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Source sheet

The texts, in the order the argument reaches them.

Hebrew first, then the translation this site uses, then where to find it. The Hebrew is never summarised: these are the texts themselves, so that someone who never reads the chapters can still check the argument.

Two things here may look like mistakes, but they are deliberate. Abbreviations in the Hebrew are written out in full. Every skipped passage is marked with three dots. Where there are no dots, nothing was left out.

Causing an animal needless suffering is wrong, and the Torah already forbids it. This sheet makes no new ruling. Positions attributed to named people are theirs. Found an error in a citation? Send it →

41 texts set out in full and 22 further citations, from the list of 90 sources this site keeps. Hebrew checked against Sefaria 2026-09-28.

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Step 1 of 5 · The law

Does an animal's pain matter to God?

Causing an animal needless suffering breaks Torah law. Heaven punished even Rebbi, who compiled the Mishnah, for sending a frightened calf away.

§1

צער בעלי חיים דאורייתא

“The Talmud debates whether the ban on causing animals suffering comes from the Torah itself.”

Bava Metzia 32bThe Talmud records a dispute; most later authorities, the Rif and the Rosh among them, treat it as Torah law. On every view, the prohibition is binding. No opinion in the tradition permits needless animal suffering.

§2

זִיל, לְכָךְ נוֹצַרְתָּ

“Go. For this you were created.”

Bava Metzia 85aHeaven's two verdicts, in the Talmud's own Aramaic. When Rebbi sent the calf away: הוֹאִיל וְלָא קָא מְרַחֵם, לֵיתוֹ עֲלֵיהּ יִסּוּרִין, since he shows no mercy, let suffering come upon him. When his suffering ended: הוֹאִיל וּמְרַחֵם, נְרַחֵם עֲלֵיהּ, since he is merciful, let us be merciful to him.

§3

וְרַחֲמָיו עַל־כׇּל־מַעֲשָׂיו

“His mercy is upon all His works.”

Tehillim 145:9Recited three times a day, every day, in Ashrei.

Also cited in this chapter

  • Shemot 23:5The command to unload a suffering animal, even your enemy's. The Talmud learns the law against causing animals pain, tza'ar ba'alei chayim, from this verse.
  • Moreh Nevuchim 3:48There is no difference in this regard between the pain of a person and the pain of other living beings, since the love and tenderness of the mother for her young ones is not produced by reasoning, but by imagination, and this faculty exists not only in man but in most living beings. Said on shiluach haken and oto v'et b'no. (Friedlander, 1903.)
  • Noda BiYehuda II, YD 10The ban on causing animals pain, tza'ar ba'alei chayim, applies only to hurting an animal who is left alive. Killing an animal does not fall under that ban at all. This is the site's summary of the ruling, not a quotation; follow the link for the responsum's own words.
  • Minchas Chinuch 80Reads the Rambam as holding that the ban on causing animals pain, tza'ar ba'alei chayim, comes from the Torah itself. The Ohr Same'ach reads the Rambam the other way.

Step 2 of 5 · The permission

Why did God allow meat?

Why God allowed meat, what the Torah calls the wish to eat it, and what the permission never covered: the animal's suffering.

§4

כִּי־תְאַוֶּה נַפְשְׁךָ לֶאֱכֹל בָּשָׂר... בְּכׇל־אַוַּת נַפְשְׁךָ תֹּאכַל בָּשָׂר

“When your soul craves to eat meat... according to the craving of your soul you may eat meat.”

Devarim 12:20The Sages call ordinary meat “meat of craving,” because this verse permits meat when a person craves it.

§5

כי מלבד מה שיש בהריגת הבעלי חיים אכזריות חמה ושטף אף ולמוד תכונה רעה אל האדם לשפוך דם חנם... ואפילו מה שהתיר מהם לא דברה תורה אלא כנגד יצר הרע, כמו שהתיר להם יפת תואר על זה הדרך... הנה גלו בפירוש שאכילת הבשר לא הותר אלא על צד ההכרח

“Besides the cruelty, rage and fury there is in killing living creatures, and its teaching a person the bad trait of shedding blood for nothing... even what the Torah permitted of them, 'the Torah spoke only against the evil inclination,' as it permitted the captive woman in the same way... they revealed plainly that eating meat was permitted only by way of necessity.”

Sefer HaIkkarim 3:15Written in Spain in the early fifteenth century, in the chapter on Kayin and Hevel. Between the first and second excerpts he adds that meat 'produces coarseness and dullness in the soul.' After the third he says meat was withheld at Creation 'though it is good food,' just as wine is good and the Nazir who gives it up is called holy. So he does not say meat is bad. He says what kind of permission the Torah gave for it. The 'they' in his last sentence are the Sages of Chullin 84a. That last sentence is one medieval authority's reading of the permission, not a ruling: Devarim 12:20 permits meat when a person craves it.

