“….First chase away the mother and only then may you take the young (Deut: 22:7)”

EFRAT, Israel - A theological question: do we follow the laws of the Torah because G-d is good and His commandments guide us to be more compassionate ourselves, or because G-d is G-d, and the Torah’s primary intention is to inculcate us with the discipline to follow - even blindly - the Divine decrees?

The interpretation of one particular commandment in this week’s Biblical portion of Ki Tetze will bring our question into sharp focus:

“If you come across a bird’s nest on any tree or on the ground, and it contains baby birds or eggs, if the mother is sitting on the chicks or eggs, you must not take the mother along with her young. You must first chase away the mother, and only then may you take the young... ” (Deut. 22:6-7).

Since the mother hovers about her nest protecting the young, she represents motherly concern for and commitment to her offspring. In commanding us to send the mother away, it would seem that our Torah is desirous of sparing her the pain of watching her young taken from her embrace: apparently we are obliged to show sympathy toward all of life, not just humans.

Professor Yishayahu Leibowitz, of blessed memory, one of Israel’s pro-eminent philosophical minds of the modern era, believed that Judaism is not necessarily centered on ethics or compassion. Rather, the Torah wants Jews to follow G-d’s commandments because they’re G-d’s commandments. Judaism is a discipline, and in following it, a certain society will be formed. No discipline, and the society falls apart - as simple as that. My rational interpretations of human love and compassion are not within the purview of Biblical concerns.  The classic example often cited by Professor Leibowitz was the Binding of Isaac, which is hardly a test of Abraham’s potential for compassion; it is rather a test of his ability to submit to G-d’s inscrutable will, even to the extent of G-d’s demanding a   “teleological suspension of the ethical” (Kierkegaard).

Leibowitz would seem to be supported by the Talmudic discussion surrounding a mishna in Tractate Brakhot (Ch. 5. mishna 3), which lists three occasions when a person praying on behalf of the congregation must be silenced.  One such case is if the worshipper who entreats G-d to show compassion because His compassion extends even to a bird- as evidenced in our commandment to send away the mother bird before taking her young.  Then why do we silence the Cantor?

In the ensuing Talmudic discussion, R. Yosi bar Zvida explains that the Cantor is presenting the commandments (in his prayers) as “...springing from compassion, whereas they are but decrees” (B.T. Brakhot 33b)!  Clarifying R. Yosi’s comment, Rashi writes (loc. cit.) that “... G-d didn’t give (Israel) His commandments because of compassion, but merely to inform them that they are His servants ...”.

Maimonides has a view which is diametrically opposed to that of Professor Leibowitz.   In his Commentary on the Mishna (Brakhot ad loc.), as well as in the Guide to the Perplexed (Part 3, Chapter 48), Maimonides insists that we do send away the bird because of compassion. He makes the point that even in the animal world the mother suffers when she sees the suffering of her calf: “As far as pain is concerned, there is no real distinction between the pain of humans and the pain of animals. The love and compassion of the mother for her young is not reasoned intellectually, but has only to do with emotions and instincts, which are found among animals no less than amongst human beings.”  If so, then why do we silence the Cantor?  “Because this particular commandment is a Divine decree…; were it to have been given because of compassion, the Bible would not have permitted slaughtering animals or fowl altogether” (Mishneh Torah, laws of Prayer, 9,7).  Apparently, Maimonides believes that the ideal view of the Bible is not to take animal life at all for human needs; after all Adam and Eve were initially granted only fruit and vegetables for food.  “It was only after the flood, when G-d saw that man’s instinct was deeply imbedded with a desire to kill, that He allowed humanity to spill the blood of an animal and eat its flesh, a legitimate sublimation.  Thus the concession.  Meat for the masses.  We are allowed to kill animals, but not human beings.

Thus sending away the mother bird and being permitted to take the nestlings is like being permitted to eat meat or to bring home the captive woman from the battle field.  It’s a concession, not the ideal.  The Torah deals here with reality, the human instinct to take it all, mother and child, the Biblical compromise that we may take the child but not in the presence of the mother.  Our Torah is a Torah of compassion, but it is a Torah of reality as well.  And while the commandment to send away the mother is an attempt to sensitize us to the moral ambiguities of eating fowl, it can hardly be invoked as the idea of compassion on the basis of which we are deserving of lovingkindness.

From this perspective it becomes quite clear that the Torah certainly does attempt to train us in compassion, to have us emulate G-d because He is good and compassionate, therefore desirous of our becoming good and compassionate.  Thus when Moses beseeches G-d in Parshat Ki Tisa to reveal to him the vision of G-d’s glory, an aspect of G-d’s essence able to be revealed to humans, what Moses sees is expressed in the famous Thirteen Attributes of G-d, which begin: “G-d, G-d, omnipotent, compassionate and  kind, long-suffering and full of lovingkindness ... ” (Exodus 34:6) so that immediately following G-d’s omnipotence, we learn that the essence of G-d is compassion. And why is G-d’s name mentioned twice in the opening of Thirteen Attributes? The Talmud teaches that just as G-d loves us before we sin, G-d continues to love us after we sin as well. The very four letter name of G-d, Y-HVH, means a G-d of love, and our Torah is described as one whose paths lead to pleasantness and peace. Thus, by definition, G-d is the compassionate One. And let us never forget that in the commandment surrounding the Binding of Isaac, Leibowitz forgets the punch-line in which G-d exhorts Abraham not to even touch his son, never to “sacrifice” his son, but that our G-d is a G-d of life and love.