The Misspent Youth Of Gilon Tzufriedenzucher

For E.R., who’s smart enough to know what we’re really good at.

The pathetic tale of Gilon Tzufriedenzucher, who spent his youth desperately striving for satisfaction and personal fulfillment via athletic achievement, only to be frustrated by the superior jumping ability of the average alley cat and the swimming ability of the average carp:

סיפור ושאלה בצידו?

הרגשת הסיפוק העצומה והנפלאה אותה מרגיש כל עמל בתורה, גם היא מחסדי ד’ עם בריותיו ואהבתו עליהם, שהיא המסייעתו להתגבר על יצרו ולעשות רצון יוצרו, יחד עם הרגשת הריקנות והחדלון אותה מרגיש כל מי שמבטל את זמנו להבל וריק ובטל מתלמודו, ובמיוחד אותם אלו שאינם שומרי תורה ומצוות, שכל ימי חייהם בתוהו ובשממון, גם הרגשות אלו הם מחסדו הגדול, לעורר את אלו המרגישים כן, לתור ולחפש אחר התכלית האמיתית של החיים, שהיא בשמירת התורה והמצוות ובעמלה של תורה.

בעולמם של אלו הרחוקים משמירת התורה והמצוות, שומעים חדשות לבקרים אודות אלו שהשקיעו עמל של שנים רבות, עשו מעשים משונים ביותר, וכל זה בכדי להגיע להשגים מיוחדים, ולזכות בהם למעט פרסום ותהילה, כאשר הדחף האמיתי שעומד מאחורי מעשיהם אלו, הוא הרגשה נוראה של חוסר סיפוק עצמי מהחיים היומיומיים, והצורך באיזו שהיא עטרה ומטרה שעליה ישקיעו את כל כוחותיהם., וכל זה נובע ממה שד’ טבע בנפש האדם לרצות להוסיף עוד ועוד ברוחניות, כדי שנזכה לחיי העולם הבא. ולבסוף, כשכובשים את ההר הגבוה עליו טיפסו, כשהגיעו לפסגה, ורואים שעדיין הרגשתם הרעה נשארה כמתחילה ואולי אפילו התעצמה, או שמקבלים דכאון עמוק, או שמחפשים אחר פסגה חדשה ורעיונות מטורפים אחרים.

פעמים רבות שומעים על אנשים מבוגרים שד’ חנן אותם בכסף לרוב, ומחמת תסכולם הם מחפשים אחר מטרה מיוחדת, כמו לטפס ברגליהם על הר גבוה ועצום, אשר חלק גדול מהעולים עליו נופלים בדרכם בבורות או מחליקים אלי מות, או לחצות אוקינוסים בסירת מפרש קטנה, וכל מיני רעיונות דומים, כאשר הצד השווה שבהם הוא, שמסכנים את עצמם ומשקיעים כוחות וממון לרוב בשביל איזה שהוא רעיון, כאשר מטרתם האמיתית היא להגיע להרגשת סיפוק, אך אצל כולם, גם כשמגיעים למטרה שהציבו בפניהם, שפעמים רבות היא מהולה בכבוד דמיוני של פרסום ברחבי העולם, בכל זאת, הסיפוק מהם והלאה.

כך גם התנהלו חייו של גילון צופרידענזוכער [=המחפש את אושרו וסיפוקו] שגדל בבית שבו המצב הכלכלי משופר, עם אפשריות רבות ומגוונות, ולמרות היותו תלמיד מצטיין בכל המקצועות, לא הרגיש כלל סיפוק והנאה, וכל ימיו היה מרדף מתמיד אחר הסיפוק והנאה, עד כי נדמה היה, שבכל שהוא עומד להגיע אליהם, הם מתרחקים ממנו בכפליים.

מה לא עשה גילון בכדי להגיע לסיפוק, הוא למד ‘קפיצה וניתור לגבוה’, אך גם לאחר אימון של שנים הוא לא היה יכול כלל להתמודד מול חתול רחוב ממוצע, שבלא כל אימון קופץ הרבה יותר ממנו. גם לימודי השחייה בהם הצטיין, עד שלאחר אימונים מפרכים הפך להיות מהשחיינים המהירים ביותר בכל איזור מגוריו, בכל זאת, קרפיון ממוצע שחה הרבה יותר טוב ומהר ממנו.1

Poor Gilon’s mistake was his apparent neglect of distance running, the “one exception to our general [athletic] paltriness”:

All Men Can’t Jump

Why nearly every sport except long-distance running is fundamentally absurd.