§6

וְהִנֵּה לְאֵלּוּ שֶׁעוֹשִׂין זֶה אִיכָּא וַדַּאי אִסּוּר דְּצַעַר בַּעֲלֵי חַיִּים, דְּאַף שֶׁהֻתַּר לְצֹרֶךְ הָאָדָם הוּא כְּשֶׁאִיכָּא צֹרֶךְ... אֲבָל לֹא לְצַעֲרָם בְּעָלְמָא, שֶׁזֶּה אָסוּר אַף אִם יִהְיֶה לְאֶחָד הַרְוָחָה בָּזֶה... וּבַעֲלֵי נֶפֶשׁ אֵין לָהֶם לֶאֱכֹל כְּלָל מֵעֲגָלִים כָּאֵלּוּ

“For those who do this there is certainly a prohibition of tza'ar ba'alei chayim. Although this is permissible when done to serve human needs, that is only when there is a true need... But it is not permissible to cause them pain for no good reason, even if there exists an individual who will derive some profit from this... A ba'al nefesh should not eat from such calves at all.”

Igrot Moshe, EH 4:92Written to his son-in-law, R. Moshe David Tendler. The ban falls on the people who raise the calves. To the person who eats veal he gives advice for the scrupulous, mostly because many such calves turned out not to be kosher. He forbids white veal because its only benefit is the pale look of the meat. His closing line calls raising white veal forbidden 'מאיסור צער בע״ח מדאורייתא', by the Torah's own prohibition on causing animals pain.

§7

בִּזְמַן שֶׁבֵּית הַמִּקְדָּשׁ קַיָּים אֵין שִׂמְחָה אֶלָּא בְּבָשָׂר... וְעַכְשָׁיו שֶׁאֵין בֵּית הַמִּקְדָּשׁ קַיָּים אֵין שִׂמְחָה אֶלָּא בְּיַיִן

“R. Yehuda ben Beteira: when the Temple stood, there is no joy except with meat, the shelamim offering, 'you shall slaughter peace-offerings and eat there and rejoice' (Devarim 27:7); and now that the Temple does not stand, there is no joy except with wine, 'wine gladdens the heart of man' (Tehillim 104:15).”

Pesachim 109a

§8

וְהָאסַפְסֻף אֲשֶׁר בְּקִרְבּוֹ הִתְאַוּוּ תַּאֲוָה וַיָּשֻׁבוּ וַיִּבְכּוּ גַּם בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל וַיֹּאמְרוּ מִי יַאֲכִלֵנוּ בָּשָׂר

“And the rabble among them craved a craving; and the children of Israel wept again too, and said: who will feed us meat?”

Bamidbar 11:4הִתְאַוּוּ תַּאֲוָה, craved a craving. The verb is doubled, and at first it has no object. The verse names the food, meat, only at its end. The craving starts in the rabble travelling with Israel and then spreads to the children of Israel themselves. The next verses tell us that manna was already falling every morning. The people had food. What they wanted was meat.

§9

עַד אֲשֶׁר־יֵצֵא מֵאַפְּכֶם וְהָיָה לָכֶם לְזָרָא יַעַן כִּי־מְאַסְתֶּם אֶת־ה׳ אֲשֶׁר בְּקִרְבְּכֶם

“...until it comes out of your nostrils and becomes loathsome to you, because you have rejected Hashem who is among you.”

Bamidbar 11:20Here God gives the people meat; He does not refuse it. They get meat for a month, until they no longer want it. The word לְזָרָא, loathsome, appears nowhere else in Tanach. The manna was already feeding them. So the verse calls their complaint, and their weeping to go back to Egypt, מְאַסְתֶּם, a rejection of God, who was feeding them.

§10

הַבָּשָׂר עוֹדֶנּוּ בֵּין שִׁנֵּיהֶם טֶרֶם יִכָּרֵת וְאַף ה׳ חָרָה בָעָם וַיַּךְ ה׳ בָּעָם מַכָּה רַבָּה מְאֹד וַיִּקְרָא אֶת־שֵׁם־הַמָּקוֹם הַהוּא קִבְרוֹת הַתַּאֲוָה כִּי־שָׁם קָבְרוּ אֶת־הָעָם הַמִּתְאַוִּים

“The meat was still between their teeth, not yet chewed, when the anger of Hashem flared against the people, and Hashem struck the people a very great blow. And he named that place Kivrot HaTaavah, Graves of the Craving, for there they buried the people who craved.”

