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Kinder Eggs, Part II: Tza’ar Ba’alei Chaim Questions in Modern Farming
Adapted from the writings of Dayan Yitzhak Grossman
January 30, 2025
In this article, we continue to consider halachic perspectives on controversial animal husbandry practices.
Beak trimming
The Sheivet Halevi (R’ Shmuel Wosner) writes that it is obvious that trimming the beaks of birds in order that they not peck and harm each other is permitted, because the concern for tza’ar ba’alei chaim does not apply to actions that have a constructive purpose, and it certainly does not apply when the goal is to prevent likely harm.[1]
Gavage
The animal husbandry practice most heavily debated in the halachic literature is gavage, the force-feeding of ducks or geese in order to fatten their livers for consumption. Though fattened liver, or foie gras, is today best known as a French delicacy, it has been produced for millennia. It was prepared by the ancient Egyptians after they noticed that when wild geese would gorge themselves before migrating, their livers became particularly tasty. It was also popular among European Jews for multiple reasons, including their lack of alternatives to poultry fat as a cooking medium and the fact that they found in fattened goose liver an important source of nutrition:
For people who subsisted on a diet of noodles, cabbage, and potatoes, fattened goose liver was a precious source of nutrients. The Jews regarded it as a health food and dutifully fed it to growing children, since they would benefit most from the additional calories.[2]
Rabbi Dr. Ari Zivotofsky recounts:
For hundreds of years, in traditional Jewish sources stuffed goose was indeed controversial, but not because of animal welfare. The debate revolved around potential treifos due to possible damage to the esophagus caused during the feeding process. It was a widespread debate involving the greatest of authorities. The Rama (Y.D. 33:9) notes that in his town they would stuff geese to make schmaltz and they would check the veshet (esophagus) of each bird. Rav Yoel Sirkis (Bach Y.D. 33) was in favor of banning force-feeding because of this potential serious problem. The Aruch Hashulchan (Y.D. 33:37) says they did not do force-feeding in his town. The Chochmas Adam (16:10) preferred to ban the gavage process because of the concern for treifos of the veshet, but he agreed that if done, it could potentially be kosher. In modern times, the Tzitz Eliezer (11:49, 11:55, 12:52) and Rav Ovadia Yosef (Yabia Omer 9 Y.D. 3) came out against foie gras, while Rav Yosef Shalom Elyashiv was reported as approving the foie gras that was being produced in 2005. The most famous posek to permit stuffed geese was the Chasam Sofer (2 Y.D. 25; Chulin 43b).
Despite the centuries-long debate, force-feeding geese was extremely common among Ashkenazic Jews. Many of the greatest poskim lived in regions where they would have been personally exposed to the process and yet none of them ever suggested that it was cruel and bordered on tza’ar ba’alei chaim. The issue was not even raised for discussion until the late 20th century. The only place tza’ar ba’alei chaim is mentioned in the context of fattened geese is in the opposite direction—the rabbis were aware that geese used to being fed in this manner would not eat any other way and thus, out of concern for tza’ar ba’alei chaim, they permitted, with certain stipulations, gavage for these geese on Shabbos (Mishnah Brurah 324:27). This is as opposed to other chickens and geese, for which this is not permitted.[3]
R’ Ovadia Yosef, in the conclusion of a teshuvah forbidding the consumption of foie gras on the traditional grounds of kashrus concerns, admonishes against the supporting of those “who behave with cruelty toward living creatures, for the sake of unjust gain.”[4],[5]
Similarly, R’ Yaakov Epstein rules that “fattening geese for the sake of enlarging the liver (besides the wounding of the esophagus and the rendering of the birds treifos) is prohibited due to tza’ar ba’alei chaim,”[6] and R’ Avraham Steinberg asserts (based on R’ Moshe Feinstein’s teshuvah on veal production cited in the previous article) that “it is prohibited to fatten animals with cruelty and in a manner involving great suffering, even if this involves financial profit.”[7] Other contemporary authors maintain that gavage is not prohibited on the grounds of tza’ar ba’alei chaim.[8],[9]
I have elsewhere noted an egregious but widespread misrepresentation of the position of the Bnei Yisas’char (R’ Tzvi Elimelech Shapiro of Dinov) on the subject. Various biographical accounts of the Bnei Yisas’char make the following claim:
During the time of his tenure in Munkatch, he prohibited the fattening of geese due to tza’ar ba’alei chaim, and the anger of the city’s parnasim (trustees) was therefore aroused against him, and he was forced to abandon Munkatch and return to Dinov.[10]
But this is apparently a fictionalized version of the Bnei Yisas’char’s position and what actually transpired in Munkatch. None of the (identical!) accounts is sourced, and while the Bnei Yisas’char did staunchly oppose foie gras, his own words on the subject clearly indicate that while he did indeed advance a novel reason to prohibit its consumption, that reason was not tza’ar ba’alei chaim—an issue he does not even raise—but rather a novel concern for treifos: fowl subjected to gavage develop fatty liver disease, culminating in liver failure.[11]
The Bnei Yisas’char’s vehement opposition in Munkatch to foie gras is indeed recorded by the Yeitev Lev (the first R’ Yekusiel Yehudah Teitelbaum) and the Bnei Yisas’char’s great-grandson, the Darchei Teshuvah (R’ Tzvi Hirsch Shapiro)—but they, too, make no mention of a concern for tza’ar ba’alei chaim or of the Bnei Yisas’char being forced to abandon the city. They only mention the success, at least among his students and yir’ei Shamayim, of his campaign against foie gras.[12]
[1]Shu”t Sheivet Halevi cheilek 2 end of siman 7.
[2]Jane Ziegelman and Andrew Coe. A Goose for all Seasons. Moment Magazine, June 2001.
[3]Rabbi Dr. Ari Z. Zivotofsky, Foie Gras “Fake News”: A Fictitious Rashi and a Strangely Translated Ethical Will.
[5]Shu”t Yabia Omer cheilek 9 Y.D. end of siman 3.
[7]Encyclopedia Hilchasis Refu’is, Volume 5, entry Tza’ar ba’alei chaim, p. 467.
[8]R’ Pinchas Toledano, Shu”t Bris Shalom cheilek 2 C.M. siman 7; R’ Itai Elitzur, Tza’ar Ba’alei Chaim Befitum Avazim, Techumin 24 (5764) pp. 110-12.
[9]For additional contemporary discussion of the applicability of the concern for tza’ar ba’alei chaim to foie gras production, see R’ Ari Enkin, Tza’ar Ba’alei Chaim: Foie Gras and Veal, and R’ Yair Hoffman, The New York City Ban on Foie Gras–A Halachic Analysis.
[10]See here, here, here, here, here, and here.
[11]Agra Dekallah end of Parshas Va’eira (cited briefly in Darchei Teshuvah siman 33 end of s.k. 131)
[12]Shu”t Avnei Tzedek Y.D. end of siman 93; Darchei Teshuvah ibid.