved.)

Because it was the afternoon before the Sabbath, I was unable to bury her right away.  (She is the third cat I've had die just before the Sabbath, and Coolio died on the Sabbath itself.  Is this coincidence, or do they prefer to go then because it is more spiritual?  The Sabbath is sometimes called "a taste of Eden," and Eden is, after all, the Jewish metaphor for Heaven.  Plus, Eden has animals in it.)

On Sunday I buried her next to Coolio -- and here is where things got strange.  I dug the hole as usual, lined it with dry grass, and laid her in it, wrapped in a soft blanket.  After saying my final goodbyes, I filled in the hole and marked it with rocks.  Then suddenly the wind came up, and there was a feeling of light and happiness.  For a fleeting moment I had a mental image of Coolio and Nightshade walking together, healthy and happy again.  Then it was over.  Some might say it was just my imagination, but I am convinced that Coolio's spirit was waiting for her, and that they went together to the spiritual Garden of Eden.

http://gofundme.com/rooster613-cats

The graphic I used for years on eBay.  These kittens are,
of course, long ago adopted out to forever homes,
after which their mother, Chayah Cat, was spayed. 

In Loving Memory of My Sweet Coolio Cat

Coolio, my old white cat, passed away around one o'clock in the morning on September 22, 2012, which was both the fall equinox and Shabbat Tshuvah, the Sabbath that comes between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.  It was a very auspicious time for my 15-year-old feline friend to make his transition into the next world.

We found Coolio as a half-grown,very hungry white kitten who was hanging around our hobby farm when we moved there in the spring of 1997.  Half his tail was missing, and what was left was all broken up and bent. ( I always wondered if he had gotten caught in a trap.)  He had been stealing dog food from my neighbor's yard, but they didn't really want him.  All it took was one bowl of cat food for him to decide he was going to be ours for life.

They say that white cats don't catch as much as tabbies, because they are more visible to the mice.  Coolio must have known this, because he used to roll in the dust on our dirt road, to camouflage himself before he went hunting.  He also learned to sit on top of rocks, logs, and other perches, then patiently look down into the tall grass.  When a mouse or other prey came by, he pounced off his perch like a mountain lion and, more often than not, succeeded.  He certainly did his share of rodent control around here!

When he wasn't outside hunting, he loved to cuddle.  I used to call him "The Undercover Cat," because on chilly nights he would crawl under the covers with me, with just his head poking out against my cheek, purring softly.  In his prime he was a rather fat cat (having known hunger, he tended to overeat on whatever food was around).  Once, when he was curled up in the front room with his head tucked under his body, my grandson asked, "What is that?"  I replied, rather sarcastically, "That is a cat."   He laughed and said, "Oh, I thought it was a fur pillow!"  (Which would be a real shock in our vegetarian home.)

Coolio was indeed soft as a cuddly pillow -- so much so, that I used to sing him a silly song to the tune of "Calendar Girl," about how "I love, I love, I love, I love my Coolio Cat, Oh my sweet soft Coolio Cat..."  (What can I say?  I'm autistic, and I have this weird thing with tunes going through my head, often with new words coming out of my own brain.  Sometimes I feel like I'm living in a Broadway musical.  On the other hand, my autism has brought me much closer to my animals.)

Coolio also loved to sit in the sink.  So does his black female friend, Nightshade.  I don't know what it is about the sink that cats love so much.  I theorize that the porcelain must be cooler in the summer, and in winter it's often warm from the water that went down the drain after washing.  Nightshade is like a little heat-seeking missile who can always locate the warmest spot to curl up.  On Shabbat you can find her sitting next to the warm crock pot that holds our vegetarian Sabbath soup.

Earlier this summer I noticed that Coolio was slowing down, spending most of his time closer to home, and not eating as much.  There wasn't anything really wrong with him except old age.  I got him a bigger variety of wet foods, and learned that he preferred the kinds with fish, probably because they smell stronger.  Older cats, I read somewhere, tend to lose some of their sense of smell.  This seemed to be true with Coolio.

As he got closer to death, he slept most of the time, often on the bathroom windowsill, where the sun warmed him in the morning and he could look outside and smell the flowers and trees.  On nice days I would take him outside.  He was getting too slow and vulnerable to be out there alone, so I would sit on the porch and watch him take short walks and lie basking in the sun.  At night I would carry him upstairs with me, because he was too weak to climb the stairs by himself.  Toward the end he was pretty thin and bony, so he preferred to sleep on my bed, curled up on one of his fuzzy cat blankets.  (I did worry about incontinence, but decided it would be no worse than cleaning up after a messy human baby.  As it was, he was able to get to the upstairs catbox and never did leak.)

