Every source.
All 90 of them, linked to the original wherever a link exists. The list is built from the same records the chapters cite, so the two always match.
Every Hebrew quotation below that links to Sefaria was checked, word for word, against Sefaria's own text — most recently on September 28, 2026. The result is printed under each checked quotation, and the few that cannot be machine-checked say so.
Positions attributed to named people are theirs; classical sources are cited for study in the original. If you find an error in a citation, even a wrong page number or vowel mark, send it in and it will be fixed with thanks. Getting the sources right is the whole point.
To study the texts rather than look one up, the same texts are set out in the order the chapters reach them on the source sheet, which is built to be printed and carried. To hear the argument taught, the filmed talks the chapters draw on are collected on one page of their own.
✓ Sefaria-checked: the Hebrew was compared with Sefaria's text, word for word, on 2026-09-28. Anything else is said on the entry.
All 90 sources.
The Hebrew Bible
בְּצֶלֶם אֱלֹהִים בָּרָא אֹתוֹ
Checked against Sefaria's text, word for word, 2026-09-28
"in the image of God He created him", said only of human beings. Because of this verse, this site does not claim that animals and people are equal.
וּרְדוּ
Checked against Sefaria's text, word for word, 2026-09-28
and have dominion. Here God gives people rule over the animals. People who say we may use animals however we like quote this verse.
The first diet God gave people: plants, and no animals.
נֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה
Checked against Sefaria's text, word for word, 2026-09-28
living soul, the term the Torah uses for animals
יִשְׁרְצוּ הַמַּיִם שֶׁרֶץ נֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה... וְאֵת כׇּל־נֶפֶשׁ הַחַיָּה הָרֹמֶשֶׂת אֲשֶׁר שָׁרְצוּ הַמַּיִם
Checked against Sefaria's text, word for word, 2026-09-28
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.
The permission to eat meat, given after the Flood.
The 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.
אִישׁ אִישׁ מִבֵּית יִשְׂרָאֵל אֲשֶׁר יִשְׁחַט שׁוֹר אוֹ־כֶשֶׂב אוֹ־עֵז בַּמַּחֲנֶה אוֹ אֲשֶׁר יִשְׁחַט מִחוּץ לַמַּחֲנֶה וְאֶל־פֶּתַח אֹהֶל מוֹעֵד לֹא הֱבִיאוֹ לְהַקְרִיב קׇרְבָּן לַה׳ לִפְנֵי מִשְׁכַּן ה׳ דָּם יֵחָשֵׁב לָאִישׁ הַהוּא דָּם שָׁפָךְ וְנִכְרַת הָאִישׁ הַהוּא מִקֶּרֶב עַמּוֹ
Checked against Sefaria's text, word for word, 2026-09-28
Any man of the house of Israel who slaughters an ox or a sheep or a goat in the camp, or who slaughters outside the camp, and does not bring it to the entrance of the Tent of Meeting to offer it as an offering to Hashem before the Tabernacle of Hashem, it shall be counted as blood for that man; he has shed blood, and that man shall be cut off from among his people.
Most people learn that meat was permitted after the Flood and again in Devarim. Few are shown this verse, which comes between the two. In the wilderness, the Torah says that a man who slaughtered an animal anywhere but at the altar 'has shed blood', the Torah's own words for bloodshed. The Sages of the Mishnah dispute whether that is the plain sense (Chullin 16b–17a). R. Yishmael says that ordinary meat, בְּשַׂר תַּאֲוָה, was forbidden in the wilderness and first permitted by Devarim 12:20; R. Akiva says it was never forbidden and that this verse speaks of consecrated animals. Rashi here follows R. Akiva: 'the verse speaks of consecrated animals.' The Ramban (on 17:2) calls R. Yishmael's reading 'the fitting one, on the plain sense of the text,' and the Rambam codifies it (Hilchot Shechita 4:17): in the wilderness, whoever wished to slaughter could slaughter only a peace-offering. The site prints the verse with the dispute in full view. Its argument does not depend on which side is right.
שׁוֹר אוֹ־כֶשֶׂב אוֹ־עֵז כִּי יִוָּלֵד וְהָיָה שִׁבְעַת יָמִים תַּחַת אִמּוֹ
Checked against Sefaria's text, word for word, 2026-09-28
An ox or a sheep or a goat, when it is born, shall stay seven days under its mother.
The 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)).
וְהָאסַפְסֻף אֲשֶׁר בְּקִרְבּוֹ הִתְאַוּוּ תַּאֲוָה וַיָּשֻׁבוּ וַיִּבְכּוּ גַּם בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל וַיֹּאמְרוּ מִי יַאֲכִלֵנוּ בָּשָׂר
Checked against Sefaria's text, word for word, 2026-09-28
And the rabble among them craved a craving; and the children of Israel wept again too, and said: who will feed us meat?
