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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 look like mistakes and are not. 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.

The prohibitions are the Torah's; this sheet issues no new ruling. Positions attributed to named people are theirs. Found an error in a citation? Send it →

39 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

“A debate on whether animal suffering is a Torah-level prohibition.”

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, it binds. No opinion in the tradition permits needless animal suffering.

§2

זִיל, לְכָךְ נוֹצַרְתָּ

“Go. For this you were created.”

Bava Metzia 85aThe calf that hid its head under Rebbi's cloak, and the thirteen years of affliction that followed. The same passage gives Heaven's verdict both ways. When he sent the calf off: הוֹאִיל וְלָא קָא מְרַחֵם, לֵיתוֹ עֲלֵיהּ יִסּוּרִין, since he shows no mercy, let suffering come upon him. When he stopped his maidservant sweeping out a litter of young weasels, saying 'His mercy is on all His works': 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 derivation of tza'ar ba'alei chayim.
  • 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 10Tza'ar ba'alei chayim applies only to causing an animal pain and leaving it alive; to kill an animal does not fall under tza'ar ba'alei chayim at all. Stated here as a summary of the ruling, in the site's words; follow the link for the responsum's own.
  • Minchas Chinuch 80Reads the Rambam as holding tza'ar ba'alei chayim Biblical; the Ohr Same'ach reads otherwise.

Step 2 of 5 · The permission

Why did God allow meat?

Why God allowed meat, the Torah's word for it, which is craving, and the one thing 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' term for ordinary meat is “meat of craving.” The verse permits it for craving.

§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 3:15Spain, early fifteenth century; the chapter is on Kayin and Hevel. Between the first fragment and the second he adds that meat 'produces coarseness and dullness in the soul,' and after the third that it was withheld at Creation 'though it is good food,' as wine is good and the Nazir who abstains is called holy. So he is not saying meat is bad; he is saying what kind of permission it is. His 'they' are the Sages of Chullin 84a. His last clause is a Rishon's reading of the permission, not a ruling; Devarim 12:20 grants meat for craving.

§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 4:92Addressed to his son-in-law, R. Moshe David Tendler. Read it whole before leaning on it. The prohibition is laid on the producers. To the eater he gives advice for the scrupulous, not a decree, and his bar on eating rests largely on defects that make the meat non-kosher: strict slaughterers passed about 15% of such calves, lenient ones 44 to 45%. The same ruling permits pain for real human need, and fattening animals so their meat tastes better. White veal fails because the benefit is cosmetic, not because profit is disqualifying; one published reading says misleading the buyer decided it (Zivotofsky et al., Hakirah 25). Its closing line calls raising it forbidden 'מאיסור צער בע״ח מדאורייתא', by the Torah's own prohibition on causing animals pain, as printed in the linked source sheet.

§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

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 5:14The line later rulings on animal pain argue from, and it sits in a gloss on the laws of castration. The Rema codifies the Terumat HaDeshen (Pesakim uChtavim 105) and the Issur VeHeter HaAruch (59): human need makes it permitted. Everything downstream, the Noda BiYehuda on hunting, Igrot Moshe on veal, the debates over what counts as need, is an argument about this sentence. Read all three clauses. The permission is conditioned on need. The example is a real practice of the Rema's day. And the last clause, which in the original opens with 'nevertheless', is the Rema's own report that people refrained, and his own word for why: cruelty.

§9

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 doubled verb has no object at first; the food is named only at the end. It starts in the hangers-on among them and spreads to Israel: in this story the wanting is catching. The next verses supply the setting the story turns on: manna, every morning, already falling.

§10

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 11:20God granting the meat, not refusing it: a month of what was demanded, until the wanting is gone. לְזָרָא appears nowhere else in Tanach. And with the need already met by manna, the verse calls the complaint that went with the craving, the weeping to go back to Egypt, מְאַסְתֶּם: a rejection of the One who was doing the feeding.

§11

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 11:33–34Not a punishment for eating meat, which the Torah permits and this site does not dispute; the camp was fed, and the place is named for the craving, not for the food. What the story judges is appetite that keeps demanding after the need is met.

Also cited in this chapter

Step 3 of 5 · Complicity

Is buying it the same as doing it?

A dog and a hen suffer alike, and Jewish law forbids helping anyone do wrong, including by buying from him.