Bamidbar 11:33–34This is not a punishment for eating meat. The camp already had food, and the place is named for the craving, not for the meat. The story condemns people who kept demanding meat after they already had enough to eat.

Also cited in this chapter

Step 3 of 5 · Complicity

Are you responsible for what the farm does?

A dog and a hen suffer alike, and Jewish law forbids helping anyone do wrong, including by buying from the one who does it.

§11

הֱוֵי דּוֹמֶה לוֹ, מָה הוּא חַנּוּן וְרַחוּם — אַף אַתָּה הֱיֵה חַנּוּן וְרַחוּם

“Be like Him: as He is gracious and compassionate, so you be gracious and compassionate.”

Shabbat 133b

§12

נֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה

“living soul, the term the Torah uses for animals”

Bereishit 1:30

§13

וְלִפְנֵי עִוֵּר לֹא תִתֵּן מִכְשֹׁל וְיָרֵאתָ מֵּאֱלֹהֶיךָ

“You shall not place a stumbling block before the blind; you shall fear your God.”

Vayikra 19:14

§14

אָסוּר לִקְנוֹת דָּבָר הַגָּזוּל מִן הַגַּזְלָן... שֶׁכָּל הָעוֹשֶׂה דְּבָרִים אֵלּוּ וְכַיּוֹצֵא בָּהֶן מְחַזֵּק יְדֵי עוֹבְרֵי עֲבֵרָה וְעוֹבֵר עַל... וְלִפְנֵי עִוֵּר לֹא תִתֵּן מִכְשׁל

“It is forbidden to buy a stolen thing from the robber... for whoever does these things and the like strengthens the hands of transgressors and violates 'you shall not place a stumbling block before the blind'.”

Rambam, Gezeilah 5:1The second set of dots skips only the verse reference. The robbery is already over when the buyer comes, and the Rambam still forbids buying, because it strengthens the robber's hands for the next robbery.

§15

מִנַּיִן שֶׁלֹּא יוֹשִׁיט אָדָם כּוֹס שֶׁל יַיִן לְנָזִיר... תַּלְמוּד לוֹמַר: וְלִפְנֵי עִוֵּר לֹא תִתֵּן מִכְשֹׁל... הָכָא בְּמַאי עָסְקִינַן? דְּקָאֵי בִּתְרֵי עֶבְרֵי נַהֲרָא

“From where do we know that a person may not hand a cup of wine to a nazirite?... The verse says: you shall not place a stumbling block before the blind... What are we dealing with here? A case where they stand on two sides of a river.”

Avodah Zarah 6bEvery discussion of lifnei iver, the ban on putting a stumbling block before the blind, starts from this passage. The Gemara says the Torah-level prohibition is the case of the nazirite across the river: he cannot reach the wine unless you hand it to him. If he could have taken it himself, handing it to him is not lifnei iver by Torah law, and the Rishonim argue over what it is instead (Tosafot on Shabbat 3a call it a rabbinic prohibition on assisting a sinner; the Rambam folds assisting into the verse at Hilchot Rotzeach 12:14). The step on complicity raises this narrow reading as an objection to its own argument. It asks: when a farm raises animals to fill buyers' orders, is the buyer like the person who hands wine across the river, without whom the wrong cannot happen? Or could the farm go on without him?

§16

אֲבָל אִם יְכוֹלִים לִקְנוֹת בְּמָקוֹם אַחֵר מוּתָּר לִמְכּוֹר לָהֶם כׇּל דָּבָר... וְיֵשׁ מַחְמִירִין וְנָהֲגוּ לְהָקֵל כִּסְבָרָא הָרִאשׁוֹנָה וְכׇל בַּעַל נֶפֶשׁ יַחְמִיר לְעַצְמוֹ

“But if they can buy it elsewhere, it is permitted to sell them anything... And some are strict; the custom is to be lenient, like the first view, and every ba'al nefesh should be strict with himself.”

Rema, YD 151:1In this gloss the Rema rules on selling idolaters things they will use in their worship. It is the code's standing ruling on lifnei iver when the sinner could buy from someone else. Read all of it. It is the strongest objection to the step on complicity, and it also answers that objection. The lenient view is the accepted custom: if the wrong could be done without you, the law does not hold you responsible. But the Rema ends by saying that a ba'al nefesh, someone who takes his own soul seriously, should be strict with himself anyway. This site asks exactly that of a reader who accepts the lenient view.

Step 4 of 5 · The facts

What happens on the farms today?

What factory farms do to animals, counted and filmed, and what a kosher label does not change.