הִתְאַוּוּ 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.
עַד אֲשֶׁר־יֵצֵא מֵאַפְּכֶם וְהָיָה לָכֶם לְזָרָא יַעַן כִּי־מְאַסְתֶּם אֶת־ה׳ אֲשֶׁר בְּקִרְבְּכֶם
Checked against Sefaria's text, word for word, 2026-09-28
...until it comes out of your nostrils and becomes loathsome to you, because you have rejected Hashem who is among you.
Here 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.
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
Checked against Sefaria's text, word for word, 2026-09-28
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.
This 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.
וַאֲנִי לֹא אָחוּס עַל־נִינְוֵה הָעִיר הַגְּדוֹלָה... וּבְהֵמָה רַבָּה
Checked against Sefaria's text, word for word, 2026-09-28
And should I not have pity on Nineveh, the great city... and much cattle?
These 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.
קְדֹשִׁים תִּהְיוּ כִּי קָדוֹשׁ אֲנִי ה׳ אֱלֹהֵיכֶם
Checked against Sefaria's text, word for word, 2026-09-28
You shall be holy, for I, Hashem your God, am holy.
יְדֵיכֶם דָּמִים מָלֵאוּ
Checked against Sefaria's text, word for word, 2026-09-28
Your hands are full of blood.
This verse closes the passage that opens with 'why do I need your many sacrifices' (Yeshayahu 1:11). The prophet is speaking to people at worship, not to butchers. They brought their offerings with hands he calls full of blood, and bringing an offering did not make those hands clean. The site reads this verse the way it reads 1:11: as a warning that worship does not wash away wrongdoing. It is not a repeal of the laws of sacrifice.
וְלִפְנֵי עִוֵּר לֹא תִתֵּן מִכְשֹׁל וְיָרֵאתָ מֵּאֱלֹהֶיךָ
Checked against Sefaria's text, word for word, 2026-09-28
You shall not place a stumbling block before the blind; you shall fear your God.
כִּי־תְאַוֶּה נַפְשְׁךָ לֶאֱכֹל בָּשָׂר... בְּכׇל־אַוַּת נַפְשְׁךָ תֹּאכַל בָּשָׂר
Checked against Sefaria's text, word for word, 2026-09-28
When your soul craves to eat meat... according to the craving of your soul you may eat meat.
The Sages call ordinary meat “meat of craving,” because this verse permits meat when a person craves it.
לְעׇבְדָהּ וּלְשׇׁמְרָהּ
Checked against Sefaria's text, word for word, 2026-09-28
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.
יוֹדֵעַ צַדִּיק נֶפֶשׁ בְּהֶמְתּוֹ וְרַחֲמֵי רְשָׁעִים אַכְזָרִי
Checked against Sefaria's text, word for word, 2026-09-28
The righteous one knows the soul of his animal; the mercies of the wicked are cruelty.
וְגָר זְאֵב עִם־כֶּבֶשׂ... לֹא־יָרֵעוּ וְלֹא־יַשְׁחִיתוּ בְּכׇל־הַר קׇדְשִׁי כִּי־מָלְאָה הָאָרֶץ דֵּעָה אֶת־ה׳
Checked against Sefaria's text, word for word, 2026-09-28
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.
וְכָרַתִּי לָהֶם בְּרִית בַּיּוֹם הַהוּא עִם־חַיַּת הַשָּׂדֶה וְעִם־עוֹף הַשָּׁמַיִם וְרֶמֶשׂ הָאֲדָמָה
Checked against Sefaria's text, word for word, 2026-09-28
And on that day I will make a covenant for them with the beast of the field, and with the bird of the sky, and the creeping things of the ground.
A covenant is an agreement between two sides. Here God makes one for Israel with the animals. The same verse goes on to say that God will break the bow and the sword and remove war from the land. The covenant with the animals and the end of war come in one sentence.
וְרַחֲמָיו עַל־כׇּל־מַעֲשָׂיו
Checked against Sefaria's text, word for word, 2026-09-28
His mercy is upon all His works.
Recited three times a day, every day, in Ashrei.
פּוֹתֵחַ אֶת־יָדֶךָ וּמַשְׂבִּיעַ לְכׇל־חַי רָצוֹן
Checked against Sefaria's text, word for word, 2026-09-28
You open Your hand and satisfy every living thing with favour.
This is the verse of Ashrei that begins with the letter pe. Ashrei is an alphabetical acrostic, said three times a day. The Shulchan Aruch (Orach Chaim 51:7) rules that it is the one verse of Ashrei a person must say with full attention, and must say again if they did not. 'Every living thing' means every creature, not only people. The verse describes God feeding the world. The site quotes it for its first letter and because it includes every creature, not as proof of anything. It opens Peshat, the first of the site's four ways of reading: what the verses say.