§12

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

§13

נֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה

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

Bereishit 1:30

§14

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

§15

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 gap marked with dots skips only the verse reference. The robbery is finished before the buyer arrives, the robber is not his agent, and the Rambam still puts the purchase under the ban on helping a wrong, because it strengthens the hands of the next robbery. That is the buyer's case, in the Rambam's own code, and step three carries it over to the farm.

§16

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 6bThe sugya every discussion of lifnei iver starts from. The Torah-level prohibition, the Gemara says, is the case of the nazirite across the river: he cannot reach the wine without you. Where he could have taken it himself, handing it over is not the Torah's lifnei iver, 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). This is the narrow reading the step on complicity raises against itself: the question is whether a shed that runs on orders is the near bank or the far one.

§17

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 151:1The Rema's gloss on selling to idolaters things they will use in their worship, the code's standing ruling on lifnei iver where the sinner has another supplier. Read all of it, because it is the strongest objection to the step on complicity and also its answer. The lenient view is real and it is the custom: where the wrong could be done without you, the law does not hold you for it. And the sentence ends by handing the question back to the person: a ba'al nefesh, someone who takes his own soul seriously, holds himself to the stricter view anyway. That is the Rema's own word for what this site asks 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.

§18

יוֹתֵר מִמַּה שֶּׁהָעֵגֶל רוֹצֶה לִינַק פָּרָה רוֹצָה לְהָנִיק

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

Pesachim 112aR. Akiva to R. Shimon bar Yochai, in prison, explaining why he wants to teach even more than his student wants to learn. It is an image for teaching, and it works as one only because everyone who heard it knew it was true of cows. The Talmud takes the mother's wanting for granted; the dairy schedule in step four is built around cutting it off (Hudson & Mullord (1977)).

§19

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 fixes when a newborn may be brought as an offering, the eighth day and after; it is not a law of husbandry, and this site does not read it as a ban on taking a calf from a cow. Asa Keisar's sefer does, and that reading is not repeated here. What stands without any reading is the number: the Torah will not have a calf at the altar before he has had a week with his mother, and the dairy takes him within a day (EFSA, calves (2023)).

Also cited in this chapter

  • 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, laying hens, 2023The EU's own scientific panel on beak trimming: it causes negative welfare consequences, it is done to manage injurious pecking, and it "should not be necessary if good management practices are implemented", the Panel recommends phasing it out. On cages, it finds the space and the barren environment prevent hens from performing the behaviours they are motivated to perform.
  • EFSA, calves, 2023Calves are routinely disbudded, the horn bud destroyed with a hot iron or caustic paste, and the Panel states plainly that both procedures cause severe pain. It also addresses castration, and the separation of the calf from its mother, which it identifies as a welfare consequence in its own right: "The great majority of dairy farms separate dam and calf immediately after birth." The Panel recommends keeping them 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, on the order of billions a year worldwide. The practice was judged indefensible enough that Germany banned it 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 exposed to a mildly aversive puff of air, mother hens showed the physiological and behavioural marks of empathy: heart rate up, eye temperature down, alertness heightened, and more calling to the chicks, responding to the young's distress as a stressor 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 it?

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.

§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 1:15:9A hard source to answer, and it is on the other side. Peninei Halacha is among the most widely read halachic works in Israel, and here it addresses industrial density directly and permits it, on the ground that benefit rather than cruelty is the test. It does mean the question has reached a posek's desk and been answered 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 now can forbid meat for every Jew. A rav can still fence his own community, and none has; and applying the existing prohibition on needless suffering to a practice needs no decree at all.

§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 confines the silence to the public: one person 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 leaning on it in either direction. 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 confines the silence to public rebuke and reverses for the individual: with a single person, one must rebuke until struck or cursed. A rav and one congregant is the individual case, not the public one.

Also cited in this chapter

  • B12 isolated, 1948Within living memory, meaning ours is the first generation for which a complete, reliably healthy animal-free diet has ever been practically possible.
  • Academy of Nutrition & Dietetics, 2025The Academy's current position, in effect to 31 December 2032: in adults, appropriately planned vegetarian and vegan dietary patterns can be nutritionally adequate. Vegan dietary patterns, it says, exclude all foods of animal origin.
  • 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.
  • Rema, EH 5:14See §8.
  • 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 again on Yom Kippur; quoted here from the Sephardic holiday prayer book on Sefaria, where it stands in both. In its setting the plea is for those standing in judgment that day. The word it chooses, ma'asecha, Your works, is the word of Tehillim 145:9, His mercy is on all His works, which covers everything He made. It is a prayer for mercy, not a ruling about food.

