[Avodah] Cruelty to animals

[Akiva Miller]

.
When Torah is accused of cruelty to animals, I often see people respond
that shechita is totally painless to the animal. They say that the knife is
so sharp as to be no worse than a paper cut, and that the loss of blood is
so fast that unconsciousness follows immediately.

Without expressing any opinion on the validity of those arguments, I need
to point out other examples where the animals do seem to have a painful
death. One example is the se'ir hamishtale'ach, the "scapegoat" of Yom
Kippur, which dies while tumbling down a cliff.

Another easily-forgettable example is the Petter Chamor, the firstborn
donkey. According to today's Kitzur Shulchan Aruch Yomi (174:4), although
it is preferable to redeem it, the owner does have the option to "strike it
upon its neck with an axe until it dies." (ArtScroll's translation)

I'm just saying that animal cruelty questions must not be dismissed out of
hand, but they need a careful nuanced response. (I would include the melika
of bird korbanos above, but I don't really know enough about the topic;
perhaps the kohen's fingernail is just as sharp as a shechita knife, and
perhaps it isn't.)

Akiva Miller
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