FOR KI SEITZEI
A FISHY TAIL AND A BIRD’S NEST
(from a previous Good Shabbos Email)
As the summer weeks were rolling along, Mrs. Lew and I decided to get away for a couple of days from a very busy summer season. Our destination was the East Coast of the state of Georgia. We soon ended up at a place called Tybee Island, a tiny two-mile long stretch of a typical summer-like town.
Watching the Atlantic Ocean continuing to unfurl its foamy waves in an endless exercise of battering the poor seashore, has its limits. We therefore ascended the pier, which stretched out quite a distance into the ocean. There, the breezes coming off the water provided some relief from the summer heat, amid the pleasant lapping of the ocean’s waters against the pier’s moors. We availed ourselves of the places to sit and relax.
The end of the pier also contained designated locations for fishing aficionados to set their fishing poles. A handful of people were constantly throwing their lines out to sea. The only things they were reeling in, though, were either tiny baby fish, or empty lines, bereft of the bait that had been snatched by seemingly experienced fish. And so it went on for about an hour or so.
At some point, one of the folks reeled in yet another tiny fish. As he was running out of bait, he was going to use this fish as future bait. The guy pulled out a sharp knife and, after struggling with the slippery fish, he began to slice it up.
To our horror, this fellow was slicing the fish from its tail. We were repulsed that he did not have the decency to knock the fish over the head, or at least carve the thing from head down.
Just then one of his buddies made a joke, and the guy let out a loud laugh. He took another swig from his can of beer, another drag on his cigarette, and completed the process of slicing up the still wiggling and squirming fish.
We were appalled and sickened. We had enough. True, it is unclear whether fish feel pain. If they do, it is certainly unclear whether they feel it in the same way mammals do. Nonetheless, out of human decency, a person should do the right thing when it comes to a living creature in our world. How can a human being have such a cruel heart?
Neither of us has any experience with fishing, but we could not bear it any longer, so we left.
If that ruffian would have paid attention to a section in this week’s Torah portion, “Ki Seitzei,” he would have, undoubtedly, behaved differently. The Torah states: “If you encounter a bird’s nest in the pathway – or on any tree, or on the ground – containing chicks or eggs, and the mother is sitting upon the chicks or upon the eggs: You should not take the mother from upon the young. Rather, you should always send away the mother and then you may take the young for yourself, so that it shall be good for you and you will live for a long time.” (D’varim (Deuteronomy) 22:6-7).
There are but two specific commandments for which the Torah promises the reward of “It shall be good for you”: This one, and honoring parents, mentioned in the Ten Commandments. While honoring parents can tend to be challenging, shooing away the mother bird is costless, relatively easy, and optional: one can simply move on, away from the nest – which cannot be done with parents.
Yet, in order to instill a feeling of compassion and mercy into the hearts of humans, the Almighty promises a hefty, almost unheard of reward, to emphasize the critical importance of having “Rachmonus” – compassion and mercy.
When the sixth Rebbe of Lubavitch, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak, was a young man, he was walking past a bush. He was accompanying his father, the fifth Rebbe of Lubavitch, while discussing some deep mystical parts of Torah. The young man absentmindedly ripped off a leaf and began rubbing it with his fingers, as many tend to do. His father stopped in the middle of this Torah discussion and rebuked him, “What right do you have to rip a leaf from a tree and mistreat it for no purpose at all? Every single living organism in this world has a spiritual source in Heaven. If a human being needs it, it is there for his or her use. But simply to destroy it, with no mind…?”
When the Rebbe grew up, he said that this incident had a deep impact on his life. It taught him to be sensitive to everything.
The Torah does not provide the reason a person must drive away the mother bird from its nest. There is no place in the Torah that explains that shooing away the mother bird is to be compassionate. One can even argue the opposite: How cruel it is to shoo away the mother bird from its nest of young or eggs! (Although, a predatory animal like a raccoon in that tree would eat everything in sight, including the mother bird.)
Moreover, the Talmud teaches (B’rachos 33,b) that if one prays with the words, “Your mercies reach even the bird’s nest,” that person should be silenced. This is because the person “is making G-d’s qualities into mercies, when they are really only decrees.” In other words, attached to every letter in the Torah is G-dly rationality and understanding, not human understanding. What may seem logical to the human mind, is, in fact, infinitely more than human logic.
Yet, while the reasoning and logic behind the commandment is beyond the human mind, the outcome and the effect of some of the commandments do implant a sensitivity, a feeling of compassion, within a person’s heart.
The Talmud (Shabbos 151,b) teaches regarding the verse “He will give you compassion and increase you” (Deut. 13:18), “Those who show compassion to others are shown compassion by the Heavens, and those who do not show compassion to others are not shown compassion by the Heavens.” (Shabbos 151,b).
Early this week, it was revealed how the epitome of evil barbarically beheaded an American (and Jewish) journalist in the desert. The intention was to deliver as much terror and fear as possible. These evildoers, in the name of spite and hate which they have conjured up to justify their misguided “cause,” have hearts that were taught never to be compassionate, merciful, or sensitive.
Perhaps it is for this reason that the Torah promises that when a person shoos away the mother bird and honors parents “It will be good for you.” Those two commandments instill goodness into a person, despite human tendencies that may feel otherwise. One thus fills the world with goodness, making it “good for you.”
When a person guides his or her heart towards being compassionate, the world is filled with goodness and G-dliness. And all people are then focused on removing pain and suffering and introducing comfort and joy.
SUMMARY: When people’s hearts are filled with sensitivity and compassion, the world becomes a much better place.