By David Stipp | Posted Monday, June 4, 2012, at 7:20 AM ET

At first glance the annual Man vs. Horse Marathon, set for June 9 in Wales, seems like a joke sport brought to us by the same brilliant minds behind dwarf tossing and gravy wrestling. It was, after all, the product of a pints-fueled debate in a Welsh pub, and for years its official starter was rock musician Screaming Lord Sutch, founder of the Official Monster Raving Loony Party. But the jokiness is misleading: When viewed through science’s clarifying lens, the funny marathon is one of the few sports that isn’t a joke.

Hear me out, sports fans—I’m a basketball nut myself, and so the joke is as much on me as anyone. To see where I’m coming from, you can’t do better than examining basketball’s most physically talented player, Michael Jordan. He was hailed as nearly repealing the law of gravity, and during his prime he made rival players look as if they were moving in slow motion. But Air Jordan wasn’t in the same league as a house cat when it comes to leaping. Consider how casually young cats can jump up onto refrigerators. To match that, a man would have to do a standing jump right over the backboard. And a top-notch Frisbee dog corkscrewing through the air eight feet up to snag a whizzing disc makes Jordan look decidedly human when it comes to the fantastic quickness, agility, strength, and ballistic precision various animals are endowed with.

There’s no denying it—our kind started substituting brains for brawn long ago, and it shows: We can’t begin to compete with animals when it comes to the raw ingredients of athletic prowess. Yet being the absurdly self-enthralled species we are, we crowd into arenas and stadiums to marvel at our pathetic physical abilities as if they were something special. But there is one exception to our general paltriness: We’re the right honorable kings and queens of the planet when it comes to long-distance running.

The Wales marathon has helped demonstrate that. Its originator was a Welsh pub owner named Gordon Green. One day in 1979 he got into an argument with an equestrian friend about the relative strengths of men and horses as distance runners. Green insisted a human could beat a horse in a long race, and to prove his point he helped instigate the marathon in 1980. For the next 24 years, he found himself losing the argument as riders on horseback left human runners behind. But then it finally happened—in 2004 a British man named Huw Lobb won. Three years later Germany’s Florian Holzinger outran the horses, as did one other human contestant. The media loved it—a predictable farce had become a man-bites-dog story. Bookies were less enthused; they had to pay out on bets made at 16-to-1 odds favoring the horses.

The oddsmakers would have known better if they’d been following the work of Harvard anthropologist Daniel Lieberman and University of Utah biologist Dennis Bramble. They jointly proposed in a 2004 paper that we’re superlatively endowed by evolution to go long. Our long-striding legs are packed with springlike tendons, muscles, and ligaments that enable us to briefly store elastic energy as we come down on a foot and then recoil to help propel us forward. Tellingly, the most important of these springs, our big, strong Achilles tendons, aren’t found in early human precursors such as Australopithecus—it seems that the high-end tendons evolved along with other adaptations for distance running in the genus Homo when it appeared on the African savannah about 2 million years ago.

We’ve inherited large leg and foot joints from those ancestors, which spread out high forces that must be absorbed when running. To help ensure stability on two legs, we have big gluteus maximus muscles. (Chimps, which are incapable of distance running, have comparatively tiny butts.) Our clever torsos are designed to “counter-rotate” versus the hips as we run, also aiding stability. And we have an unusually large percentage of fatigue-resistant, slow-twitch muscle fibers, which make for endurance rather than speed. By contrast, most animals are geared for sprinting because they’re either predators that chase or prey that run away, and their muscles thus have much higher percentages of fast-twitch fibers than ours. (Cheetahs’ hind-leg muscles are the fast-twitch-richest of all.)

But what most sets us apart as runners is that we’re really cool—we naked apes are champion sweaters and can dissipate body heat faster than any other large mammal. Our main rivals for the endurance-running crown fall into two groups: migratory ungulates, such as horses and wildebeest, and social carnivores, such as dogs and hyenas. They can easily out-sprint us by galloping. But none can gallop very far without overheating—they largely rely on panting to keep cool, and they can’t pant when galloping, for panting involves taking very rapid, shallow breaths that would interfere with respiration when running. Dogs can gallop for only about 10 to 15 minutes before reverting to a trot, and so their distance-running speed tops out at about 3.8 meters per second. Horses’ average distance-running speed is 5.8 meters per second—a canter. Wildebeests’ is 5.1 meters per second.

