I was honestly humbled by the participation of the speakers who preceded me at the Sunday morning session of Agudath Israel of America’s most recent national convention.
They were: the venerable Malcolm Hoenlein (whose name, I noted, seems hinted at in the verse ‘Bnai Tziyon yagilu b’Malcolm’), and the likewise rightly celebrated Professor Aaron Twerski. The topic was The Lamb Among Seventy Wolves – the precarious position of the Jewish people among the nations.
Hoenlein provided a comprehensive overview of contemporary antisemitism and geopolitics; Professor Twerski focused on the dismaying import for Jews of the world economic situation.
My assignment was to address spiritual threats to our people.
I suggested that the distinction between spiritual and physical menaces may be illusionary, that the former, in fact, underlie the latter.
Fighting antisemitism, and its illegitimate offspring anti-Israel-ism, must be a priority. At the same time, though, a mesora-attuned mindset must always know that Jews’ wellbeing is ultimately not a function of articles, activism or armaments. Those are tools. What empowers them is where we stand, as a community and as individuals, in matters of the spirit.
It should be obvious. Jews comprise 2/10ths of 1 per cent of the world’s population, a large chunk of which doesn’t much like us. How does this sheep even stay alive among a world of wolves? The only answer is Divine protection. And it comes as the result of our merits.
So while evil people engage in physical and verbal attacks against Jews, spiritual forces are fueling the evil. Keeping those spiritual wolves at bay is the key to our safety.
Among the spiritual threats facing us are things like the coarsening of the surrounding culture, which is practically unavoidable, and its new invasion-vehicle called the Internet.
Other challenges pound at the door to our souls, too, like the astonishing sea-change in how society has come to view the idea of a marital relationship, capitulating in mere years to a movement that proudly and loudly rejects one of the fundamental merits of human society. This mindset, which has spread even to some ostensibly Orthodox Jews must be countered by each of us individually, as well as communally.
Then there’s what calls itself the ‘Animal Rights’ movement, whose true danger isn’t limited to the threat it poses to legal shechita, but lies in its very credo, the idea that animals have rights. We have obligations towards animals, to be sure. But assigning them ‘rights’ leads to obscenities like a book, Eternal Treblinka, that compares factory farming to Nazi concentration camps.
The perverse overvaluing of animal lives swings in tandem with the devaluing of human life, both at its beginning and at its end. Standing firm on the issue of the value of every moment of human life is imperative.
There are other issues, too, I noted, that Torah-conscious Jews must confront, like the subtle redefinition of kashrus being attempted by the Conservative movement, cheered on by mendacious media; and the promotion of atheism under the banner of science.
These are not so much mere issues as they are full-fledged ‘isms,’ of a sort with those idolatries Rav Elchonon Wasserman fingered decades ago: Communism, Secular Zionism, and Nationalism. Today we add Scientism, AnimalRights-ism, a Woman’sRight-toChoose-ism, Quality-of-Life-ism.
Not to mention ‘isms’ that have already infected the Orthodox world, like rampant materialism, feminism, and anti-Gedolim-ism.
And a final, uncomfortable one: politicism – the pledge of fealty to an American or Israeli political party or movement.
Until the arrival of Moshiach, we Jews are charged with accepting the implications of Golus, which requires, as per Yaakov’s meeting with Esav, our employment of a delicate combination of intimidation, reason and submission. Ironically, it has always been Torah-rejecting Jews – Bundists, Communists, secular Zionists – who stood bold and unconcerned with the wider world’s concerns, secure in their might and their right. In a strange contemporary reversal, haredim have become the hardliners, with secular Jews more concerned about “the nations.”
There may be good reasons for backing the current Israeli administration and its policies. But truly thoughtful Jews, I suggested in conclusion, do well to employ caution here too, since Likudism can be an ‘ism’ too.
Rabbi Shafran is an editor at large and columnist for Ami Magazine. © 2011 Ami Magazine
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How saddened I am that Rabbi Avi Shafran thinks that comparing factory farming to a Nazi concentration camp is unworthy or perhaps even “foolish” (Jewish Tribune, Jan. 19, 2012).