רְאֵה נָתַתִּי לְפָנֶיךָ הַיּוֹם אֶת־הַחַיִּים וְאֶת־הַטּוֹב וְאֶת־הַמָּוֶת וְאֶת־הָרָע
Checked against Sefaria's text, word for word, 2026-09-28
See, I have set before you today life and good, and death and evil.
In its plain sense, the verse is about the covenant's choice: keep the Torah or leave it. It opens Remez, the second of the site's four ways of reading: what follows from the verses. It is there because its first word is see, and because it puts a choice in front of the reader. It is not a verse about animals.
דִּרְשׁוּ ה׳ בְּהִמָּצְאוֹ קְרָאֻהוּ בִּהְיוֹתוֹ קָרוֹב
Checked against Sefaria's text, word for word, 2026-09-28
Seek the Lord while He may be found; call on Him while He is near.
Its first word, dirshu, seek, has the same root as derash. In its plain sense it calls people to return to God while there is still time; the next verse goes on, let the wicked forsake his way. It opens Derash, the third of the site's four ways of reading: what the verses ask of us today. It is not a verse about animals.
סוֹד ה׳ לִירֵאָיו וּבְרִיתוֹ לְהוֹדִיעָם
Checked against Sefaria's text, word for word, 2026-09-28
The secret of the Lord is with those who fear Him, and His covenant, to make it known to them.
Its first word is sod. Tehillim 25 is itself an alphabetical acrostic, and this is its samekh verse. The covenant it names is the Torah's; the site does not read it as the covenant with the beasts of the field in Hoshea 2:20. It opens Sod, the last of the site's four ways of reading: the deeper meaning.
The Babylonian Talmud
סוֹף אָדָם לָמוּת וְסוֹף בְּהֵמָה לִשְׁחִיטָה, וְהַכֹּל לְמִיתָה הֵם עוֹמְדִים. אַשְׁרֵי מִי שֶׁגָּדֵל בַּתּוֹרָה
Checked against Sefaria's text, word for word, 2026-09-28
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.
R. 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.
נֵר בֵּיתוֹ וְנֵר חֲנוּכָּה — נֵר בֵּיתוֹ עָדִיף, מִשּׁוּם שְׁלוֹם בֵּיתוֹ
Checked against Sefaria's text, word for word, 2026-09-28
His household lamp against the Chanukah lamp, the household lamp takes precedence, because of the peace of his home.
Rava 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.
Preventing an animal's suffering, tza'ar ba'alei chayim, overrides rabbinic prohibitions on Shabbat.
Pikuach nefesh, saving a human life, sets aside Shabbat, and Torah-level prohibitions with it. Read from "and he shall live by them": live by them, and not die by them.
The site sets this beside Shabbat 128b on purpose. Preventing an animal's suffering sets aside a rabbinic prohibition on Shabbat. Saving a human life sets aside the Torah's own prohibitions. That gap is how the tradition itself measures the difference between a person and an animal. This site accepts that difference, and its argument does not need to deny it.
כׇּל הַמְרַחֵם עַל הַבְּרִיּוֹת — מְרַחֲמִין עָלָיו מִן הַשָּׁמַיִם
Checked against Sefaria's text, word for word, 2026-09-28
Whoever shows mercy to creatures is shown mercy from Heaven.
The 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.
בִּזְמַן שֶׁבֵּית הַמִּקְדָּשׁ קַיָּים אֵין שִׂמְחָה אֶלָּא בְּבָשָׂר... וְעַכְשָׁיו שֶׁאֵין בֵּית הַמִּקְדָּשׁ קַיָּים אֵין שִׂמְחָה אֶלָּא בְּיַיִן
Checked against Sefaria's text, word for word, 2026-09-28
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).
יוֹתֵר מִמַּה שֶּׁהָעֵגֶל רוֹצֶה לִינַק פָּרָה רוֹצָה לְהָנִיק
Checked against Sefaria's text, word for word, 2026-09-28
More than the calf wants to suckle, the cow wants to nurse.
R. 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)).
אֵיזֶהוּ גִבּוֹר, הַכּוֹבֵשׁ אֶת יִצְרוֹ
Checked against Sefaria's text, word for word, 2026-09-28
"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.
Gibor, 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.
צער בעלי חיים דאורייתא
Checked against Sefaria's text, word for word, 2026-09-28
The Talmud debates whether the ban on causing animals suffering comes from the Torah itself.
The 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.
זִיל, לְכָךְ נוֹצַרְתָּ
Checked against Sefaria's text, word for word, 2026-09-28
Go. For this you were created.
Heaven'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.