§17

יוֹתֵר מִמַּה שֶּׁהָעֵגֶל רוֹצֶה לִינַק פָּרָה רוֹצָה לְהָנִיק

“More than the calf wants to suckle, the cow wants to nurse.”

Pesachim 112aR. Akiva said this to R. Shimon bar Yochai in prison, to explain that he wants to teach even more than his student wants to learn. He compares himself to a cow because everyone who heard him knew that a cow wants to nurse her calf. The Talmud takes that for granted. On a dairy farm, as step four shows, the calf is taken from her so that she cannot nurse him. Separated from him, she calls out and searches for him (Hudson & Mullord (1977)).

§18

שׁוֹר אוֹ־כֶשֶׂב אוֹ־עֵז כִּי יִוָּלֵד וְהָיָה שִׁבְעַת יָמִים תַּחַת אִמּוֹ

“An ox or a sheep or a goat, when it is born, shall stay seven days under its mother.”

Vayikra 22:27The verse sets the earliest day a newborn animal may be brought as an offering: the eighth day. It is not a law about raising animals, and this site does not read it as a ban on taking a calf from a cow. Asa Keisar's book reads it that way; this site does not repeat that reading. The plain facts are enough without it. The Torah does not allow a calf on the altar until he has spent a week with his mother. The dairy takes him from her within a day (EFSA, calves (2023)).

Also cited in this chapter

  • EFSA, laying hens, 2023The EU's own scientific panel on cutting hens' beaks: it harms the hens, it is done to stop them pecking and injuring each other, and it "should not be necessary if good management practices are implemented". The Panel recommends phasing it out. On cages, it finds that the small space and bare surroundings stop hens from doing what they are strongly motivated to do.
  • Bakst & Dymond, poultry AICommercial turkeys are bred by artificial insemination, week after week. Selection for a heavier, broader breast left the toms unable to transfer semen reliably at copulation. There is effectively no natural mating left in the industry.
  • EFSA, calves, 2023Calves are routinely disbudded: the bud where a horn would grow is destroyed with a hot iron or caustic paste. The Panel states plainly that both methods cause severe pain. It also addresses castration, and taking the calf from his mother, which it counts as a harm in its own right: "The great majority of dairy farms separate dam and calf immediately after birth." The Panel recommends keeping mother and calf together for at least 24 hours.
  • Krautwald-Junghanns et al., 2018Male chicks of laying breeds cannot lay and do not fatten well, so the egg industry kills them the day they hatch, by maceration or gassing, billions of them a year worldwide. Germany banned the practice from 1 January 2022, and France from 2023.
  • UN FAO, FAOSTAT, 202283+ billion land animals slaughtered per year, roughly 2,600 every second.
  • Edgar et al., Proc. R. Soc. B, 2011When their chicks were hit with a mildly unpleasant puff of air, the mother hens' hearts beat faster, the temperature of their eyes dropped, they grew more alert, and they called to their chicks more. These are the physical and behavioural marks of empathy: the hens reacted to their chicks' distress as stress of their own.
  • Hudson & Mullord, 1977Five minutes with her calf after birth is enough to form a strong bond specific to that calf. Separated, every cow in the study showed distress — walking, urinating, butting, vocalising continually from one end of the paddock. She could still recognise her own calf twelve hours later. By twenty-four hours she was still distressed, and could no longer tell which calf was hers.
  • R. Shmuel Kamenetsky, Hakirah 24Written for the Zelcers' article: the practices of factory farming may well constitute tza'ar ba'alei chayim, and the meat and poultry produced by them remain permitted to eat.

Step 5 of 5 · The need

Do you still need meat, milk or eggs?

Why we no longer need meat, milk or eggs, why taste is not a need, the one leading rabbi who was asked, and why your rabbi hasn't said so.

§19

כָּל דָּבָר הַצָּרִיךְ לִרְפוּאָה אוֹ לִשְׁאָר דְּבָרִים לֵית בֵּיהּ מִשּׁוּם אִיסּוּר צַעַר בַּעֲלֵי חַיִּים... וְלָכֵן מוּתָּר לִמְרוֹט נוֹצוֹת מֵאֲוָזוֹת חַיּוֹת וְלֵיכָּא לְמֵיחַשׁ מִשּׁוּם צַעַר בַּעֲלֵי חַיִּים... הָעוֹלָם נִמְנָעִים דַּהֲוֵי אַכְזָרִיּוּת

“Anything needed for healing or for other purposes carries no prohibition of tza'ar ba'alei chayim... Therefore it is permitted to pluck feathers from live geese, and there is no concern of tza'ar ba'alei chayim... People refrain, because it is cruelty.”