Some people reading this may wonder why I didn't just have him euthanized when it became  obvious he was dying.  I'm not 100% against euthanasia if an animal is severely injured or in serious pain.  But I do believe that animals have souls -- maybe not exactly like human souls, but there is a consciousness there -- and that it is best for them to die naturally whenever possible.  Coolio wasn't really suffering, he was just very old.  And he seemed to know the end was coming, as animals often do.  Had he been a wild animal, he would have crawled off in the bushes somewhere to die alone.  Because he was bonded with me, he chose to be in my room, away from the hubbub of the household but still in familiar surroundings.

On the night he died, he was lying beside me on my bed.  I don't know if he had made a noise or just moved, but I woke up and saw that the end was at hand.  As I stroked him, he purred very softly, his breathing became shallower, his heartbeat slowed.  Then he took the last breath.  I felt a few more heartbeats, and he was gone.  It was a sad moment, but also very spiritual.  I have been at the deathbed of many animals over the years (as well as a few humans), and it never seems to amaze me, this mystical thing called death.  One moment they are alive in this world, and the next moment, they are gone.  There was no Grim Reaper come for Coolio, just the soft, quiet whisper of angel wings.  I only hope that when my time comes, my death will be as gentle and easy as Coolio's was.  I miss him very much, but I also believe he is waiting for me at the foot of the Rainbow Bridge, and that one day we will go together to the spiritual Garden of Eden. 

The story of the Rainbow Bridge
(click the pic to enlarge and read it)

"The Soul of Every Living Thing" -- vegetarian video with Yonassan Gershom

I just finished editing this video for the Shamayim'v'Aretz ("Heaven and Earth") Institute, a new Jewish organzation promoting veganism as the ideal Jewish diet, as well as Jewish ethics and spirituality in general. They asked for a short video of me as a vegetarian, so here it is.

As I have said before on this blog, I'm not a vegan (although I am a vegetarian) and I'm not even sure it is practical to be vegan outside of big urban centers, because the ingredients are so hard to find in rural areas. Biblically veganism is the ideal diet (Eden was vegan) but I'm just not there yet, and not likely to be in the future. I do eat eggs but, as you will see in the video, I also take full responsibility for my own flock of chickens, which is where my eggs come from.

What I do have to offer my fellow Jews (and others) is some practical experience actually living with nature. So, watch this 5-minute video and tell me what you think. At the very least, you'll get to see some nice footage of my land and animals.

On children, dying pets, and the Circle of Life

On Friday morning, it was very clear that one of our cats, Tigger, was dying.  It was expected.  He was old and his health had not been good lately, but it was still sad.  As it turned out, we were babysitting two grandchildren, Chris (age 8) and Nick (almost 3), that same day.  So my wife and I debated:  Should we show them the dying cat or not?  Would it be a trauma, or a lesson in compassion?  We decided it would be best to tell them and let them say goodbye to their friend.


Tigger in 2007

He was barely alive when the kids arrived, but still aware enough to respond to petting.  I explained that he would probably slip into a coma soon and die in his sleep before the day was over.  And that's what happened.   Cats often go off and hide when they die, and I did not want that happening where I could not find him.  So we put him in the cat carrier when I was not holding him.  He willingly went in there, instinctively wanting some privacy.   By mid-afternoon, he was gone. 

We couldn't bury him right away because the Sabbath was coming, but it was cold enough outside that we could store his body in the shed until Sunday morning.  I wrapped him in a small blanket with his head sticking out, and 3-year-old Nick said, "Bye, meow," which is his word for cat.   8-year-old Chris understood death better, and could see that the spirit was gone from Tigger's eyes.  It was a very sad time, but also an opportunity to talk about death.  Chris asked if he could help me bury Tigger on Sunday, and I said he could.

So this morning we did just that.  It had been raining but God gave us a window of opportunity when the rain stopped and we could go into the back field where we have our pet cemetery.   Chris and I went together, leaving my wife with the toddler, since she has trouble walking on rough terrain and we weren't sure when the rain would start again.