Elite human runners, however, can sustain speeds up to 6.5 meters per second. Even run-of-the-mill joggers typically do between 3.2 and 4.2 meters per second, which means they can outrun dogs at distances greater than two kilometers.

Our “sustainable distance” is also hard to beat. African hunting dogs typically travel an average of 10 kilometers a day. Wolves and hyenas tend to go about 14 and 19 kilometers, respectively. In repeated distance runs, horses can cover about 20 kilometers a day. Vast throngs of human runners, by comparison, routinely run 42.2-kilometer marathons in just a few hours, and each year tens of thousands of people complete ultra-marathons of 100 kilometers and longer. (A few animals can match that under special circumstances. Huskies can trot up to 100 kilometers in Arctic conditions when forced to by people. But in warmer climes—no way.)

Given all this, you might wonder why it took so long for a human to win the Man vs. Horse Marathon. For one thing, the world’s top runners rarely compete in oddball races in rural Wales. And the 22-mile run (the Welsh race is shorter than the standard 26.2-mile marathon) through a damp, shady landscape doesn’t usually heat-stress horses much, thus largely negating the human runners’ edge. (Not surprisingly, the weather has been notably warm when men prevailed.) Human runners, by the way, have also sometimes won the annual Man Against Horse Race in Prescott, Ariz., in which contestants clamber up and down a mountain on 50 miles of rocky trails.

The article proceeds with an evolutionary explanation for our unique excellence in distance running.

  1. האיחוד בחידוד, פרשת נשא תשע”ב, גליון ר”י שנה שישית, דף האחרון []

The Emotions Of Animals, Human and Otherwise

The media was recently abuzz over the pathetic (in the classic, rather than the modern, sense) behavior of the dog Hawkeye at the funeral of his master, Navy SEAL Petty Officer Jon Tumilson, captured in photo and video.

Experts apparently disagree over whether Hawkeye might really have experienced grief comparable to that of humans. “Stephanie LaFarge, a psychologist and senior director of counseling at the A.S.P.C.A.”, as cited by The New York Times’s Well Blog, apparently believes that he could have:

[W]hile no one can know for sure simply by looking at the image, she believed that the dog was aware that his owner was in the casket. Many dogs go through a grieving process similar to what humans experience after the death of a spouse or friend but with some differences, she said. Some dogs have been known, for example, to stay near or return to the places where they last saw their owners, in many cases their grave sites.

“There are famous stories of dogs returning to a grave site every day for five years, and you can’t account for that by saying he can smell the body there,” she said. “In fact, dogs return to the grave sites of their companion dogs and animals that they grow up with.”

Anthrozoologist Dr. John Bradshaw and cognitive scientist Prof. Alexandra Horowitz seem to disagree, declaring that “non-human animals” have no concept of death, and that their cognitive experience is fundamentally different from that of humans (from about 29:40 into the audio):

[Horowitz:] To me, it does look like a kind of grieving. I mean, we have to realize that dogs are extremely tightly attached to their owners – to use a psychological term, they form a strong bond with the people with whom they live, and it’s not surprising at all to me that a dog would go to the odor1 of even a non-living person who had been in their family, and they’ll notice an absence of somebody. Now, is the experience identical to that of a child, who might have a now absent parent? I don’t think it is identical to that of a child, because the cognitive experience is different from humans to dogs. That’s my impression, and John might have another take on it.

[Bradshaw:] No, I think I would tend to agree with that. We don’t think dogs have a concept of death – I mean, that’s a clear distinction to be made. The finality of death is something that doesn’t really appear in the human repertoire perhaps until a child is four or five years old, and there’s no evidence that any animal has an idea of death, as a concept, but of course what they can do, and what they do do, is .. the attachment figure. It’s just like a dog that’s been left alone in the house, the dog wants to reattach itself, find its owner, if you like, and can’t do that because the door is closed. Likewise, if somebody’s died, then that person’s dog will seek to, and try to, reattach themselves to that person. There was a case over here where a mountain rescue dog was with somebody doing mountain rescue, that person had a heart attack and died on the mountain, wasn’t found for about a day, and the dog was still lying beside him. I don’t think the dog knew that the person was dead, his handler was dead, but he did know that that was where he needed to be, because that that was where all good things came from.