§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 4:11The last words of the book. God's closing argument for sparing a city ends by counting the animals in it. Read on Yom Kippur afternoon, every year, by every congregation that keeps the day.

§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 says it as a rule with two directions, and the site quotes only the first; the second half says the reverse about one who does not.

§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, and the page then records the Tannaitic form of the same dispute, R. Eliezer against R. Yehoshua. Note where R. Yehoshua actually lands: not that teshuvah is unnecessary, but that if Israel will not come to it, God will raise a king whose decrees are as harsh as Haman's until they do. Both sides route the redemption through teshuvah. They differ over whether we choose it.

§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 12:1The strongest source against reading Yeshayahu 11 literally, and it belongs to the same Rambam this site leans on everywhere else. He reads the wolf as the nations and the lamb as Israel. Worth reading to the end of the halacha even so: unpacking the parable, he keeps the eating in it. The change he describes is from taking by force to eating what is permitted, and he anchors 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

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, and the next line says the same against kiddush. Shalom bayit is not a soft consideration the halacha nods at; here it outranks the Chanukah lamp and kiddush in a straight contest. Cited here for its weight, not as a ruling on anyone's kitchen. Nothing here decides which household conflicts it covers, which is the question to bring to a rav.

§32

וּרְדוּ

“and have dominion, the grant of rule over the animals, the verse the 'dominion' argument leans on”

Bereishit 1:28

§33

לְעׇבְדָהּ וּלְשׇׁמְרָהּ

“God placed the human in the garden 'to work it and to guard it'. The mandate is not only to use the world but to keep it.”

Bereishit 2:15

§34

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 4:1The word is the one Nimrod carries in Bereishit 10:9. Ben Zoma is not coining a metaphor beside the ordinary meaning of gibor; he asks which man deserves the word and answers with the one who can decline something he wants.

§35

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 it whenever he finished the book of Iyov, and read whole it is a line about mortality, not about menus: everything dies, so what matters is the name you leave. The half that gets quoted at dinner tables, 'an animal's end is slaughter', is a description of what happens to animals in a world where people slaughter them. It is not a statement of what they are for, and the Talmud never uses it as one.

§36

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, the standard commentary printed beside the Shulchan Aruch, in a note on the Purim meal. He is reasoning 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 generalises, and lands on the Pesachim 109a distinction: the obligation belonged to the Temple.

§37

כָּל יִשְׂרָאֵל עֲרֵבִים זֶה בָּזֶה

“All Israel are guarantors for one another.”

Shevuot 39a

§38

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, the same phrase it uses for you.”

Bereishit 1:20–21

§39

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 order of a household's meals (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. Said of a courtyard with a few chicks in it.

Also cited in this chapter

  • Bereishit 1:29Humanity's first diet, containing no animals.
  • Bamidbar 11:4See §9.
  • Beitzah 30aSee §22.
  • Noda BiYehuda II, YD 10Tza'ar ba'alei chayim applies only to causing an animal pain and leaving it alive; to kill an animal does not fall under tza'ar ba'alei chayim at all. Stated here as a summary of the ruling, in the site's words; follow the link for the responsum's own.
  • Vayikra 22:27See §19.
  • 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: in adults, appropriately planned vegetarian and vegan dietary patterns can be nutritionally adequate. Vegan dietary patterns, it says, exclude all foods of animal origin.
  • Poore & Nemecek, Science, 2018Meat, aquaculture, eggs and dairy use ~83% of the world's farmland and return 18% of humanity's calories, and 37% of its protein. 38,700 farms across 119 countries.

How to use this sheet.

Read the Hebrew first. The translation is there to help, not to replace it. Where a text carries a note, the note gives the limits or the dispute a careful reader needs to know, and it is not optional.

Every text names where it lives. Take the reference to a shelf or to Sefaria and check it. The whole site is built on the promise that you can, and the promise is worth nothing unless somebody does.

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