Ki Tetze

Devarim 21:10-25:19

Torah Training in Moral Character Development: The Case of the Mother Bird

Jenny R. Labendz, 5763

At the beginning of Devarim 22, in the second aliyah of our parashah, verses 1-7, we find a number of "mitzvot bein adam la-haveiro" (interpersonal mitzvot): helping stray animals get back to their owner (1-2), returning lost objects (3), and a few other details. Then we arrive at vv. 6-7, the mitzvah of "שִלּוּחַ הַקֵּן"--sending away the mother bird before taking away the eggs.

Ramban comments that the purpose of this mitzvah is "to prevent us from becoming cruel people" - "בעבור שלא נתאכזר" . He disagrees with Rambam (Maimonides-try not to confuse RambaN and RambaM throughout this devar Torah), who thinks that the Torah was concerned for the feelings of the mother bird and stipulated this mitzvah is for her sake (Guide to the Perplexed III:48). Ramban objects that if the Torah were concerned about the feelings of animals it would not have permitted eating them! Rather, this mitzvah is for our own benefit, to put us in the habit of taking care, of recognizing that even when we are doing as simple a thing as taking eggs from a nest, there is a gentle way to do it, and that we should not kill mother and child on the same day. (Recall that in Sanhedrin this summer we learned that even when putting a sinner to death, the court must do it compassionately.)

But why do we need this mitzvah at all? After all, look at the this verse's context: verse 1: if you see your friend's animal astray, return it to him; verse 2: even if you don't know the owner, take the animal and watch out for it until he comes to get it; verse 3: do the same even for a person's shirt or any other item that s/he lost; verse 4: help your friend pick up his fallen animal. All these mitzvot are actual applications of compassion, living out the prevention of cruelty. Why do we need a practice mitzvah-one that, according to the Ramban, has nothing to do with actual compassion at that instant? It seems that the Torah's specific instructions for compassionate behavior should suffice.

The answer may be found in Ramban's further comments on this passage, his discussion of a piece from Bereishit Rabbah about shehitah, slaughtering animals for food, which must be done by cutting the throat. The midrash says (Bereishit Rabbah 44:1):

Rambam thought that this implied that the reason to do the mitzvot was because God said to, and we will be refined by being God-obeying people. But Ramban says something much more striking. Though it is true that being God-obeying people is a value, simple obedience does not excuse us from seeking more subtle ways in which the details of the mitzvot further refine us. In fulfilling the mitzvah of שִלּוּחַ הַקֵּן-sending away the mother bird-we train ourselves to be careful, compassionate people, as opposed to people who are ready to take things, living things, without a second's hesitation or attention to others' feelings, and we remind ourselves of the unbreakable connection between parents and children. Perhaps Rambam was right and the mother bird suffers when she loses her children. But the main thing is that we need to be attentive to that so that when it comes time to interact with other human beings, we are already well-versed in the ways of compassion and careful consideration.

It is not merely a set of specific actions the Torah demands of us. The Torah attempts to create people with a certain type of character, a character that informs everything we do, beyond the particular mitzvot enumerated in the Torah. Those actions mold our character and enable us to live Torah lives in areas beyond the scope of the Torah's explicit instruction on, in our daily interactions with others, in our attitudes towards ourselves, and in our large-scale social and political decisions. Lest we forget that the mitzvot, in addition to being ends in themselves, are also the means to the further end of molding a personal character, the "practice mitzvot" remind us that everything is "practice". We are constantly engaged in the practical application of our present characters, but we are never done molding ourselves.