מִנַּיִן שֶׁלֹּא יוֹשִׁיט אָדָם כּוֹס שֶׁל יַיִן לְנָזִיר... תַּלְמוּד לוֹמַר: וְלִפְנֵי עִוֵּר לֹא תִתֵּן מִכְשֹׁל... הָכָא בְּמַאי עָסְקִינַן? דְּקָאֵי בִּתְרֵי עֶבְרֵי נַהֲרָא
Checked against Sefaria's text, word for word, 2026-09-28
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.
Every 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?
מִנַּיִן שֶׁלֹּא יוֹשִׁיט אָדָם כּוֹס שֶׁל יַיִן לְנָזִיר, וְאֵבֶר מִן הַחַי לִבְנֵי נֹחַ? תַּלְמוּד לוֹמַר: ״וְלִפְנֵי עִוֵּר לֹא תִתֵּן מִכְשֹׁל״
Checked against Sefaria's text, word for word, 2026-09-28
From where is it derived that a person may not extend a cup of wine to a nazirite, who is prohibited from drinking wine, and that he may not extend a limb severed from a living animal to descendants of Noah? The verse states: “And you shall not put a stumbling block before the blind”
This is the opening line of the passage, in full. The translation is Sefaria's (William Davidson, Koren-Steinsaltz). One of the Talmud's first examples of lifnei iver is handing a non-Jew a limb severed from a living animal, which the laws given to Noah's descendants forbid him to eat. So the ban on helping someone do wrong also covers helping a non-Jew break a law that binds him. Checked against Sefaria's text, Hebrew and English, on 10 October 2026.
Meat was not permitted to Adam.
כָּלוּ כׇּל הַקִּיצִּין, וְאֵין הַדָּבָר תָּלוּי אֶלָּא בִּתְשׁוּבָה וּמַעֲשִׂים טוֹבִים
Checked against Sefaria's text, word for word, 2026-09-28
Rav: all the appointed end-times have already passed, and the matter now depends on nothing but teshuvah and good deeds.
Shmuel 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.
מִצְוָה הַבָּאָה בַּעֲבֵירָה
Checked against Sefaria's text, word for word, 2026-09-28
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.
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׳״
Checked against Sefaria's text, word for word, 2026-09-28
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."
The 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.
כָּל יִשְׂרָאֵל עֲרֵבִים זֶה בָּזֶה
Checked against Sefaria's text, word for word, 2026-09-28
All Israel are guarantors for one another.
לִמְּדָה תּוֹרָה דֶּרֶךְ אֶרֶץ, שֶׁלֹּא יֹאכַל אָדָם בָּשָׂר אֶלָּא לְתֵאָבוֹן
Checked against Sefaria's text, word for word, 2026-09-28
The Torah taught proper conduct: a person should eat meat only out of real appetite.
Said on the verse כִּי יַרְחִיב ה׳ אֱלֹהֶיךָ אֶת גְּבֻלְךָ. It is taught as proper conduct, not as law. The page goes on to R. Elazar ben Azaryah's scale of income: a man with one maneh buys vegetables, and a man with fifty maneh buys meat. How much meat a person eats should match what he can afford.
הַנַּח לָהֶם לְיִשְׂרָאֵל, מוּטָב שֶׁיִּהְיוּ שׁוֹגְגִין וְאַל יִהְיוּ מְזִידִין
Checked against Sefaria's text, word for word, 2026-09-28
Leave Israel alone: better that they be unwitting than deliberate transgressors.
Codified 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.
הֱוֵי דּוֹמֶה לוֹ, מָה הוּא חַנּוּן וְרַחוּם — אַף אַתָּה הֱיֵה חַנּוּן וְרַחוּם
Checked against Sefaria's text, word for word, 2026-09-28
Be like Him: as He is gracious and compassionate, so you be gracious and compassionate.
The prayer book
חֲמוֹל עַל מַעֲשֶׂיךָ. וְתִשְׂמַח בְּמַעֲשֶׂיךָ
Checked against Sefaria's text, word for word, 2026-09-28
Have compassion on Your works, and rejoice in Your works.
Said 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.
Medieval authorities
The universe does not exist for man's sake; each being exists for its own sake, and not because of some other thing. And on 'have dominion over the fish of the sea': the verse does not say that man was created for this purpose, only that this was the nature God gave him.
These are the Rambam's own words, in Friedlander's translation, from the chapter on whether creation has a purpose. He still holds that man is the most noble thing made of matter, and that plants exist for animals to eat. What he rejects is the idea that everything else was made for us. Compare Rebbi's words to the calf, 'for this you were created' (Bava Metzia 85a). The Rambam was not answering Rebbi. But his general position, written a thousand years later, means that the calf was not made for our sake.
The Rambam holds that the ban on causing animals pain comes from the Torah. His source is the angel's rebuke of Bilaam for striking his donkey.
There 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.)
The ban on putting a stumbling block before the blind, lifnei iver, also covers anyone who strengthens the hands of people doing wrong.