Rambam, however, agrees with LaFarge, flatly insisting that with regard to emotions such as maternal feeling “[t]here is no difference … between the pain of man and the pain of other living beings”, as such emotions are rooted not in reason, but in the imaginative faculty, which is shared by “most living things”:

וכן נאסר לשחוט אותו ואת בנו ביום אחד, סייג והרחקה, שמא ישחט מהם הבן לפני האם, כי צער בעלי חיים בכך גדול מאוד, כי אין הבדל בין צער האדם בכך וצער שאר בעלי חיים, כי אהבת האם וחנינתה על הבן אינו תוצאה של ההגיון, אלא פעולת הכוח המדמה המצוי ברוב בעלי החיים כמציאותו באדם.2

It is also prohibited to kill an animal with its young on the same day (Lev. xxii. 28), in order that people should be restrained and prevented from killing the two together in such a manner that the young is slain in the sight of the mother; for the pain of the animals under such circumstances is very great. There is no difference in this case between the pain of man 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.3

See also Rav Michael Dov (Ber) Weissmandel’s incredible hypothesis that the increase in depression in contemporary times may be attributable to the consumption of milk from cows that are uneasy and depressed due to the frustration of their mating urges.

  1. The implication that dogs’ attraction to the bodies of their deceased “family” members can only be explained via odor is what LaFarge attempts to refute by adducing “famous stories of dogs returning to a grave site every day for five years”, which we cannot account for “by saying he can smell the body there”, but she unfortunately does not document these tales. []
  2. מורה נבוכים (תרגומו של ר’ יוסף קאפח), חלק שלישי פרק מ”ח – קשר []
  3. Translation of Michael Friedländer – link.

[]

Buckbeak in the Dock

For C.S., who provided me with the volume from which our opening case study is drawn.

Buckbeak and His Defense Team

In Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, the obnoxious and supercilious Draco Malfoy foolishly and boorishly insults Buckbeak the hippogriff, and instantly receives his richly deserved comeuppance:

Trotting toward them were a dozen of the most bizarre creatures Harry had ever seen. They had the bodies, hind legs, and tails of horses, but the front legs, wings, and heads of what seemed to be giant eagles, with cruel, steel-colored beaks and large, brilliantly orange eyes. The talons on their front legs were half a foot long and deadly looking. …

“Now, firs’ thing yeh gotta know abou’ hippogriffs is, they’re proud,” said Hagrid. “Easily offended, hippogriffs are. Don’t never insult one, ’cause it might be the last thing yeh do.”

Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle weren’t listening; they were talking in an undertone and Harry had a nasty feeling they were plotting how best to disrupt the lesson. …

“This is very easy,” Malfoy drawled, loud enough for Harry to hear him. “I knew it must have been, if Potter could do it … I bet you’re not dangerous at all, are you?” he said, to the hippogriff. “Are you, you great ugly brute?”

It happened in a flash of steely talons; Malfoy let out a high-pitched scream and next moment, Hagrid was wrestling Buckbeak back into his collar as he strained to get at Malfoy, who lay curled in the grass, blood blossoming over his robes.

“I’m dying!” Malfoy yelled as the class panicked. “I’m dying, look at me! It’s killed me!”

“Yer not dyin’!” said Hagrid, who had gone very white. “Someone help me – gotta get him outta here -”1

Hagrid subsequently receives a letter, informing him that the school governors have referred the incident to the Committee for the Disposal of Dangerous Creatures:

However, we must register our concern about the hippogriff in question. We have decided to uphold the official complaint of Mr. Lucius Malfoy, and this matter will therefore be taken to the Committee for the Disposal of Dangerous Creatures. The hearing will take place on April 20th, and we ask you to present yourself and your hippogriff at the Committee’s offices in London on that date. In the meantime, the hippogriff should be kept tethered and isolated. …

“You’ll have to put up a good strong defense, Hagrid,” said Hermione, sitting down and laying a hand on Hagrid’s massive forearm. “I’m sure you can prove Buckbeak is safe.” …

“Listen, Hagrid,” [Harry] said, “you can’t give up. Hermione’s right, you just need a good defense. You can call us as witnesses -”