When I hear people talk like this, I secretly wish that there was such a thing as transmigration where the soul comes back in a different state – perhaps even as an animal.
I’m sure none of us would like to come back as a factory farm animal. How terrible it is for them to be incarcerated in dark, airless places – packed together with other unfortunate animals. No one would want to smell the pollutted air, which is filled with the smell of fecal droppings and urine. The labourers are spared because they wear masks.
These poor animals will never again see G-d’s beautiful sunlight or enjoy Hisfresh air. Did G-d intend these wonderful gifts for humans only? I think not. My G-d is a G-d of compassion, and I’m sure He does not approve of cruelty to His animal creation.
I suggest Rabbi Shafran bone up on some of the wonderful writings of the Rev. Andrew Linzey. He is an Anglican priest, theologian, author and prominent figure in the Christian vegetarian movement. One of the things he notes is that there have been some positive philosophical outcomes re the moral status of animals. New scientific data reveals that all mammals experience not just physical pain, but also mental suffering such as fear, foreboding, shock trauma, etc. Previously, these feelings were considered belonging only to the human condition.
And to the oft-cited ‘Dominion’ argument, Linzey notes: “Dominion does not mean despotism. For centuries, Christians have interpreted Genesis I as meaning little more than ‘might is right’.... In Genesis i:26-9 humans are made in G-d’s image, given dominion and in the subsequent verse given a vegetarian diet. Herb-eating dominion is hardly a license for tyranny. Our power over animals is a power to care, not to exploit.”
Suzana Megles
Lakewood, Ohio
In defence of animal rights
Rabbi Avi Shafran believes that we have to devalue humans to value animals. He writes,”The perverse overvaluing of animal lives swings in tandem with the devaluing of human life.” But moral valuation is not a zero-sum game. It is not as though there are only so many rights to distribute, so that if we afford rights to some we have to take them away from others. I don’t have to devalue my sons to value my daughters. Claiming that animals have rights does not mean that humans don’t have rights or have fewer rights.
Rabbi Shafran writes, “We have obligations towards animals, to be sure. But assigning them ‘rights’ leads to obscenities like a book, Eternal Treblinka, that compares factory farming to Nazi concentration camps.”
I think this misses the point. Dr Charles Patterson, who wrote this book, is making a point about moral psychology attributed notably to the Enlightenment philosopher Immanuel Kant: if we mistreat animals we diminish our human sympathy and are more likely to mistreat human beings. This actually emphasizes one of the important origins of antisemitism. Far from devaluing human life to promote animal life, the point is that the two go hand in hand. (Dr Patterson also wrote a very interesting book on Christian antisemitism.)
The proper attitude towards animal rights is to affirm that each species ought to be given rights according to the nature and capacities of the species. All species have the right to live and develop according to their own natures. This principle does not necessarily make one a vegetarian, but it is certainly incompatible with the way animals are horrible mistreated in factory farms.
Robert T. Hall
Professor of Philosophy
Universidad Autónoma de Querétaro (Mexico)
Rabbi clearly doesn’t understand
I read with interest Rabbi Avi Shafran’s piece until I came to his commentary on animal rights. He clearly does not understand the concept. What is meant by “animal rights” is simply the right not to be tortured and exploited at man’s anthropocentric whim. We, as a species do horrific things to animals for food, clothing, and so-called science. My grandfather, one of the first kosher butchers in Boro Park, Brooklyn, in the 1920s, loved animals and rescued many cats, dogs, and even birds who fell out of their nests. In the 1970s when he had to visit a slaughterhouse, he was so horrified by what he’d seen, he immediately became a vegetarian and gave up his business. It is perfectly legitimate to compare the suffering of animals on factory farms to the suffering of humans during the holocaust.
All sentient creatures suffer pain, fear, sadness, etc., and as Isaac Bashevis Singer put it “to animals all men are Nazis.”
The rabbi’s paranoid, myopic attitude towards animals is chillingly similar to the Nazis attitude towards us. It’s not the book Eternal Treblinka that is obscene. It’s his lack of compassion.
Rina Deych, RN
Brooklyn, NY
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