אָסוּר לִקְנוֹת דָּבָר הַגָּזוּל מִן הַגַּזְלָן... שֶׁכָּל הָעוֹשֶׂה דְּבָרִים אֵלּוּ וְכַיּוֹצֵא בָּהֶן מְחַזֵּק יְדֵי עוֹבְרֵי עֲבֵרָה וְעוֹבֵר עַל... וְלִפְנֵי עִוֵּר לֹא תִתֵּן מִכְשׁל
Checked against Sefaria's text, word for word, 2026-09-28
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'.
The 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.
אֵי זוֹ הִיא תְּשׁוּבָה גְּמוּרָה? זֶה שֶׁבָּא לְיָדוֹ דָּבָר שֶׁעָבַר בּוֹ, וְאֶפְשָׁר בְּיָדוֹ לַעֲשׂוֹתוֹ, וּפֵרַשׁ וְלֹא עָשָׂה מִפְּנֵי הַתְּשׁוּבָה
Checked against Sefaria's text, word for word, 2026-09-28
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.
וְזֶה שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר בִּישַׁעְיָה... מָשָׁל וְחִידָה... וְלֹא יִגְזְלוּ וְלֹא יַשְׁחִיתוּ. אֶלָּא יֹאכְלוּ דָּבָר הַמֻּתָּר בְּנַחַת
Checked against Sefaria's text, word for word, 2026-09-28
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.
This 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.'
אַךְ הַבָּשָׂר לֹא הֻרְשׁוּ בּוֹ עַד בְּנֵי נֹחַ כְּדַעַת רַבּוֹתֵינוּ, וְהוּא פְּשׁוּטוֹ שֶׁל מִקְרָא. וְהָיָה זֶה מִפְּנֵי שֶׁבַּעֲלֵי נֶפֶשׁ הַתְּנוּעָה יֵשׁ לָהֶם קְצָת מַעֲלָה בְּנַפְשָׁם... וְיֵשׁ לָהֶם בְּחִירָה בְּטוֹבָתָם וּמְזוֹנֵיהֶם וְיִבְרְחוּ מִן הַצַּעַר וְהַמִּיתָה
Checked against Sefaria's text, word for word, 2026-09-28
But meat they were not permitted until the sons of Noach, as our Rabbis hold, and that is the plain sense of the verse. And this was because creatures with a soul that moves have some standing in their soul... they choose what is good for them and their food, and they flee from pain and from death.
The dots skip his comparison of that standing to the human rational soul. He is explaining why Adam was not allowed meat, not saying that meat is forbidden now; his next words give Noach permission to eat it. He says animals choose what is good for them and flee from pain and death. That is what the Torah means when it calls an animal נֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה, a living soul.
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
Checked against Sefaria's text, word for word, 2026-09-28
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.
Written 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.
וְזֶה הַלָּאו כּוֹלֵל כְּמוֹ כֵן מִי שֶׁיַּעֲזֹר עוֹבֵר עֲבֵרָה, שֶׁהוּא מֵבִיא אוֹתוֹ שֶׁיִּתְפַּתֶּה בְּזוּלַת זֶה לַעֲבֹר פְּעָמִים אֲחֵרִים עוֹד... שֹׁרֶשׁ הַמִּצְוָה. יָדוּעַ, כִּי תִּקּוּן הָעוֹלָם וְיִשּׁוּבוֹ הוּא לְהַדְרִיךְ בְּנֵי אָדָם
Checked against Sefaria's text, word for word, 2026-09-28
And this prohibition likewise includes one who helps a transgressor, for he brings him to be tempted, through this, to transgress other times as well... The root of the commandment: it is known that the repair of the world and its settlement is to guide people.
Written on the verse וְלִפְנֵי עִוֵּר. The Chinuch's own example of helping is a loan at interest: the lender and the borrower both transgress lifnei iver (Bava Metzia 75b). In that case the help is money, and nobody is deceived.
וענינו אצלי שאכילת הבשר לבעלי חיים, מוליד בו אכזריות חמה ותכונה רעה... כשנתן הקדוש ברוך הוא רשות לנח ולבניו לאכול בשר אמר... אך את דמכם לנפשותיכם אדרוש, מפני שחשש שמפאת האכזריות והזדון אשר יתילד בהם מאכילת הבשר יהרגו איש לאחיו
Checked against Sefaria's text, word for word, 2026-09-28
And its meaning, to me, is that eating flesh breeds in a living creature cruelty, rage and a bad disposition... When the Holy One gave Noach and his sons leave to eat meat, He said, in the next verse, 'But your blood, of your lives, I will require', because He feared that from the cruelty and malice which eating meat would breed in them, a man would kill his brother.