“I’m sure I’ve read about a case of hippogriff-baiting,” said Hermione thoughtfully, “where the hippogriff got off. I’ll look it up for you, Hagrid, and see exactly what happened.”2

The trio embarks upon some legal research on Buckbeak’s behalf:

Though Harry had by no means forgotten about Black, he couldn’t brood constantly on revenge if he wanted to help Hagrid win his case against the Committee for the Disposal of Dangerous Creatures. He, Ron, and Hermione went to the library the next day and returned to the empty common room laden with books that might help prepare a defense for Buckbeak. The three of them sat in front of the roaring fire slowly turning the pages of dusty volumes about famous cases of marauding beasts, speaking occasionally when they ran across something relevant.

“Here’s something … there was a case in 1722 … but the hippogriff was convicted – ugh, look what they did to it, that’s disgusting -”

“This might help, look – a manticore savaged someone in 1296, and they let the manticore off – oh – no, that was only because everyone was too scared to go near it …”3

They lose the case, and Buckbeak is sentenced to death;4 Ron undertakes to prepare the appeal:

Ron had taken over responsibility for Buckbeaks’ appeal. When he wasn’t doing his own work, he was poring over enormously thick volumes with names like The Handbook of Hippogriff Psychology and Fowl or Foul? A Study of Hippogriff Brutality.5

Unfortunately, they lose the appeal, too,6 but we cannot divulge Buckbeak’s ultimate fate without spoiling the novel’s dénouement.7

שור הנסקל

The law of שור הנסקל clearly would not apply in this particular case, since they are limited to lethal attacks, and not attempted murder, let alone mere assault with intent to injure. But let us counterfactually assume that Buckbeak had actually killed Draco; would the extenuating factor of Draco’s gross provocation yield a valid defense? I am not aware of any discussion of such a mitigating consideration in the law the שור הנסקל itself, but Halachah does contain the possibility of a “כי יחם לבבו” defense for the (human) perpetrator of an assault or tort, as we have discussed some two and a half years ago.

כלב רע

We have heretofore considered the applicability of the law of שור הנסקל, but another question presents itself: is Hagrid really permitted to maintain “interesting creatures”8 who pose a threat to humans? The primary locus here is the Talmudic opposition to the raising of “evil dogs”:

אמר רבי שמעון בן לקיש ואמרי לה אמר רב אסי אמר ( ריש לקיש) ואמרי לה אמר רבי אבא אמר רבי שמעון בן לקיש כל המגדל כלב רע בתוך ביתו מונע חסד מתוך ביתו שנאמר למס מרעהו חסד שכן בלשון יונית קורין לכלב למס

רב נחמן בר יצחק אמר אף פורק ממנו יראת שמים שנאמר ויראת שקי יעזוב

ההיא איתתא דעיילא לההוא ביתא למיפא נבח בה כלבא איתעקר ולדה אמר לה מרי דביתא לא תידחלי דשקילי ניביה ושקילין טופריה אמרה ליה שקולא טיבותיך ושדיא אחיזרי כבר נד ולד9

והשתא דאמרת פלגא נזקא קנסא האי כלבא דאכל אימרי ושונרא דאכלה תרנגולא משונה הוא ולא מגבינן בבבל והני מילי ברברבי אבל בזוטרי אורחיה הוא ואי תפס לא מפקינן מיניה ואי אמר קבעו לי זימנא דאזלינא לארעא דישראל קבעינן ליה ואי לא אזיל משמתינן ליה ובין כך ובין כך משמתינן ליה עד דמסלק הזיקא מדרבי נתן דתניא רבי נתן אומר מניין שלא יגדל אדם כלב רע בתוך ביתו ואל יעמיד סולם רעוע בתוך ביתו ת”ל לא תשים דמים בביתך:10

מתני’ אין מגדלין בהמה דקה בא”י אבל מגדלין בסוריא ובמדברות של ארץ ישראל אין מגדלין תרנגולין בירושלים מפני הקדשים ולא כהנים בארץ ישראל מפני הטהרות אין מגדלין חזירין בכל מקום לא יגדל אדם את הכלב אלא אם כן היה קשור בשלשלת …11