Rema, EH 5:14This line appears in a gloss on the laws of castration. The Rema codifies the Terumat HaDeshen (Pesakim uChtavim 105) and the Issur VeHeter HaAruch (59): causing an animal pain is permitted for a human need. Later rulings on animal pain, the Noda BiYehuda on hunting, Igrot Moshe on veal, and the debates over what counts as a need, all argue about this sentence. Read all three clauses. The permission depends on need. The example, plucking live geese, was a real practice in the Rema's day. The last clause opens in the original with 'nevertheless'. In it the Rema reports that people did not pluck live geese, and he gives the reason in his own word: cruelty.

§20

הכלל הוא שכל מה שהאדם עושה לתועלתו ולא לשם אכזריות מותר, ולכן מותר לגדל בצפיפות רבה תרנגולים ועגלים לבשר כדי לחסוך בעלויות גידולם

“The rule is that whatever a person does for his benefit, and not for the sake of cruelty, is permitted, and therefore it is permitted to raise chickens and calves for meat in great density, in order to save on the costs of raising them.”

Peninei Halacha, Kashrut 1:15:9This source argues against the site, and it is hard to answer. Peninei Halacha is among the most widely read halachic works in Israel. Here it addresses crowded industrial farming directly and permits it, because its test is whether the farmer benefits, not whether the animal suffers. It also shows that a posek has been asked this question and has answered it in print.

§21

אֵין זֶה מוֹסִיף אֶלָּא עוֹשֶׂה סְיָג לַתּוֹרָה

“This is not adding to the Torah; it is making a fence around it.”

Rambam, Mamrim 2:9Some object that forbidding what the Torah permits is bal tosif, adding to the Torah. The Rambam answers that a court may do it as a fence. But the court of this chapter is the Great Sanhedrin (Mamrim 1:1, 2:1), the only court whose new decrees bind all Israel, and none sits today. So no halachic authority today can forbid meat for every Jew. A rav can still make a fence for his own community, though none has. And no new decree is needed to say that causing animals needless suffering is wrong: the Torah already forbids it, and that ban applies to how farms treat animals today.

§22

הַנַּח לָהֶם לְיִשְׂרָאֵל, מוּטָב שֶׁיִּהְיוּ שׁוֹגְגִין וְאַל יִהְיוּ מְזִידִין

“Leave Israel alone: better that they be unwitting than deliberate transgressors.”

Beitzah 30aCodified at Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim 608:2. The Rema limits it to prohibitions that are Torah-level but not explicit in the Torah, which is where tza'ar ba'alei chayim falls. The same gloss says the rule of staying silent applies only to the public. An individual must still be rebuked.

§23

וְהוּא הַדִּין בְּכָל דָּבָר אִסּוּר אָמְרִינַן מוּטָב שֶׁיִּהְיוּ שׁוֹגְגִין וְלֹא יִהְיוּ מְזִידִין, וְדַוְקָא שֶׁאֵינוֹ מְפֹרָשׁ בַּתּוֹרָה אַף עַל פִּי שֶׁהוּא דְּאוֹרַיְתָא... אֲבָל בְּיָחִיד חַיָּב לְהוֹכִיחוֹ עַד שֶׁיַּכֶּנּוּ אוֹ יְקַלְּלֶנּוּ

“The same applies to every prohibition: better they be unwitting than deliberate, and specifically where it is not explicit in the Torah, even though it is Torah-level... but with an individual, one is obligated to rebuke him until he strikes him or curses him.”

Shulchan Aruch, OC 608:2Read the whole gloss before using it to argue either side. It limits the rule to prohibitions that are Torah-level but not written out in the Torah, which is where tza'ar ba'alei chayim sits. It then says the rule of silence applies only to the public. With a single person, one must rebuke him, even until he strikes or curses the one rebuking. A rav speaking with one congregant is the individual case, not the public one.