Written on 'the lion shall eat straw like the ox.' The second set of dots skips only his verse reference (Bereishit 9:5). He draws his point from the order of the verses in Bereishit 9: first God permits meat, and right after that He forbids murder. He cites Chullin 84a for it. The Ramban and the Chinuch say the laws about animals are meant to shape our character. The Abarbanel says the same thing more strongly than either. He is not calling anyone who eats meat a murderer, and neither does this site.
נָבָל בִּרְשׁוּת הַתּוֹרָה
Checked against Sefaria's text, word for word, 2026-09-28
A degenerate with the Torah's permission.
The Ramban teaches that kedusha, holiness, means holding back even in what the Torah permits.
אֵין זֶה מוֹסִיף אֶלָּא עוֹשֶׂה סְיָג לַתּוֹרָה
Checked against Sefaria's text, word for word, 2026-09-28
This is not adding to the Torah; it is making a fence around it.
Some 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.
Later authorities
דַּאֲפִלּוּ בְּשַׁבָּת אִם יִרְצֶה שֶׁלֹּא לֶאֱכֹל בָּשָׂר הָרְשׁוּת בְּיָדוֹ... שֶׁאֵינוֹ מְחוּיָּב שֶׁיֹּאכַל בָּשָׂר וְיַיִן... וְאֵין חִיּוּב לֶאֱכֹל בָּשָׂר רַק בִּזְמַן שֶׁבֵּית הַמִּקְדָּשׁ קַיָּם
Differs from the linked edition only in expanding abbreviations — confirmed by hand · 2026-09-28
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.
R. 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.
בְּהֵמָה שֶׁנָּפְלָה לְאַמַּת הַמַּיִם, אִם הַמַּיִם עֲמוּקִים וּמִפְּנֵי כָּךְ אֵין יָכוֹל לְפַרְנְסָהּ בִּמְקוֹמָהּ, מֵבִיא כָּרִים וּכְסָתוֹת וְנוֹתֵן תַּחְתֶּיהָ מִשּׁוּם צַעַר בַּעֲלֵי חַיִּים
Checked against Sefaria's text, word for word, 2026-09-28
An animal that fell into a water channel on Shabbat: if the water is deep, so that it cannot be fed where it is, one brings cushions and blankets and puts them under it, because of tza'ar ba'alei chayim. The ruling continues: even though that renders a vessel unusable, which is otherwise a rabbinic Shabbat prohibition.
With Mishnah Berurah 305:69-70, which states the reason plainly: tza'ar ba'alei chayim is Torah-level, and the rabbis set aside their own Shabbat prohibitions to prevent it. The next ruling (305:20) does the same for a cow whose milk is hurting her.
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
Checked against Sefaria's text, word for word, 2026-09-28
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.
This 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.
Reads 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.
וְיוֹדֵעַ תְּכוּנַת נַפְשָׁהּ לָתֵת לָהּ מְזוֹנוֹתֶיהָ בָּעֵת הָרָאוּי וּכְפִי הָרָאוּי, וְשֶׁלֹּא יַכְבִּיד מְלַאכְתָּהּ יוֹתֵר עַל יְכׇלְתָּהּ... גַּם אִם תִּרְאֶה מִמֶּנּוּ מִדַּת הָרַחֲמִים הוּא מִצַּד הָאַכְזָרִיּוּת הַנִּסְתָּר בּוֹ, לְמָשָׁל שֶׁיְּרַחֵם עַל הָאָדָם הַכָּבוּשׁ תַּחַת יָדוֹ וְלֹא יַהַרְגֶנּוּ כְּדֵי שֶׁיִּכְבְּשֶׁנּוּ לְעֶבֶד לְצׇרְכּוֹ, שֶׁיְּרַחֵם עַל בְּהֶמְתּוֹ וְיוֹסִיף בְּמַאֲכָלָהּ כְּדֵי שֶׁיַּכְבִּיד עָלֶיהָ עֲבוֹדָה בְּיֶתֶר שְׂאֵת
Checked against Sefaria's text, word for word, 2026-09-28
And he knows the nature of her soul, to give her her food at the right time and in the right measure, and not to burden her work beyond her strength... Even if you see in him the trait of mercy, it comes from the cruelty hidden in him: as when he spares the man crushed under his hand and does not kill him, in order to keep him as a slave for his own use; or has mercy on his animal and adds to her feed, in order to load heavier work on her.
The Malbim, a nineteenth-century commentator, explains both halves of the verse (Mishlei 12:10). The righteous man knows his animal in practical ways: when to feed her, how much, and how much work she can bear. The wicked man's mercy is kindness he gives because it pays: he feeds his animal more so he can work her harder. The Malbim also says, in passing, that tza'ar ba'alei chayim is Torah law. Compare animal welfare standards written by the companies that sell the animals. The verse describes kindness of that kind, given because it pays. The site does not use the verse to call the reader wicked.