תנו רבנן לא יגדל אדם את הכלב אלא אם כן קשור בשלשלת אבל מגדל הוא בעיר הסמוכה לספר וקושרו ביום ומתירו בלילה תניא רבי אליעזר הגדול אומר המגדל כלבים כמגדל חזירים למאי נפקא מינה למיקם עליה בארור אמר רב יוסף בר מניומי אמר רב נחמן בבל כעיר הסמוכה לספר דמי תרגמה נהרדעא דריש ר’ דוסתאי דמן בירי

ובנחה יאמר שובה ה’ רבבות אלפי ישראל ללמדך שאין שכינה שורה על ישראל פחות משני אלפים ושני רבבות חסר אחת והיתה אשה מעוברת ביניהם וראויה להשלים ונבח בה כלב והפילה נמצא זה גורם לשכינה שתסתלק מישראל ההיא איתתא דעלת למיפא בההוא ביתא נבח בה כלבא אמר לה מריה לא תיסתפי מיניה שקולי ניביה אמרה ליה שקילי טיבותיך ושדיא אחיזרי כבר נד ולד:12

Rambam’s codification:

וכן אסרו חכמים לגדל חזירים בכל מקום. ולא את הכלב אלא אם כן היה קשור בשלשלת. אבל מגדל הוא כלבים בעיר הסמוכה לספר. ביום קושרו ובלילה מתירו. ואמרו חכמים ארור מגדל כלבים וחזירים מפני שהיזקן מרובה ומצוי:13

One of the earliest authorities on record as having raised the question of the noncompliance of common practice with these texts is the sixteenth century Italian Rav Yehoshua Boaz, who suggests that the precarious situation of the Jews amidst their non-Jewish neighbors legitimizes the custom of maintaining even unchained dogs:

ביום קושרו בלילה מתירו פעמים רבות תמהתי מהיכן נהגו לגדל כלבים ונראה דשמא דוקא בעיר הסמוכה לספר ביום שאינן יראין קושרו אבל בלילה שצריכין שמור יתרה מתירו ואנן שדרין ביניהם אפילו ביום מתירין בעיר הסמוכה לספר כלילה דמי כי היכי דעיר הסמוכה לספר מתירין בלילה הכי נמי לדידן אפילו ביום. הגהות:14

Maharshal rejects this, arguing that this is an overstatement of the danger, and moreover, we simply cannot allow conduct dangerous to the public welfare, security concerns notwithstanding:

ואם כן פלא בעיני, על מה נוהגין עכשיו שמגדלים. … ובחידושי מרדכי מצאתי הטעם, … ולא נהירא כלל, חדא, דעינינו רואות דאין אנו צריכין שימור יותר ביום. אף על פי שאנו דרים ביניהם, לעניין שיצילו אותנו הכלבים, יותר מעיר הסמוכה לספר. ועוד נהי דאיכא חששא טובא האידנא, וצריכה יותר שימור. מכל מקום אינה נראה להתיר כלבים, דאיכא השמת דמים בביתך, וסכנת נפשות. מחמת חששא דשימור ממון. ולא אמרו חכמים אלא ומתירו בלילה, כלומר בזמן שאין אנשים מצויים, וליכא השמת דמים בביתך שכיח כלל. מה שאין כן ביום.15

Instead, he proposes that the prohibition is only against “evil dogs” (properly defined), but nevertheless concludes that although this is the basis for the prevailing custom, it is not compelling, and a God-fearing individual should be somewhat more stringent:

ונראה דדוקא כלב רע קאמר מתניתין, אבל בסתם כלבים לא איירי, דדוקא כלב רע אסור, משום דר’ נתן, … אבל כלב שאינו רע מותר לגדל. … [ועיין שם שפלפל בזה, וסיים:]

ועל זה סמכו לנהוג היתר. ומכל מקום מהאי ליכא דחייה כל כך. דדילמא האי איירי בכלבא כופרי’ דהיינו כלבים קטנים ונבחי או כלבים גדולים שרגילים לצוד עמהם שגם כן אין רגילים להזיק. … ואף דמתניתין איייר בכלב רע היינו סתם כלב שהוא מנבח על כל מי שאינו מכיר. ומחמת נביחתו הוא קרוי רע אף שאינו נושך כמו שאפרש. לכן כל איש ירא שמים לא יגדל כלב אלא כלבים כופרים. וכה”ג שמשונים בצורתם שהם עומדין לצוד עמהם. או לנוי בבית. אבל סתם כלב לא אף שאינו נושך. מכל מקום אסור משום שהוא מנבח. והאשה מפלת מיראתו. … וכן מביא מעשה דתלמוד בסוגיא זו. שאחד היה שקול לשיני הכלב. והיה מנבח באשה מעוברת והפילה מיראתו. דלא ידעה ששקל לשיניו לאשמועינן שאין היתר לכלב כשהוא מנבח אלא בקשירה.