Chris and I dug the hole together, then lined the bottom with dried goldenrod flowers.  We laid Tigger in the grave, wrapped in one of his favorite cat blankets.   Chris is part Cree Indian on his mother's side, and he wanted to follow the Native custom of putting tobacco in the grave, so he did.  This is not my custom, and frankly it's a bit pagan from the Jewish point of view, but when it comes to funerals, I think it's important for the mourners to be able to express grief in ways meaningful to them.  Tigger was as much his cat as mine, maybe more so, since it was Chris' mother who had found him abandoned as a kitten in a gas station parking lot.  They couldn't keep him at the time, so the cat came to live with us, but Chris always looked for him when  he came to visit.

As we filled in the grave, we talked about the Circle of Life, and how everyone eventually dies, to make room for new animals and people.  I told him the story of the Rainbow Bridge, which, although it is a piece of modern poetry and not Scripture per se,  is as good a metaphor as any for animals going to heaven.   Personally, I do believe the souls of our animals will join us in the Next World.  After all, the Jewish metaphor for heaven is the Garden of Eden, and it had animals in it, right?  Perhaps that is where the lion really can lie down with the lamb.

We marked the grave with rocks and I told Chris how, when Jews visit a grave, we leave a small stone in remembrance -- a custom dating all the way back to biblical times.   So the funeral had both Native and Jewish elements, expressing each of our beliefs.  Then the rain started again.  We headed back to feed the chickens, then returned to the house.  We didn't talk much on the way back, but there was a sense of closure and we felt Tigger's soul was at peace. 

Some people may wonder why I didn't have the cat euthanized when it was obvious that he was going downhill.  The answer is the same that I would give for a dying human:  I believe it is better for the soul to transition naturally into the Next World whenever possible.  And yes, I do believe animals have souls, as I have written before on this blog.  Although Tigger had health problems, he was not in serious pain as far as I could tell.  Up until the last day, he responded to being held, purred in happiness when petted, and slept next to me on the couch.  So I felt it better to accept that he was dying, and give him the hospice care he needed for comfort.  It was a good decision -- for all of us.



Tigger (right) and Bugsy, a feline friend
who crossed the Rainbow Bridge in 2009.

Do animals have souls (part II)

In a previous post  (go to part 1) I discussed the question of whether or not animals have souls according to Jewish theology, and then defined five different Hebrew words that are commonly translated "soul." In this essay, I will explore the question of why Western society became so callous towards animals, and attempt to show that this is not due to Judaism!

There is a disturbing tendency in the animal rights and ecology movements to blame everything negative on "monotheism" or "The Patriarchy" or "the Jews" without really understanding what Judaism actually teaches. Very often, the popular conception of what is "Jewish" is about as accurate as the Hollywood Wild West portrayal of what is "Indian." So we need to take a second look at some basic Jewish teachings before we can understand how modern society got off track.

Consider the story of the Garden of Eden, a teaching story that is originally Jewish and comes from the Torah (which is the same text as the first five books of the Bible.) The story of Noah and the Ark also comes from the Torah. So right away, we can see that Judaism gave us two of the most basic images about caring for the environment -- images that are frequently cited by modern environmental movements, both religious and secular. These stories are also basic as to how Jews are supposed to relate to animals.

Adam and Eve lived in harmony with animals in the Garden, and were told to care for the Garden. So their role was to be stewardship, not conquest.   Adam also names the animals. Now, usually this is interpreted as naming the species, but there is another, deeper way to look at this. When you name an animal, you take responsibility for it, and you also develop a connection to it. There is an old adage among farmers to "never name something you are going to eat" -- and there are many stories of farm children who did name a cow or goat and were then unable to eat it.  Naming an animal personalizes it and makes it into an individual. So clearly, Adam and Eve did not see animals as mere "things."

The Garden of Eden is also the Jewish metaphor for the afterlife.  Considering the fact that Eden has animals in it, this implies that animals must have some form of afterlife also.  Otherwise, how could the lion lie down with the lamb, as foretold by Isaiah?

Noah was instructed to build the Ark to save all the animal species from an impending catastrophe. Whether you take the story literally or symbolically, the message is clear: God values every living species on earth, and expects us to take care of them.

The Midrash (an ancient set of Jewish commentaries) tells us that Noah and his family provided each species with the specific food it needed, caring for the diurnal species during the day and the nocturnal species during the night.  [The predators, it is said in the traditional Jewish commentaries, reverted to drinking milk on the Ark -- perhaps not very scientific, but a good way of explaining why they didn't eat the other animals. Even in modern times, there are cases where artificial nutrient mixes (such as KMR kitten formula) are used to feed and/or rehabilitate animals in the absence of their natural food.]