Also cited in this chapter

  • B12 isolated, 1948Vitamin B12 was first isolated in 1948, within living memory. That makes ours the first generation that can reliably eat a complete, healthy diet with no animal foods.
  • Academy of Nutrition & Dietetics, 2025The Academy's current position, in effect to 31 December 2032: for adults, appropriately planned vegetarian and vegan diets can be nutritionally adequate. By vegan it means a diet with no food from animals at all.
  • Academy of Nutrition & Dietetics, 2016Appropriately planned vegetarian, including vegan, diets are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and appropriate for all stages of the life cycle, including pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood, adolescence, older adulthood, and for athletes.
  • Igrot Moshe, EH 4:92See §6.
  • Devarim 12:20See §4.
  • Zivotofsky et al., Hakirah 25A rebuttal to the Zelcers, by three shochtim of thirty years' standing, a veterinarian of forty years in Israel's Veterinary Services, and a Cornell food scientist: to say that the way animals are raised on these farms is tza'ar ba'alei chayim, and that they should therefore be deemed unfit for kosher consumption, is in their opinion incorrect.
  • R. Shmuel Kamenetsky, Hakirah 24Written for the Zelcers' article: the practices of factory farming may well constitute tza'ar ba'alei chayim, and the meat and poultry produced by them remain permitted to eat.
  • Velifnei Iver HaShalemA compilation of classical sources on animals and meat, in six chapters: lifnei iver and tza'ar ba'alei chayim; 'no joy except with meat'; the Torah's attitude to eating meat; what the sacrifices were for; what the animals are for; and a set of questions and answers. Approbations of R. M. Zuriel, R. D. Sperber, R. D. Rosen, R. N. L. Cardozo.

After the verdict · Repentance

What does repentance ask of us?

On Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur we ask God to have compassion on His works. Repentance means showing that compassion ourselves.

§24

חֲמוֹל עַל מַעֲשֶׂיךָ. וְתִשְׂמַח בְּמַעֲשֶׂיךָ

“Have compassion on Your works, and rejoice in Your works.”

Chamol al ma'asechaSaid in the Musaf prayer on Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, quoted here from the Sephardic holiday prayer book on Sefaria. In the prayer it asks mercy for the people being judged that day.

§25

וַאֲנִי לֹא אָחוּס עַל־נִינְוֵה הָעִיר הַגְּדוֹלָה... וּבְהֵמָה רַבָּה

“And should I not have pity on Nineveh, the great city... and much cattle?”

Yonah 4:11These are the last words of the book. God explains to Yonah why He spared the city, and the last thing He counts is its animals. Every congregation that keeps Yom Kippur reads the book of Yonah that afternoon, every year.

§26

כׇּל הַמְרַחֵם עַל הַבְּרִיּוֹת — מְרַחֲמִין עָלָיו מִן הַשָּׁמַיִם

“Whoever shows mercy to creatures is shown mercy from Heaven.”

Shabbat 151bThe word is בְּרִיּוֹת, creatures, not people. R. Gamliel b. Rebbi states a rule with two halves, and the site quotes only the first. The second half says that whoever does not show mercy to creatures is not shown mercy from Heaven.

§27

וְגָר זְאֵב עִם־כֶּבֶשׂ... לֹא־יָרֵעוּ וְלֹא־יַשְׁחִיתוּ בְּכׇל־הַר קׇדְשִׁי כִּי־מָלְאָה הָאָרֶץ דֵּעָה אֶת־ה׳

“The wolf shall dwell with the lamb... they shall not hurt nor destroy on all My holy mountain, for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of Hashem.”

Yeshayahu 11:6–9

§28

כָּלוּ כׇּל הַקִּיצִּין, וְאֵין הַדָּבָר תָּלוּי אֶלָּא בִּתְשׁוּבָה וּמַעֲשִׂים טוֹבִים

“Rav: all the appointed end-times have already passed, and the matter now depends on nothing but teshuvah and good deeds.”

Sanhedrin 97bShmuel answers on the same line, דַּיּוֹ לָאָבֵל שֶׁיַּעֲמוֹד בְּאֶבְלוֹ, it is enough for a mourner to stand in his mourning. The page then records the same dispute between two Sages of the Mishnah, R. Eliezer and R. Yehoshua. R. Yehoshua does not say that teshuvah is unnecessary. He says that if Israel will not repent, God will raise up a king whose decrees are as harsh as Haman's, and then they will. On both views the redemption comes through teshuvah. They disagree about whether Israel repents by choice or under pressure.

§29

וְזֶה שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר בִּישַׁעְיָה... מָשָׁל וְחִידָה... וְלֹא יִגְזְלוּ וְלֹא יַשְׁחִיתוּ. אֶלָּא יֹאכְלוּ דָּבָר הַמֻּתָּר בְּנַחַת

“And that which is said in Yeshayahu ["the wolf shall dwell with the lamb"] is a parable and a riddle... they will not rob and will not destroy, but will eat what is permitted, peaceably.”

Rambam, Melachim 12:1This is the strongest source against reading Yeshayahu 11 literally, and it comes from the Rambam, whom this site relies on throughout. He reads the wolf as the nations and the lamb as Israel. Read the halacha to the end, though. When he explains the parable, he keeps the eating in it: people stop taking by force and eat what is permitted. He bases that on 'the lion shall eat straw like the ox.'