Rabbi Howard Jachter has an excellent summary of the literature on the topic:

I. The Propriety of Owning Pets

The halachic literature indicates that it has been common practice among Ashkenazic Jews over the past several centuries to own non-farm animals, especially dogs. Rabbinic authorities have debated the propriety and permissibility of this practice. Their positions depend to a great extent on how they harmonize seemingly contradictory talmudic texts which appear in tractate Baba Kama. The Talmud (Baba Kama 15b) cites Rabbi Natan who asserts that one who raises an “evil dog” in his home violates the biblical prohibition “Do not place blood in your home” (Deuteronomy 22:8). The implication is that it is permissible to raise a dog in one’s home provided that the creature is not an “evil dog”. Rabbi Yishmael, in fact, permits one to raise a type of dog known as kofri dogs (Rashi: small dogs or large hunting dogs which do no harm) since they help eliminate rodents (Baba Kama 80a).

On the other hand, the Talmud (Baba Kama 79b) writes that one is forbidden to own a dog unless it is securely chained (if the dog is securely chained it will neither do any damage nor frighten anyone with its bark). Moreover, the rabbis of the Talmud (Baba Kama 83a) pronounced a curse upon one who owns dogs. These statements seem to apply to all dogs.

Rambam (Hilchot Nizkei Mammon 5:9), in fact, rules that it is forbidden to raise any dog unless it is secured by chains “since dogs frequently cause considerable damage,” Rambam apparently believes that Rabbi Yishmael’s permissive ruling is contradicted by the Mishanah and Gemara of Baba Kama 79b and 83a, respectively. Rabbi Yishmael accordingly would be the sole authority who permits raising kofri dogs, and thus Rambam believes that the consensus of opinion among talmudic authorities rejects his view.

Most Rishonim, however, including Smag, Yeraim, Tur, and Hagahot Maimoniyot disagree with Rambam and limit this prohibition to “evil dogs.” These authorities believe that the statements that appear on Baba Kama 79b and 83a are limited to “evil dogs”.

Shulchan Aruch (Choshen Mishpat 409:3) rules in accordance with the opinions which limit the prohibition to an “evil dog”. The Achronim almost without exception accept these opinions as well. Rabbi Yaakov Emden appears to be the lone authority who believes one is forbidden to own any type of dog.

The question, though, is how to define an “evil dog”. Rashi (explaining why the Mishnah (Baba Kama 79b) forbids raising a dog unless it is chained) writes “it bites and it barks, thereby causing pregnant women to miscarry.” Rashi can be interpreted in one of two ways (since he uses the Hebrew letter vav which sometimes means “and ” and sometimes means “or”). The first possibility is that an evil dog is one that both bites and barks, and the second possibility is that it is one that either bites or barks. Rabbi Shlomo Luria (Yam Shel Shlomo Baba Kama 7:45) is inclined to adopt the second possibility and suggests that a dog is considered to be “evil” if it barks, even if it does not bite. The reason for this, the Talmud recounts, is that a dog’s bark may cause a woman to miscarry, the Talmud (Baba Kama 83a), in fact, records two incidents of women who miscarried because they were frightened by dogs. Therefore, Rabbi Luria suggests that the only dogs one may own are the kofri dogs that Rabbi Yishmael explicitly asserts are permitted. Rabbi Luria seems to indicate that one is permitted to own these dogs even if they bark. Apparently, since people are aware that these dogs are not harmful, they know that they need not fear these dogs’ bark.

Nevertheless, Rabbi Luria limits his ruling to “God-fearing individuals” and concludes his discussion by station “therefore, we must excuse the Jewish people (i.e., those who own dogs which bark but do not bite) but praised is one who is careful [to limit his ownership to kofri type dogs] and blessings should be conferred upon him.” The implication is that there is some halachic justification for those Jews who own dogs who bark but do not bite. The justification seems to be based on an interpretation of Rashi’s description of an “evil dog” as one which both bites and barks. Accordingly, only a dog which bites would frighten a woman with its bark and possibly cause a miscarriage.

