Forget the torah. Spaying and neutering your animals is the correct action.
I would love to see you go down to a shelter and tell them what they are
doing is wrong. It is people like you that are making the rescue of our
feline friends difficult by making an excuse not to do the responsible
thing. I suppose you are also going to say the torah says we should not
punish those who simply dump their feline friends in the street to fend for
themselves? BTW, spaying/neutering is the right thing to do. You can use all
the scipts, sayings or anything from the torah that you want but that
doesn't mean they are correct. I suggest you get with the times. This is
2004 after all.
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Please read:
MEANING IN MITZVOT by Rabbi Asher Meir
Each week we discuss one familiar halakhic practice and try to show its
beauty and meaning. The columns are based on Rabbi Meir's Meaning in
Mitzvot
on Kitzur Shulchan Arukh.
Spaying animals
The spaying of animals, in order to prevent undesired reproduction or in
order to make them more docile, is an ancient custom of animal husbandry,
but it is one which is forbidden by the Torah. The Torah teaches this
prohibition in two different places, each one with its message.
In the blessing given to Noach and his family after the flood, "Be
fruitful
and multiply, swarm in the earth and multiply in it" (Bere**** 9:7), our
Sages discerned an implication that spaying of animals is improper for all
mankind (Sanhedrin 57a). The basis of this admonition is clearly the fact
that spaying interferes with HaShem's desire that the world should be
filled
with a multiplicity of living things. Here the consideration is a
quantitative one.
However, the Torah also contains a prohibition on spaying for the Jewish
people. In enumeration the animals which are blemished and unfit for
sacrifices, the Torah tells us (Vayikra 22:24) "And an animal which is
maimed or crushed or disconnected or severed [in his reproductive organs]
do
not offer to HaShem", and then adds "and don't do this in your land",
meaning that we should not create such a blemish (Shabbat 110b).
Here the emphasis is not on the consequences for the world, but rather the
consequences for this particular animal. The blemish in a sacrifice is not
due to the fact that the animal will not reproduce, because the animal is
being slaughtered anyway. Rather, the admonition not to spay seems to be
directed at the loss for the individual. Each individual creature is
unique,
and its ability to transmit its own unique characteristics to offspring is
an essential part of its character and potential. Even if the world will
swarm with sheep just as before, this individual ram is deficient if he
lacks the potential to perpetuate his special traits in the next
generation.
This distinction between the general mission of mankind and the particular
mission of the Jewish people is found in other places as well. For
instance,
in our column on Vayikra 5761 we saw the explanation of Rav Nachman of
Breslav, that for all mankind ownership and possession has utilitarian
value, but for the Jewish people ownership also ideally involves a special
sensitivity to the unique role of each object in the chain of Divine
providence.
All of mankind is charged with perfecting the world, both materially and
spiritually. But the mission of mankind as a whole is more instrumental,
focusing on principles which create a better world. It is the Jewish
people
who are particularly commanded to find the holiness and potential in each
individual aspect of creation, "so that none of them may be rejected" from
the realm of holiness. (See Shmuel II 14:14.)
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Rabbi Meir has completed writing a monumental companion to Kitzur Shulchan
Aruch which beautifully presents the meanings in our mitzvot and halacha.
It
will hopefully be published in the near future.
Rabbi Meir authors a popular weekly on-line Q&A column, "The Jewish
Ethicist", which gives Jewish guidance on everyday ethical dilemmas in the
workplace. The column is a joint project of the JCT Center for Business
Ethics, Jerusalem College of Technology - Machon Lev; and Aish HaTorah.
You
can see the Jewish Ethicist, and submit your own questions, at
www.jewishethicist.com or at www.aish.com.
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