[Avodah] torture in halacha???

Zev Sero zev at sero.name
Tue May 15 13:51:42 PDT 2012


On 15/05/2012 4:40 PM, hankman wrote:
> think you need to define “for no purpose,” wrt tzaar baalei chayim

It is permitted to pluck a feather from a living bird in order to make
a pen.  This is something that no decent human being would actually do,
but it is not forbidden under the rubric of tzaar baalei chayim, because
the intent is not the bird's suffering but to obtain the feather, and
the bird's suffering is merely "psik reisha".  (For that matter,

-- 
Zev Sero        "Natural resources are not finite in any meaningful
zev at sero.name    economic sense, mind-boggling though this assertion
                  may be. The stocks of them are not fixed but rather
		 are expanding through human ingenuity."
		                            - Julian Simon



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