The Ark was, in a sense, a return to the harmony of Eden for the duration of the Flood.   After the Flood, humans were permitted to eat meat, but only after humanely slaughtering them.   Judaism later went further, permitting only domesticated species as food.  Eating exotic species was forbidden, as was hunting for sport.  In later years, the rabbis would also forbid their followers from attending the "games" at the Roman arena.  To this day, Jews do not, as a rule, attend or participate in blood sports.

There were no factory farms in those days.  Herds and flocks grazed freely in the open, as it was meant to be.   Nor was meat eaten every day.  It was something served on special occasions, such as the Sabbath, or when Abraham told Sarah to prepare food for the three visitors when he was camped under the trees at Mamre.

Both of these stories, Eden and the Ark,  treat animals as living, feeling beings.  So do many lines in the Psalms and other parts of the Hebrew Scriptures, as I discussed in Part I of this series.  That being the case, why has Western society -- which claims to be based on the Bible -- become so callous about the treatment of animals on factory farms in recent times?

The answer, I believe, lies in the rise of secularism, and most particularly with a 17th-century French philosopher named Rene Descartes (pronounced day-CART.)   Known as "the father of modern philosophy," Descartes is best known for his famous saying: "I think, therefore I am." But what is not as well-known is this:  He believed that only humans have the ability to think and feel.  To Descartes, animals not only did not have souls, they were incapable of feeling emotions or pain. Animals were mere things, unthinking automatons with no consciousness whatsoever. The cries of an animal in pain, to Descartes, were nothing more that the squeaking of a poorly-maintained machine. To prove his point, he once nailed his own dog to the door and ignored its cries of anguish.

Descartes was not Jewish, and his ideas about animals are not in line with Jewish teachings. Nor are they in line with Christianity.  The Roman Catholic Church condemned his books and forbade reading them.  Nor did they have much influence on Jews -- at first. When Descartes was teaching, Jews in Europe were ghettoized and not accepted at the universities where he lectured.  But ideas will spread across all barriers, so that, by the time you get to the late 1700s, Cartesianism was starting to filter into the Jewish community along with the secular "Enlightenment" movement.

This explains why Rabbi Nachman of Breslov (d. 1810), the Breslover Hasidic Rebbe, told his followers not to study philosophy.  I had always been puzzled over this, this, because Maimonides was a philosopher, Nachmanides was a philosopher, so were Ibn Ezra and Luzatto  and a lot of other classical commentators -- and we study them, right?  But after reading about Descartes, I realized that what Rebbe Nachman was talking about was secular philosophy.  He must have realized that this type of thinking would lead us away from respecting God and the creation.  As indeed it has.

Cartesianism opened the way to factory farms and other abuses of animals we see today.  Jews, in turn, are now mostly urban people, who are cut off from the land, farming, and the process by which their food is produced.   (For more this, and on re-connecting Judaism with nature, see my video, "Earth and Torah")  Most Jews are unaware that the only difference between kosher meat and non-kosher meat is the method of slaughter.  The animals themselves come from the same industrialized factory farm and feedlot system as non-kosher meat.  The days of our ancestors raising their own chickens and personally taking them to the shochet (kosher slaughterer) are long gone.

It is for this reason that I believe that vegetarianism is the highest form of kosher diet today.  I do not fault my ancestors for eating meat.  There were times in Jewish history, when we lived in harsh desert or northern climates, where vegetarianism would have been next to impossible.  God knew this would happen, and so did not outrightly forbid eating meat.   But nowadays it is easier to be a vegetarian, and with modern nutritional science, it is possible to do it with a balanced diet and and remain healthy.  Many would now argue that vegetarianism is more healthy, given all the diseases we now know are associated with meat consumption. But the bottom line, for me, is this:  Animals do have feelings, and should not be raised as if they were nothing but food-producing machines.   That is not the Jewish way.

(See also my 15-minute video, "Raising Holy Sparks,"  about the kabbalistic "energy" of eating, and how it relates to the souls of animals.)

