Darchei Noem: May Animals Be Hurt for Human Benefit?

Adapted from the writings of Dayan Yitzhak Grossman

May 23, 2024

In our previous article, addressing South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem’s killing of her dog, we discussed the position of the Trumas Hadeshen that although there is no prohibition of tza’ar ba’alei chaim (causing suffering to living creatures) if one acts to fulfill human needs, it is nevertheless customary to avoid certain practices that inflict pain on animals for human benefit, because the pasuk in Tehillim says that Hashem’s “mercies are on all His works.” We noted the dispute between the Chelkas Yaakov and the Sridei Eish about whether this ideal of avoiding cruelty to animals extends to medical research that inflicts pain on animals.

Additional perspectives

R’ Eliezer Yehudah Waldenberg (the Tzitz Eliezer) was asked about experimentation on animals for the purpose of obtaining medical knowledge to benefit people. He was specifically asked about a test that required removing the animals’ eyes and subsequently killing them. He responded that this is permitted. He maintains that for various reasons, it is not even a matter of pious conduct (midas chasidus) to refrain from carrying out such experiments, but he recommends that ideally they should be performed with local anesthesia to avoid pain (which he believes is the preferred method for the procedure in question anyhow).[1]

R’ Yitzchak Isaac Liebes (the Bais Avi) also unequivocally permits medical experimentation on animals for the purpose of helping sick people.[2]

The one major halachic authority who dissents from the general consensus permitting such experimentation is R’ Eliyahu Kalatzkin, the great Polish gaon of a century ago. The following remarkable passage appears in the course of a lengthy teshuvah he wrote on the topic of tza’ar ba’alei chaim:

It is also not clear that it is permitted to cause a living creature to suffer such terrible pain for the sake of examinations and experiments, and we only find that this was permitted for the sake of healing—not for the sake of examination, which is only a matter of possibility, that perhaps some benefit to medical science will emerge from it. Among the scholars of the nations there are also those who are upset and complain about the acts of cruelty that the investigators perform in their examinations of the bodies of living creatures, and they founded the Society of Anti-Vivisectionists.

This question was discussed at the conference of great medical scholars in London in the year 5641 (the International Medical Congress of 1881), as I read its proceedings in the English periodical The Times of August 5 (the weekly edition). Professor [Rudolf] Virchow[3] of Berlin delivered a speech before the gathering asserting that there is no injustice and cruelty in this, and as long as man is permitted to kill a living creature to eat its flesh, he has justification to perform examinations of the bodies of living creatures. For only with the aid of those examinations will the science of medicine and physiology make giant leaps forward in our days…

But despite all this, we cannot decide whether according to the laws of our holy Torah permission is granted to a Jewish physician to involve himself in those examinations of the bodies of living creatures. For there is no comparison between the pain of shechitah and death, which last only a few moments, and the terrible pain that a living creature suffers for hours and days from those examinations…[4]

The problem of the white mules

There are two Gemara passages that seem to indicate that the Torah’s ideal of compassion toward animals extends even to those that are a nuisance or even a danger to humans, at least in certain circumstances. Curiously, these passages both involve R’ Yehudah Hanasi. We previously discussed the account of his conduct toward the weeping calf and the young weasels, and we will now discuss the other Gemara:

When R’ Pinchas ben Ya’ir came (to dine with R’ Yehudah Hanasi), it so happened that he arrived through an entrance where white mules were standing. He said, “The Angel of Death is in this one’s house (because white mules kick and inflict wounds that never heal—Rashi), and I will dine with him?!” Rebbi heard and went out toward him…Rebbi said, “I will cut their hooves (so they can’t harm anyone).” R’ Pinchas ben Ya’ir said, “There is tza’ar ba’alei chaim.” Rebbi said, “I will kill them.” R’ Pinchas ben Ya’ir said. “There is bal tashchis (the prohibition to destroy wantonly).”[5]

This account is quite puzzling. If white mules are dangerous to humans, why would the prohibition against tza’ar ba’alei chaim forbid taking reasonable measures to neutralize the threat, given the rule established by the Trumas Hadeshen and the Shvus Yaakov that there is no prohibition of tza’ar ba’alei chaim if one acts to meet human needs?[6] Poskim offer a variety of approaches:

• The Trumas Hadeshen explains that the danger posed by white mules is remote (la shechicha), and R’ Pinchas ben Ya’ir only objected to their presence due to his great piety. (But there was no true need to neutralize the mules, so the prohibition against tza’ar ba’alei chaim remained in force.)[7] Similarly, R’ Yitzchak Blazer (also known as R’ Itzeleh Peterberger) explains that since the probability of harm was remote and R’ Pinchas ben Ya’ir’s objection was only a matter of midas chasidus, the prohibitions of tza’ar ba’alei chaim and bal tashchis remained in force, because removing the mules’ hooves or killing them was considered completely unnecessary.[8]
• The Shvus Yaakov understands that it actually was permitted for R’ Yehudah Hanasi to remove the mules’ hooves or kill them. R’ Pinchas ben Ya’ir, however, was displeased with R’ Yehudah Hanasi for his prior laxity in maintaining such dangerous animals in his home, and R’ Yehudah Hanasi was proposing ways in which he might now atone for his earlier failing. R’ Pinchas ben Ya’ir, due to his great piety, refused to accept and agree to dine with R’ Yehudah Hanasi, because although the proposed acts were permitted, neither would be entirely free of impropriety.[9]
• The Chelkas Yaakov explains that removing the hooves was indeed permitted, but R’ Pinchas ben Ya’ir, due to his piety, objected to it out of a desire to avoid cruelty to animals even when it isn’t prohibited. (This idea is consistent with his position—in opposition to that of the Sridei Eish—that medical experimentation on animals should be avoided as a matter of midas chasidus, despite the fact that the welfare of other people, not only one’s own, is at stake.)[10]

