Fire Power March 20, 2025 Excerpted and adapted from a shiur by Dayan Yitzhak Grossman…
Horse Raising: Must One Relieve an Animal’s Pain?
Adapted from the writings of Dayan Yitzhak Grossman
March 6, 2025
The Associated Press reports:
A horse that fell through the ice of an upstate New York pond was saved by rescuers who pulled together to free the animal from the frigid water.
Body-camera footage from responding officers shows the team of Saratoga Springs police and neighbors grunting and straining to pull Sly, a 1,300 pound (590 kilogram) horse, from a hole in the ice late Monday afternoon…Officer Kyle Clinton arrived first and helped Ernst get Sly’s full head back up on the ice. They were soon joined by others, including two more officers, neighbors and family members…[1]
The prohibition against tza’ar ba’alei chaim (causing pain to animals) is generally invoked to prohibit hurting an animal actively (bekum va’asei); in this article, we consider whether the prohibition also forbids passively (besheiv ve’al ta’aseh) allowing it to suffer—i.e., whether it includes an obligation to rescue it from pain.
The Torah commands:
If you see the donkey of someone you hate crouching under its burden, would you refrain from helping him?—you shall help repeatedly with him.[2]
The Gemara relates this mitzvah of prikah (unloading an animal)[3] to the imperative of avoiding tza’ar ba’alei chaim according to the view that tza’ar ba’alei chaim is prohibited min haTorah,[4] and Rashi assumes that according to that view, this pasuk is actually the source of the issur.[5] It would seem to follow from this that even passively allowing an animal to suffer is forbidden. As we mentioned here several months ago,[6] this is apparently the position of the Toldos Yaakov (R’ Yaakov Zev Kahana, a great-nephew of the Gra):
It therefore appears to me that it is a mitzvah incumbent upon anyone who sees oxen goring each other or chickens striking each other to separate them, so that they will not come to gore or strike each other again. For this is included in the mitzvah of prikah that is explained in Bava Metzia 32a…[7]
Rav Kahana is apparently grounding the imperative to separate fighting animals not just in the general duty to avoid tza’ar ba’alei chaim, the subject of his discussion there, but in the specific mitzvah of prikah. That is, he is extending the mitzvah of prikah beyond the specific case of the overburdened animal to any situation in which an animal’s suffering can be alleviated. This is a novel and perhaps debatable idea.
The Eishel Avraham (the “Butchatcher,” R’ Avraham Dovid Warman of Butchatch) is cited as adopting a more nuanced stance: The specific issur of tza’ar ba’alei chaim applies only to actively hurting an animal; there is a broader mitzvah to save it from pain, though he is uncertain whether this obligation is deOreisa or deRabanan. The mitzvah of prikah is a special case: Since the cause of the animal’s pain was the loading, its current suffering is considered to have been actively caused.[8] (It is unclear why this should apply to anyone but the loader.)
A possible proponent of the view that there is no rescue requirement is the Rambam, who seems to rule that the mitzvah of prikah does not apply where both the animal and its burden belong to a non-Jew:
If the animal belongs to a non-Jew and the burden belongs to a Jew: If the non-Jew is driving his animal, one is not obligated to relieve it. If not, he is obligated to unload and load it on account of the suffering of the Jew. Similarly, if the animal belongs to a Jew and the burden belongs to a non-Jew, one is obligated to unload and load it on account of the suffering of the Jew. But the animal and its burden belong to a non-Jew, one is not obligated to take care of them except on account of eivah.[9]
The Rambam seemingly maintains that absent the concern for eivah, the mitzvah of prikah and the issur of tza’ar ba’alei chaim do not require active measures to alleviate an animal’s suffering. This is indeed the Or Sameiach’s (R’ Meir Simcha of Dvinsk) understanding of the Rambam, that “the Torah does not impose upon a Jew to trouble himself in order to alleviate tza’ar ba’alei chaim, for the trouble of a Jew is more beloved to Hashem than the suffering of an animal.”[10] Other Acharonim, however, understand the Rambam to agree that prikah and tza’ar ba’alei chaim require relieving an animal even if it and its burden belong to a non-Jew, and they interpret the Rambam accordingly.[11]
R’ Baruch Rapoport, formerly rosh bais din in Johannesburg, asked R’ Asher Weiss whether the owner of a sick dog is obligated to take it to a veterinarian. Rav Rapoport inclined to the view that tza’ar ba’alei chaim does not apply besheiv ve’al ta’aseh.[12] But R’ Asher disagreed:
Because this issue of tza’ar ba’alei chaim is the will of Hashem, may He be blessed, due to the attribute of mercy and compassion, there is no difference between actively causing it pain and not stopping it from experiencing pain.
R’ Asher concedes that it is obvious that
A person is not obligated to circulate in the forest and the desert among the beasts of the field and the birds of the sky to feed the hungry and heal the sick, as he is commanded regarding members of the covenant.
But on the other hand:
It is logical that with regard to an animal in his possession, whose feeding is his responsibility, he should be concerned about its welfare and its needs, and included in this are also its health needs, according to the norms of animal owners.[13]
[1]Michael Hill. Dramatic rescue saves horse from icy pond in New York. AP News. https://apnews.com/article/horse-ice-pond-saved-upstate-new-york-ebbd2869254ffbbe853da01e3fd38c7b.
[3]The discussion in the Gemara cited in the following note actually considers the possibility that this pasuk may not specifically refer to unloading, as opposed to loading, an animal, but our discussion follows what seems to be the generally accepted understanding of the pasuk.
[5]Rashi Shabbos 128b s.v. Tza’ar ba’alei chaim deOreisa.
[6]Monkeys on the Run: People and Ba’alei Chaim. Nov. 21, 2024.
[7]Toldos Yaakov Y.D. siman 33 p. 148.
[8]Cited by R’ Asher Weiss, below. I have been unable to locate this source in the original.
[11]Sma ibid. s.k. 14-15; Taz ibid. Cf. Tur, Bais Yosef, and Bach ibid.; Biur HaGra ibid. s.k. 11; Kessef Mishneh, Ma’asei Rokeiach, and Mirkevess Hamishneh ibid.
[12]He suggests that the concern for bal tash’chis, however, would obligate the owner to do so. R’ Asher in his response disagrees and maintains that bal tash’chis does not apply besheiv ve’al ta’aseh.
[13]R’ Asher Weiss, Tza’ar Ba’alei Chaim (2), os 4.
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