[Avodah] Tzaar Baalei Chayim

[Micha Berger]

On Wed, Aug 08, 2012 at 02:06:21PM -0400, cantorwolberg at cox.net wrote:
:> So the primary reason to prohibit tzaar baalei chaim is because
:> boys who torture squirrels grow up to do worse things. It's an issue of
:> middos in the actor, not whether the animal's suffering is real.

: Wow! So you mean all these years we've been learning that shechita is
: to cause little or no pain to the animal, isn't really so?!

That's exactly what I wrote at
<http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol27/v27n142.shtml#11>, 2 years ago:
> Bottom line is that I'm extending the Ramban's explanation of shiluach
> haqen being about training people, rather than "al qan tzippor yagiu
> Rachamekha" to TBC as well. I'm happier doing that thinking there is
> no tzaar as we understand the word, but I think the lack of reason to
> distinguish between what the Ramban said there and TBC is sufficient
> to make my point.

After all, not only does the gemara say say shiluach haqen is a law for
people, rather than Divine Rachmanus on birds, Bereishis Rabba (4:1)
rhetoricaslly asks if it matters to HQBH whether we shecht from the
front or from the back (as in melikah); that too is for our sake.

Besides, if shechitah were really in order to cause little or no pain, to
the exclusion of other meanings in the mitzvah, there would be permission
to kill in other painless ways.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Education is not the filling of a bucket,
micha at aishdas.org        but the lighting of a fire.
http://www.aishdas.org                - W.B. Yeats
Fax: (270) 514-1507