[Avodah] Tzaar Baalei Chayim

[Zev Sero]

On 8/08/2012 2:30 PM, Liron Kopinsky wrote:
> The Torah obviously prohibits Tzaar Baalei Chayim, and someone who
> violates it should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. My
> question is "What is "the full extent" of the law?" Would the person
> receive malkot, but still maintain ownership of the animal? Or would
> the animal be confiscated as well

What other avera has as its penalty the confiscation of property?  The
concept of fines doesn't seem to exist in halacha, though the concept
of punitive damages, which are essentially fines paid to the plaintiff,
certainlydoes exist.


>, as this owner has proven he is unfit to have it?

What does this even mean?  I don't understand the concept of fitness
or unfitness to own property.  Owning something isn't a privilege granted
by somebody, which may be bestowed on fit people and denied to unfit ones.
It's an inherent right, a fact of natural law, that a person owns that
which he made, that which he obtained from hefker, and that which he was
freely given by -- or which he inherited from -- its previous rightful owner.


> Or would he even forfeit the right to own any subsequent animals?

What possible basis could such a penalty have?  Owning property isn't a
privilege, so it can't be revoked by anybody.

> In common law, it seems that the people enforcing the law seem to take
> it for granted that if someone abuses their property, that property can
> be removed from them.

I don't believe the common law knows of such a concept, though it does
provide for the forfeiture of property used to commit a crime, and perhaps
this could be considered an example of that.  Statute law is another matter
of course.

Similarly in halacha, a beis din might consider that in order to prevent
him from doing aveiros, and indeed for his own good to protect him from
the yetzer hara, the means by which he is doing the aveira should be
taken away.   This gets back to our previous discussions about "non-kosher"
phones, shavers, etc.  BD could confiscate property "le'afrushei me'isura".


> To take this even further, does "imo" imply that if Reuven sees the
> struggling animal of his enemy, and that enemy is *not* helping that
> animal, that Reuven is not allowed to help the animal, since that would
> be violating the property of the owner? In this case, Reuven's only
> recourse to help the animal, (and presumably this would be morally
> incumbent on him to do so), would be to go to Beit Din and get them
> involved.

Why Beis Din?  Surely le'afrushei me'isura is a responsibility of every
person.


On 8/08/2012 2:06 PM, cantorwolberg at cox.net wrote:
> 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?!

I don't know who "we" is, since I was never taught this, but that's
right, it isn't so.  That the method Hashem told us to use for slaughter
happens to be painless confirms that "verachamav al kol maasav", but
there is no connection between shechitah and tzaar baalei chayim.
Indeed I don't think it was even known that shechitah was painless until
the modern era, when it became possible to attach scanners to animals'
skulls and detect their brain activity.

-- 
Zev Sero
zev at sero.name