Also cited in this chapter

After the verdict · Start now

Start now

Your first step, how to keep the peace at home, what to ask your rabbi, and answers to what people say next.

§30

אֵי זוֹ הִיא תְּשׁוּבָה גְּמוּרָה? זֶה שֶׁבָּא לְיָדוֹ דָּבָר שֶׁעָבַר בּוֹ, וְאֶפְשָׁר בְּיָדוֹ לַעֲשׂוֹתוֹ, וּפֵרַשׁ וְלֹא עָשָׂה מִפְּנֵי הַתְּשׁוּבָה

“What is complete teshuvah? One who encounters the very same opportunity in which he transgressed, and it is within his power to do it again, and he refrains, because of his return.”

Rambam, Teshuvah 2:1

§31

מִצְוָה הַבָּאָה בַּעֲבֵירָה

“A mitzvah that comes through a transgression. R. Yochanan, in the name of R. Shimon bar Yochai: a stolen lulav is invalid, one does not fulfil a mitzvah by means of a sin.”

Sukkah 30a

§32

הֲרֵי שֶׁגָּזַל סְאָה שֶׁל חִטִּין, טְחָנָהּ, לָשָׁהּ וַאֲפָאָהּ, וְהִפְרִישׁ מִמֶּנָּה חַלָּה, כֵּיצַד מְבָרֵךְ? אֵין זֶה מְבָרֵךְ אֶלָּא מְנָאֵץ! וְעַל זֶה נֶאֱמַר: ״בֹּצֵעַ בֵּרֵךְ נִאֵץ ה׳״

“R. Eliezer ben Yaakov: a man stole a se'ah of wheat, ground it, kneaded it and baked it, and separated challah from it. How can he make the blessing? This is not a man blessing, it is a man blaspheming, and of him it is said: "the robber who blesses insults the Lord."”

Bava Kamma 94aThe verse at the end is Tehillim 10:3, translated the way the Gemara reads it. Translations of the psalm itself render בוצע differently. The passage is not about blessings. It lists Sages of the Mishnah who hold that a thief who changes a stolen thing becomes its owner, and this teaching is their proof: a man owes challah only from dough that is his. So by law the dough is his, he must separate challah, and he has a blessing to say. Even so, the teaching says his blessing is an insult to God. Sukkah 30a teaches the same principle in its better-known form.

§33

נֵר בֵּיתוֹ וְנֵר חֲנוּכָּה — נֵר בֵּיתוֹ עָדִיף, מִשּׁוּם שְׁלוֹם בֵּיתוֹ

“His household lamp against the Chanukah lamp, the household lamp takes precedence, because of the peace of his home.”

Shabbat 23bRava says this, and the next line rules the same way when the household lamp competes with kiddush. Shalom bayit, peace in the home, carries real weight in halacha: here it comes before both the Chanukah lamp and kiddush. The site cites it to show that weight, not as a ruling on what anyone should cook. It does not say which conflicts at home it covers. Ask a rav that question.

§34

וּרְדוּ

“and have dominion. Here God gives people rule over the animals. People who say we may use animals however we like quote this verse.”

Bereishit 1:28

§35

לְעׇבְדָהּ וּלְשׇׁמְרָהּ

“God placed the human in the garden 'to work it and to guard it'. People are told to look after the world, not only to use it.”

Bereishit 2:15

§36

אֵיזֶהוּ גִבּוֹר, הַכּוֹבֵשׁ אֶת יִצְרוֹ

“"Who is mighty? The one who conquers his own impulse." Ben Zoma's answer, brought on Mishlei 16:32: better to be slow to anger than mighty, and to rule your own spirit than to capture a city.”

Pirkei Avot 4:1Gibor, mighty, is the word the Torah uses for Nimrod the hunter in Bereishit 10:9. Ben Zoma is not using it as a figure of speech. He asks who really deserves to be called mighty, and answers: the man who can turn down something he wants.

§37

סוֹף אָדָם לָמוּת וְסוֹף בְּהֵמָה לִשְׁחִיטָה, וְהַכֹּל לְמִיתָה הֵם עוֹמְדִים. אַשְׁרֵי מִי שֶׁגָּדֵל בַּתּוֹרָה

“The end of a person is to die, and the end of an animal is to be slaughtered, and all stand ready for death. Happy is the one who grew up in Torah.”

Berachot 17aR. Yochanan said this whenever he finished the book of Iyov. Read whole, it is about death, not about food: everything dies, so what matters is the good name a person leaves. People often quote one half of it at the table: 'an animal's end is slaughter'. That half describes what happens to animals where people slaughter them. It does not say what animals are for, and the Talmud never uses it that way.

