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ELIZABETH APPLEBAUM
AppleTree Editor

Does Judaism permit hunting?

efore the likes of
Olympian Mark Spitz,
and he-man guys like
wrestler Goldberg, there
was no end to the jokes about Jews
and sports (remember, "What's the
smallest book ever written? Jewish
Sports Stars"). Jewish hunters,
though — that's still a short sub-
ject.
There's a reason. Halachah
(Jewish law) is extremely detailed
when it comes to the treatment of
animals: There is absolutely no
room in the Tanach (Hebrew
Bible) for any cruelty to or abuse
of animals. In fact, there are times
when animals' needs come ahead
of those of humans.
For example, Jews are obligated
to feed their pets before they
themselves eat. And, according to
the Talmud (in Chulin 60b), hunt-
ing — especially when it is merely
for sport — falls into the category
of cruelty to animals, and, there-
fore, is forbidden. Consequently,
any animal killed by a hunter
(even those animals that are
kosher) are, the Book of Exodus
(22:30) says, treife, not kosher.
In the earliest days, hunting did
exist, of course. This was not hunt-
ing for pleasure, but rather for
food needed to survive. No one
was able to just pop into his local
butcher shop back then. Those
who wanted to eat had to go out
and find food for themselves and
their family.
But already by biblical times, the
nature of hunting had changed.
No longer only a means of procur-
ing food, it became a sport, and a
sport of the upper class, at that.
Drawings from Mesopotamia and
Egypt show kings and other aristo-
crats hunting lions not because
they wanted to eat their meat, but
because they wanted to show how
utterly manly they Nvere.
The Torah discusses two hunters,
men of noble descent: Esau and
Nimrod. (King Herod also loved
to hunt, and indeed was said to
have been addicted to the sport.)

.

The rabbis came to view Esau and
Nimrod with disdain, specifically
because of their love of hunting.
What is interesting is that the rab-
bis based their views specifically
and solely on moral grounds,
rather than any specific wording in
the Torah. For while the Torah
does mention the act of hunting, it
does so only to forbid hunting on
Shabbat, when one cannot kill and
cannot trap.
"The only hunters we find [in
the Tanach] are Nimrod and
Esau," Rabbi Ezekiel Landau
(1713-1793) wrote in response to
a Jewish man who asked whether
he might be permitted to hunt on
his own estate. "And this is not the
way of the descendants of
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob."
A rabbi of the medieval period,
Rabbi Meir of Rothenberg, said
that those who hunted for pleasure
would not be permitted to join in
the glorious feast in the world to
come, while Maimonides said that,
"He who hunts birds transgresses
the law 'Thou shall not destroy."'
A man who hunts for pleasure,
he wrote, "is unworthy of the
name of 'Jew."'
One of Judaism's greatest fig-
ures, Rabbi Akiva, stated that one
may not kill a wild animal until he
has given it a trial before 23
judges — which is the law for
human beings. This was not
meant to be taken literally, but it
does reflect the seriousness with
which Jewish scholars understand
the importance of all of God's
creatures.
At the same time, and despite
what some animal-rights support-
ers assert, Judaism does not advo-
cate vegetarianism. In fact, Jews
are, at times, obligated to eat
meat. When Judaism speaks
about having a seudah, a festive
meal for Shabbat, holidays, and
special occasions such as a wed-
ding, the term is understood to
mean specifically a meat meal.
However, it is, of course, not just
any meat. The animal must be
killed in a specific manner, then
prepared appropriately, for it to
be kosher. H

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