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
Differs from the linked edition only in expanding abbreviations — confirmed by hand · 2026-09-28
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.
Read 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.
לְקַיֵּם צַוָּאַת רַבִּי יְהוּדָה הֶחָסִיד שֶׁלֹּא לְגַדֵּל אֶפְרוֹחִים כְּלָל, כִּי לֹא יוּכַל לַעֲמֹד עַל הַמִּשְׁמָר שֶׁלֹּא יִהְיֶה לָהֶם צַעַר
Checked against Sefaria's text, word for word, 2026-09-28
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.
R. 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.
The 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.
This ruling defeats any argument that slaughter itself is forbidden as tza'ar ba'alei chayim, and the site says so plainly. In halacha, killing the animal is not the problem. The problem is pain caused to the animal while she is alive. R. Yechezkel Landau did not invent this rule. He cites the Terumat HaDeshen (מהרא"י, Pesakim uChtavim §105) and adopts it, so the rule is older and carries more weight than one posek's opinion. He then rules on sport hunting, and this site takes his ruling seriously. By strict law, he says, hunting does not violate tza'ar ba'alei chayim. He still condemns it as cruelty and not the way of the children of Abraham, forbids it under a separate prohibition, and tells the man who asked to stay home. An earlier version of this entry printed a vocalized Hebrew sentence here as if it were the responsum's wording. It was a summary, not the text, and it has been removed. This entry now states only the position, in English.
אֲבָל אִם יְכוֹלִים לִקְנוֹת בְּמָקוֹם אַחֵר מוּתָּר לִמְכּוֹר לָהֶם כׇּל דָּבָר... וְיֵשׁ מַחְמִירִין וְנָהֲגוּ לְהָקֵל כִּסְבָרָא הָרִאשׁוֹנָה וְכׇל בַּעַל נֶפֶשׁ יַחְמִיר לְעַצְמוֹ
Checked against Sefaria's text, word for word, 2026-09-28
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.
In 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.
Modern authorities
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
Not machine-checkable — no Sefaria text to compare. It has to be checked by hand instead.
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.
Written 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.
A 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.
The site cites the book itself and its author. Every text this site prints that also appears in the book is cited at its own address and was checked there, against Sefaria or the original publication; nothing on this site rests on the book's authority. No authority on Jewish law has ruled on buying meat, milk and eggs, and a letter of approval is not a ruling.
הכלל הוא שכל מה שהאדם עושה לתועלתו ולא לשם אכזריות מותר, ולכן מותר לגדל בצפיפות רבה תרנגולים ועגלים לבשר כדי לחסוך בעלויות גידולם
Not machine-checkable — no Sefaria text to compare. It has to be checked by hand instead.
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.
This 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.
A 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.
Printed alongside the Zelcers' reply in the same issue (Hakirah 25, pp. 29–36), so the exchange runs three rounds and the reader can follow all of it. Their reading of Igrot Moshe EH 4:92 is that Rav Moshe forbade white veal for ona'ah, misleading the buyer, rather than for cruelty.
Written 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.
This is the strongest source against this site's case. A senior posek was sent a written description of the practices, granted that they may well be tza'ar ba'alei chayim, and permitted the food anyway. On the usual explanation, the prohibition falls on the person doing the act, and halacha has no way to make the meat itself forbidden. Even on that view, the suffering he describes is still wrong; the ruling only says the meat may be eaten. The Zelcers also report Kamenetsky's view that Igrot Moshe's veal teshuvah in fact rejects the Terumat HaDeshen and the Rema who codified him, and that Rav Moshe simply declined to say so.
Data
83+ billion land animals slaughtered per year, roughly 2,600 every second.
Chickens alone are about 75 of the 83 billion, 75.4 billion slaughtered in 2022 in the same FAOSTAT series, which is why step four starts from one hen. Fish are counted separately.
Fish 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.
Five 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.
A 1977 study by researchers of cattle farming, not an advocacy paper. That is why this page relies on it. It has two limits: it did not measure whether she suffers more or less than a human mother would, and it is one study from one herd.
When 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.
A controlled study. The hens' bodies and behaviour responded to their chicks' distress. The authors call this one of the building blocks of empathy. They do not claim that hens feel empathy the way people do.
Male 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.
A peer-reviewed review, cited for the practice and its rationale rather than a precise tally (global estimates cluster around 6–7 billion a year). Germany's ban took effect 1 January 2022; France's decree followed, with white-egg layer lines, over a tenth of French male chicks, exempted because their sex is harder to tell inside the egg. Testing the egg's sex before it hatches is now the alternative. It does nothing at all for the hens themselves.
The 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.
This is a regulator's scientific opinion, not a campaign document, and that is why it is here. It describes harm and recommends phasing the practice out. It does not call the industry cruel. That word is this site's own, and the site argues for it; it does not borrow it from the Panel.