§38

דַּאֲפִלּוּ בְּשַׁבָּת אִם יִרְצֶה שֶׁלֹּא לֶאֱכֹל בָּשָׂר הָרְשׁוּת בְּיָדוֹ... שֶׁאֵינוֹ מְחוּיָּב שֶׁיֹּאכַל בָּשָׂר וְיַיִן... וְאֵין חִיּוּב לֶאֱכֹל בָּשָׂר רַק בִּזְמַן שֶׁבֵּית הַמִּקְדָּשׁ קַיָּם

“Even on Shabbat, if he wishes not to eat meat, the choice is his... for he is not obligated to eat meat and wine... and there is no obligation to eat meat except when the Temple stands.”

Magen Avraham 696:15R. Avraham Gombiner, seventeenth century. His commentary is printed beside the Shulchan Aruch, and this note is on the Purim meal. He reasons from the ruling in Yoreh Deah 341 that a mourner between death and burial, forbidden meat and wine on a weekday, may take them on Shabbat if he wants to. The Rabbeinu Yonah he quotes explains why: nobody is obliged to eat meat on Shabbat in the first place. Then he states the general rule, which is the distinction in Pesachim 109a: the obligation to eat meat applied only while the Temple stood.

§39

כָּל יִשְׂרָאֵל עֲרֵבִים זֶה בָּזֶה

“All Israel are guarantors for one another.”

Shevuot 39a

§40

יִשְׁרְצוּ הַמַּיִם שֶׁרֶץ נֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה... וְאֵת כׇּל־נֶפֶשׁ הַחַיָּה הָרֹמֶשֶׂת אֲשֶׁר שָׁרְצוּ הַמַּיִם

“Let the waters swarm with living souls... and God created every living soul that swarms in the waters. The Torah's word for a fish is nefesh chayah, a living soul, the same phrase it uses for people.”

Bereishit 1:20–21

§41

לְקַיֵּם צַוָּאַת רַבִּי יְהוּדָה הֶחָסִיד שֶׁלֹּא לְגַדֵּל אֶפְרוֹחִים כְּלָל, כִּי לֹא יוּכַל לַעֲמֹד עַל הַמִּשְׁמָר שֶׁלֹּא יִהְיֶה לָהֶם צַעַר

“To keep the testament of R. Yehuda HeChasid not to raise chicks at all, because one cannot stand guard well enough to keep them from suffering.”

Pele Yoetz, Ba'alei ChayimR. Eliezer Papo, Sarajevo, 1824, in the entry on animals of his handbook of conduct, which opens by calling tza'ar ba'alei chayim Torah law and citing the rule that a person feeds his animals before he eats (Berachot 40a). He passes on the will of R. Yehuda HeChasid, the author of Sefer Chasidim, and gives its reason in his own words: a person who keeps birds cannot watch closely enough to spare them pain. He was writing about a household courtyard with a few chicks in it.

Also cited in this chapter

  • Beitzah 30aSee §22.
  • Bereishit 1:29The first diet God gave people: plants, and no animals.
  • Yeshayahu 11:6–9See §27.
  • Rema, EH 5:14See §19.
  • Bamidbar 11:4See §8.
  • Noda BiYehuda II, YD 10The ban on causing animals pain, tza'ar ba'alei chayim, applies only to hurting an animal who is left alive. Killing an animal does not fall under that ban at all. This is the site's summary of the ruling, not a quotation; follow the link for the responsum's own words.
  • Vayikra 22:27See §18.
  • Pesachim 109aSee §7.
  • Sneddon, Royal Society, 2019Fish have nociceptors in the lip, fin and skin; injected with an irritant they rub the spot, rock, and stop eating: pain behaviour, not reflex. The review concludes that fish likely feel pain.
  • Academy of Nutrition & Dietetics, 2025The Academy's current position, in effect to 31 December 2032: for adults, appropriately planned vegetarian and vegan diets can be nutritionally adequate. By vegan it means a diet with no food from animals at all.
  • Poore & Nemecek, Science, 2018Meat, aquaculture, eggs and dairy use ~83% of the world's farmland and provide 18% of humanity's calories and 37% of its protein. The study covers 38,700 farms in 119 countries.

How to use this sheet.

Read the Hebrew first. The translation is there to help, not to replace it. Some texts carry a note. The note gives the limits of the text, or the dispute over it. Read it; do not skip it.

Every text gives its reference. Look it up in the book on your shelf or on Sefaria and check it. The whole site is built so that you can check every source, and that only helps if readers actually do.

The reasoning between the texts is in the chapters themselves, which start at step one, the law.