We previously cited the Maharshal:

One who has a dog in his home that is causing him harm and ruining the food in his home, even if it does not bite, is permitted to give it poison and does not thus violate tza’ar ba’alei chaim.

In light of the above analysis, there are a number of ways to reconcile the Maharshal’s ruling with R’ Pinchas ben Ya’ir’s declaration that removing a mule’s hooves constitutes tza’ar ba’alei chaim:

• According to the Trumas Hadeshen and R’ Yitzchak Blazer, R’ Pinchas ben Ya’ir was only concerned for tza’ar ba’alei chaim because the danger posed by the mules was remote. In the Maharshal’s case, it was already established that the dog was harmful.
• According to the Shvus Yaakov, R’ Pinchas ben Ya’ir didn’t mean to assert a general problem with removing the hooves of mules. He was only rejecting as insufficient R’ Yehudah Hanasi’s proposal to do so to atone for his previous laxity.
• R’ Yechezkel Landau (the Noda Bihudah) suggests that although tza’ar ba’alei chaim might be overridden by concern about a public menace, R’ Pinchas ben Ya’ir was still unwilling to dine with someone who was forced to violate the prohibition.[11] (This is difficult to understand: Would R’ Pinchas ben Ya’ir have been unwilling to dine with someone who had to violate Shabbos to save a life?)
• Some authorities maintain that tza’ar ba’alei chaim does not forbid killing animals, only causing them pain.[12] According to this view, there is no contradiction between R’ Pinchas ben Ya’ir forbidding the removal of hooves and the Maharshal allowing the dog to be poisoned.[13]

[1]Shu”t Tzitz Eliezer cheilek 14 siman 68.

[2]Shu”t Beis Avi cheilek 3 siman 144. Cf. Shu”t Be’er Moshe cheilek 8 siman 104.

[3]Dr. Virchow is known as the father of modern pathology. Wikipedia contributors. Rudolf Virchow. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rudolf_Virchow&oldid=1224424390

[4]Imrei Shefer (Kalatzkin) siman 34 os 16. Cf. Shu”t Ateress Paz cheilek 1 kerech 3 C.M. siman 9.

[5]Chulin 7b.

[6]A similar question can be asked with respect to the prohibition of bal tashchis.

[7]Trumas Hadeshen psakim uchsavim siman 105.

[8]Shu”t Pri Yitzchak cheilek 1 siman 24. Cf. Shu”t Sho’eil Umeishiv tinyana cheilek 3 siman 65.

[9]Shu”t Shvus Yaakov cheilek 3 siman 71.

[10]Shu”t Chelkas Yaakov C.M. siman 34 end of os 3.

The Chelkas Yaakov continues with the assertion that the Trumas Hadeshen “actually brings a proof from this Gemara that it is prohibited due to cruelty.” This seems to misconstrue the Trumas Hadeshen, who actually cites this passage as a contradiction to his initial and primary point, that tza’ar ba’alei chaim does not apply when human needs are at stake (and reconciles the contradiction as above in the text, that because the danger was remote, human needs were not actually considered to be at stake), rather than as a support of his secondary and concluding point, that even when the prohibition of tza’ar ba’alei chaim does not apply, cruelty to animals should still be avoided. The Trumas Hadeshen seems to understand that in the case of the white mules, because the danger was remote, the actual prohibition of tza’ar ba’alei chaim remained in force, not just the pious custom to refrain from cruelty to animals even where permitted.

Cf. R’ Gedaliah Aharon Rabinowitz, Bedin Achrayus Hamad’an Lesotzaos Mechkaro, Halacha Urefuah kerech 4 p. 221.

[11]Shu”t Noda Bihudah kama Y.D. siman 83.

[12]One of the main proofs advanced for this distinction is actually from the account of the white mules: Even after R’ Pinchas ben Ya’ir objected to the removal of their hooves due to tza’ar ba’alei chaim, R’ Yehudah Hanasi proceeded to propose killing them. See Shu”t Avodas HaGershuni siman 13; Shu”t Noda Bihudah ibid. and tinyana Y.D. siman 10; Sho’eil Umeishiv ibid.; Pardeis Yosef, Toldos os 33; Chelkas Yaakov ibid. siman 34 os 4 (Rav Breish) and siman 35 os 4 (R’ Yechiel Yaakov Weinberg); Mishneh Halachos cheilek 10 siman 82; Chevel Nachalaso 18:53.

[13]Chelkas Yaakov ibid. footnote on p. 317.