By Rabbi Dr. Israel Drazin
PIKESVILLE, Maryland — The eighth biblical portion of Leviticus, Emor, 21:1-24:23, the 31st of 54 portions, contains some enlightening and humane rules. But, it also leaves us with a question that has been asked for centuries without an adequate answer.
In prior essays, we saw many Torah rules that benefit all humans and societies. They are compassionate and improve individuals and inanimate objects.
For example, Leviticus 19:33 says, “If a stranger lives with you in your land, do not wrong him. Treat him like a citizen…you must love him as yourself.” The word “stranger” means not only a non-Jew but even a person you have never seen before. Remarkably, the rule to love a stranger is repeated 36 times in the Torah to emphasize its importance. No other command has such an emphasis. This is a fantastic, caring command. I can think of no other ancient culture, other than isolated individuals, that stressed this lesson.
In this biblical portion, Emor, in Leviticus 24:21, the Torah states, “If someone kills a person, the perpetrator shall be put to death.” The Torah again respects all humans and makes no distinction between Jews and non-Jews.
The Torah frequently teaches respect for all people. Deuteronomy 23:25 warns employers that their employees must be allowed to eat while they work in the fields. This law also applies to non-Jewish employees.
These laws even respect non-humans. In Leviticus 22:28, we are told that slaughtering a cow or sheep and its offspring on the same day is prohibited. We are taught to realize that even animals have feelings, which must be respected. The mother animal is hurt seeing her child killed.
Maimonides, in Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Deot 1:6, points out that many verses show God is sensitive to the feelings of animals. We are told in Deuteronomy 11:15 and Talmud Gittin 62b that we must feed animals before we feed ourselves. Similarly, in Deuteronomy 22:6-7, we are commanded to care for a mother bird’s feelings and not let her see us taking away her eggs. Also, not only does the Torah mandate in the Decalogue that Jews must rest on the Shabbat, but they must also allow their animals to rest.
Families that have pets see that the pets have feelings. Yet, being what people are, it should surprise no one that some people are convinced that animals have no feelings.
For example, the mystic Nachmanides (1194-1270) argued that animals lack feelings, and the law to treat animals kindly was instituted to teach humans to be sensitive to the sensitivities of other humans.
He writes in his commentary to Deuteronomy 22:6, “it was not a matter of God’s mercy extending to the bird’s nest or the dam and its young, since His mercies did not extend so far with them, for, if so, He would have forbidden slaughter altogether. But the reason for the prohibition [against taking the dam with its nest, or against killing the dam with its young in one day] is [only] to teach us the trait of compassion and that we should not be cruel, for cruelty proliferates in man’s soul.”
Thus, even Nachmanides, who thinks animals have no feelings, agrees that we are expected to learn from these laws to treat fellow humans similarly to animals, with compassion.
These laws, which trained Jews, help us explain why Jews, who are only about 0.02 percent of the world population, have won so many Nobel Prizes.
Between 1901 and 2023, the Nobel Prize was awarded to over 900 individuals. At least 214 of them are believed to be Jewish or raised Jewish. This is over 23% of the recipients, far beyond 0.02%.
Jews contributed significantly to world health. There were 59 Jewish Nobel Prize winners in the health field, comprising 26% worldwide and 38% American recipients. Ten percent of the worldwide winners of the Peace Prize were Jews, and eight percent were Americans.
But all of this, especially that so many Jews won the Nobel Peace Prize for seeking harmony among all people, raises an age-old question that has never been satisfactorily answered: Since Jews taught many considerate and benevolent lessons and contributed much to society, why is the world filled with antisemitism?
*
Rabbi Dr. Israel Drazin is a retired brigadier general in the U.S. Army Chaplain Corps and the author of more than 50 books.