Do animals have souls? (Part I)

Do Jews believe that animals have souls?  I get this question a lot lately.  People want a quick yes-or-no answer, but the problem is, the Hebrew language has five different words that get translated as "soul" (nefesh, ruach, neshamah, chayah and yechidah) and they mean different things in Jewish mysticism (kabbalah).  So before I can answer the question, I need to define the five levels of the soul.  Sorting this out is not always easy, because different commentators have interpreted these terms in different ways throughout the centuries, and they don't always agree.  Here are the basic definitions as I understand them:

1. Nefesh (NEH-fesh) the physical life force of the body. All animals certainly have this, or they would not be alive.  For that matter, so do plants have nefesh.   This is also the word used by King David in Psalm 25:20: "O guard my soul and rescue me." Some modern versions of the Bible translate this as "guard my life."  In Jewish thought, to "guard your soul" means to take care of your health and safety.  We are also commanded to take care of our animals in the same way, giving them proper food, water and shelter: "A good man takes care of his animals, but wicked men are cruel to theirs." (Proverbs 12:10)   So before we go any further, let's be very clear that whether or not animals have souls in the theological sense is irrelevant in terms of our responsibility to care for them.  One cannot argue that animals are "things" and then go abuse them, heaven forbid.  (In fact, even "things" have a netzotz -- a divine spark of holiness - within them, but that's a whole other blog.)

2. Ruach (ROO-akh) literally means "wind" or "spirit" and is the emotional level of the soul.   In Hebrew/Yiddish idiom, to do something "with ruach" means to do it with feeling -- such as singing a song or playing an instrument with "soul."  Biologically, I would associate ruach with the limbic system, the "mammalian" part of the brain that controls emotions. Maimonides, an important 12th-century Jewish philosopher, clearly states in his Guide for the Perplexed that when it comes to the love between a mother animal and a mother human, there is no difference, because love comes from the emotional level.  This is the reason the Torah forbids slaughtering a baby animal on the same day as its mother (Leviticus 22:28) because the mother might see this and feel emotional pain.  By extension, Jewish law forbids slaughtering any animal in front of another.  (Shulchan Arukh Yoreh Deah 34:14)

Maimonides also argues that the commandment to send away a mother bird before you take eggs or young from a nest (Deuteronomy 22:6-7) is meant to teach us compassion for the feelings of the mother bird.  I have chickens and believe me, they do indeed get upset if they see you taking their eggs.  So clearly, from a Jewish perspective, birds and mammals have ruach.  Whether or not insects, fish, reptiles, etc. have this level is up for debate.  Certainly they experience fear; otherwise, they would not run or swim away.  But does a snake feel love?

Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liady (the first Lubavitcher Rebbe, 18th century) wrote in the Tanya that humans actually have two souls: an "animal" soul that they are naturally born with (which seems to correspond to the nefesh-ruach levels described above) and a "divine soul" which is "a part of God above" and must be developed and consciously focused on spiritual things.  These two souls have been compared to a rider and a horse; when they work together, all is well, but if the horse throws the rider, the lower body desires take over and a person acts only on animal instincts.   From Rabbi Schneur Zalman's perspective, only humans have the higher soul level, although his is NOT the last word in the subject.  This brings us to:

3. Neshamah (neh-SHAH-mah) is the word most commonly used in colloquial speech for "soul" in the usual sense, that is, an immortal soul that survives death.   But it is also the word used in Psalm 150 for "let everything that has a soul praise God."  Some translations render this as "everything that has breath," because neshamah is etymologically related to the word neshimah, meaning "breath."  Now, if everything that has breath is to praise God, wouldn't that suggest that animals, too, have a neshamah?  In Psalm 148, everything in the universe is praising God, even inanimate objects such as the sun, moon and stars.  So "praising God" can't really be used as a criteria for whether or not something has an immortal soul.

However, we should note that there are many anecdotal stories of people encountering "ghosts" or spirits of animals.  So it does appear quite possible that something in an animal survives death.

In kabbalah, neshamah is associated with the higher levels of the mind and, interestingly, some Jewish philosophers felt that we are not automatically born with a neshamah, that we must develop it.  This is supported by modern brain research. The more we use our brains, the more synapses we develop among the neurons, and the more intelligent we can become.   Conversely, a brain that is not stimulated will lose synapses and, in some cases, fail to learn even basic language and reasoning skills.  "Use it or lose it" apparently applies in both biology and theology.

Jewish philosophy has long regarded knowledge as the only thing we take with us to the Next World, which may be why developing the intellectual neshamah is associated with immortality.  But does this mean we are developing a "soul," or simply improving the physical brain?  Hard to say.  The fact is, we can't really prove there is an immortal human soul, anymore than we can prove -- or disprove -- the existence of an immortal soul in animals.  What we can say is that humans do possess a level of intelligence that is greater than even the higher primates, and that we humans can develop a conscious sense of right and wrong that animals lack.   (A lion may kill prey, but he does not murder.)   Most Jewish thinkers also maintain that humans are the only beings with free will, who can consciously choose to know their Creator.