Commercial 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.
The common line that these birds are physically incapable of mating is stronger than the literature supports: they can mate, but not reliably enough for commercial production, so the whole industry runs on insemination by hand.
Calves 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.
Some EU member states require anaesthesia for disbudding and others do not. No one disputes that disbudding causes pain. The states differ only on whether farmers must prevent it.
Meat, 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.
Two sentences of its abstract matter for how every figure drawn from it should be read. First, the caveat: "Impact can vary 50-fold among producers of the same product", so an average says very little about any one farm. Second, what the authors concluded once they had accounted for that: "Most strikingly, impacts of the lowest-impact animal products typically exceed those of vegetable substitutes, providing new evidence for the importance of dietary change."
These are not modelled meals but the recorded diets of 55,504 real people, matched to 570 life-cycle assessments. Measured against people eating 100g of meat a day or more, vegan diets came to 25.1% of their greenhouse gas (95% uncertainty interval 15.1–37.0%), 25.1% of their land use (7.1–44.5%), 27.0% of their eutrophication (19.4–40.4%), 34.3% of their biodiversity impact (12.0–65.3%) and 46.4% of their water use (21.0–81.0%). Every measure moved with the amount of animal food eaten.
This study answers a common objection: that figures for each food describe idealised meals, not what people really eat. These are diets people actually reported eating, in Britain, and the ranking holds all the way down the scale: high meat, medium, low, fish, vegetarian, vegan. The uncertainty intervals are wide, especially for water and biodiversity, and the site quotes them in full. Even at the least favourable end of every interval, the vegan diets still do less harm.
Results vary a lot within each food, so it is fair to object that an average says nothing about one farm. So compare in the objector's favour: the cleanest tenth of each animal food against the dirtiest tenth of each plant food, per 100g of protein. The plants still come out ahead: lamb 12 and beef 9 kg CO₂eq at their cleanest, against tofu 3.5, nuts 2.4 and peas 0.8 at their dirtiest. Only one pair ties: the best chicken and the worst nuts are both 2.4.
An analysis of Poore & Nemecek's own dataset rather than a new measurement, and cited here for exactly that: it is the percentile spread the underlying paper reports, set out so a reader can see where the distributions overlap and where they do not. The chicken-against-nuts row is the one result that goes against this page, and the chart shows it. Our World in Data is a project of the Global Change Data Lab and the University of Oxford, and publishes its sources and code with every chart.
Grazing does pull carbon into the soil. The report puts the global potential at 295–800 Mt CO₂eq a year, which "offsets 20-60% of emissions from grazing systems: 4–11% of total livestock emissions, and between 0.6 and 1.6% of total annual greenhouse gas emissions." The effect is also time-limited and reversible: soil saturates, and what it holds is released again if the management stops.
The site cites it for who wrote it as well as for what it says. Eleven researchers across Oxford, Wageningen, Aberdeen, the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, FiBL and CSIRO, and the report spends as much effort correcting overstatement by campaigners against livestock as by advocates for it. It is blunt that the highly ambitious claims made for holistic grazing are wrong, and equally blunt that grass-fed systems have real benefits that carbon accounting misses. The site uses the report's figures on soil carbon. It does not adopt the report's wider view of grazing.
Appropriately 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.
This paper carried a stated expiry of 31 December 2021 and was replaced in February 2025. See Academy of Nutrition & Dietetics (2025). Cited here because it is the paper the all-stages-of-life claim traces to; the 2025 replacement restricts its scope to adults and does not repeat the life-cycle language. Both are on the page.
The 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.
The 2025 paper covers only adults. It drops the 2016 paper's explicit endorsement for pregnancy, infancy and childhood. Those were not retracted; the review was simply limited to adults. The site uses the narrower claim. Its argument needs only this: the adult reading it can eat a healthy diet with no food from animals.
Vitamin 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.
Two teams, simultaneously: Rickes, Brink, Koniuszy, Wood and Folkers at Merck ("Crystalline Vitamin B12," Science 107:396–7, the linked paper) and E. Lester Smith at Glaxo ("Purification of Anti-pernicious Anæmia Factors from Liver," Nature 161:638–9, doi 10.1038/161638a0). The site's claim that ours is the first generation able to live this way depends on this date, so the site cites the original papers, not a later account.
The USDA oversees 22 producer-funded "checkoff" marketing programs, the ones behind "Got Milk?" and "Beef. It's What's for Dinner". In 2016 their assessments totalled over $885 million, ranging from $0.6 million for popcorn to $332.1 million for dairy.
A neutral government-auditor source, not an advocacy one. Checkoff assessments are federally mandated marketing orders; the figures are the GAO's, for 2016. Private advertising by processors and restaurant chains is separate, and far larger.