Neshamah is generally connected not only with intellectual pursuits, but also with moral responsibility.  In Yiddish, to have a "Jewish soul" (yiddische neshamah) means to have a sense of proper humanity and compassion.   In other words, to be a mensch -- an upright person of true integrity and honor -- the highest compliment one can give in the Yiddish language.  

4. Chayah (KHAI-yah) literally means "living."  It is used in the Torah in Genesis 2:7 , where God breathed the breath of life into Adam and then Adam "became a living soul (nefesh chayah)."  Note that this term combines nefesh, the life force of the body, with chayah, "living."  But isn't a body with nefesh already living?   In the biological sense, yes.  So chayah must add another dimension to human existence.

In kabbalah, chayah refers to a higher spiritual level, something like a collective consciousness, where all members of humanity are connected together.  The word adam literally means "human being" -- homo sapiens -- in Hebrew, and only later in the story does it become the name of a specific man.   Adam Kadmon -- the Primal Adam -- is often pictured as a hermaphrodite cosmic being who contains all the souls of all the humans who ever were or will be born.  He/she is the chayah level of the human species.  (In Jungian terms, the species archetype.)

(This section was updated on 12/31/15, incorporating some feedback from readers.) Do other species also have a chayah level?  Not in the human sense.  But if we regard chayah as the species archetype, then each pair of animals in Eden would be the species' chayah.  Nefesh chayah is used in one other place, namely Genesis 1:20, which seems to support this.  The full phrase is  is "yishr'tzu hamayim sheretz nefesh chayah" which is translated variously as "let the waters swarm (teem) with swarms of living creatures," or with "moving creatures that have life," etc. So the focus is on them being alive, which is what I said the nefesh level was, i.e., the life force of the body.  They are all created by direct command, not by having the "breath of life" breathed in separately.

Thjis is a main difference between animals and humans.  Everything else in the Eden story is created by God simply speaking it into existence: "Let there be light -- and there was light."  Only in the case of humans does God "breath the breath of life" into them directly.  Again I stress:  This does not mean that other creatures don't have life.  And we have already demonstrated that many creatures have feelings.  But Judaism does take the direct  "breathing in" of Adam's nefesh chayah  to mean that there is something different about humans as compared to the rest of creation.  Rabbi Natan Slifkin, known as the "zoo rabbi" and author of Man and Beast, clearly states that humans are the only beings that have a "divine soul" in this sense.   But on the other hand, he also devotes many pages to our responsibility toward animals as stewards of the earth.  So do numerous other Jewish commentators.

4. Yechidah (yeh-KHEE-dah) means "unity" and comes from the same Hebrew root as echad, "one" as in "God is One." Yechidah does not appear in the Bible as such, but is a kabbalistic term developed in later Jewish mysticism. Yechidah is the level of the soul where we can "touch God."

 Judaism does not teach that we can become God or merge entirely with God as some mystical systems do (although some Hasidic thinkers came pretty close to that.)   We Jews are not pantheists.   But there is a level where we can experience oneness with God's Creation and, through this experience, get a "taste" of the oneness of God.  Humans all over the world have reported this type of experience. 

Do animals also experience oneness with God?  It is impossible to say, because they cannot tell us.  Some Jewish thinkers (as well as others) maintain that animals -- and, in fact, all created beings except humans -- automatically do the will of God because they were created that way, with no free will to do otherwise.   In that sense, they may be more in tune with God than we are.  At the same time, they do not seem to have the same level of creativity that comes with our free will.

In conclusion:  There is no clear yes-or-no answer to this question.  Whether or not you believe animals have souls depends on how you define "soul," and Judaism does not speak with one voice on the subject.  One thing Judaism does clearly say, however, is that animals are living beings with feelings, that they were created by God, and that we are commanded to care for them properly.   (That's three things, actually, but you know what I mean.)

This being the case, why is it that Western civilization  -- much of which is based on the Bible -- has become so callous toward animals and the environment?  The fault lies not with Judaism, but with a non-Jewish philosopher named Rene Descartes -- "the father of modern philosophy" -- who lived in the 1600s and believed that animals are nothing but automatons, unfeeling machines that cannot feel pain. This is not in accord with Jewish thought but, unfortunately, a lot of Jews, as well as many Christians and others, have adopted Cartesian attitudes over the centuries -- a topic we explore in Part 2 of this series.