Shulchan Aruch Harav (Hilchot Shmirat Guf V’nefesh, number three) adopts a similar, albeit somewhat more firm, stance on this issue. He notes that Jews commonly own dogs that bark but do not bite and that some authorities justify the practice by limiting the definition of an evil dog to one that bites. Shulchan Aruch Harav asserts, however, that this view is rejected by the consensus of halachic authorities and that the category of “evil dogs” includes those dogs which bark even though they do not bite. Therefore, he concludes that “all God-fearing Jews should be certain to keep their dogs that bark tied up in iron chains while people are awake, even if their dogs merely bark but do not bite. On the other hand, Knesset Hagedola (Choshen Mishpat 409:4) notes that common practice among Jews is not to accept the stringent view of Yam Shel Shlomo and Shulchan Aruch Harav. He indicates that the custom is to own dogs which bark as long as they do not bite.

Although Knesset Hagedola writes that common practice among observant Jews is not to follow the opinion of Yam Shel Shlomo, it appears proper to follow the latter’s opinion. First Shulchan Aruch Harav, which is recognized as a major halachic work, supports Rabbi Luria’s position. Second, the Talmud considers a dog’s fearsome bark to be a public nuisance. Hence, if one chooses to own a dog, one should be certain not only that the dog does not bite, but also that the creature does not frighten people with its bark. However, if one finds it absolutely necessary to raise a dog that may cause harm (for protection, for example), one must be certain that the animal is tied up securely at times when it may do damage either with its bite or its bark.

Rabbi Yaakov Emden (Sheilat Yaavetz, number 17) adds a further restriction to the type of dog one may own. He writes that one is permitted to own a dog if the creature serves an economic or protective purpose. However, he strongly condemns ownership of a dog as a pet as being a waste of time and precisely the [abhorrent] behavior of the uncircumcised.”

Nevertheless, Rabbi Emden does not marshal sources to support this position and appears to constitute a minority view. Shulchan Aruch and most authorities limit the talmudic prohibition to ownership of “evil dogs”. The clear implication is that one may own a dog for any reason, provided it is not an evil dog. Moreover, the Talmud indicates that Jews used various animals for recreational purposes. The Mishnah (Shabbat 90b) relates that children used to play with a certain type of locust. The Talmud (Baba Batra 20a) tells of a certain type of bird known as “kalanita”, which can be used by a child to play. These two passages seem to demonstrate that the Mishnah has no objections to keeping animals for enjoyment contrary to the position of Rabbi Emden. Rabbi Emden might respond that these passages do not discuss dogs and do not prove that one may keep a dog as a pet. Rabbi Emden might agree that one may own a pet which does not require much attention. Perhaps he believes that only keeping a dog as pet mimics “the abhorrent behavior of the uncircumcised.”

Our discussion regarding dogs appears to apply to ownership of other animals as well. Shulchan Aruch (Choshen Mishpat 261:1) rules that one may kill an “evil cat” which harms children. Once again the rule is limited to an “evil” animal. The general principle according to most authorities is that one may own a pet provided that the animal does not pose a danger to people or property.

[See the paper for the notes and sources.]

Here is another good discussion of the topic, and here are some less scholarly treatments of the issue (and others concerning animal ownership by Jews).

  1. J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, pp. 116-118. []
  2. Ibid. pp. 218-219. []
  3. Ibid. pp. 221-222. []
  4. Ibid. pp. 290-292 []
  5. Ibid. p. 300. []
  6. Ibid. pp. 325-331. []
  7. Ibid. pp. 396-415. []
  8. “Yeh don’ know them gargoyles at the Committee fer the Disposal o’ Dangerous Creatures!” choked Hagrid, wiping his eyes on his sleeve. “They’ve got it in fer interestin’ creatures!” …
    Harry, Ron, and Hermione looked at one another. They had never seen eye to eye with Hagrid about what he called “interesting creatures” and other people called “terrifying monsters.” On the other hand, there didn’t seem to be any particular harm in Buckbeak. In fact, by Hagrid’s usual standards, he was positively cute. – Ibid pp. 218-219. []
  9. שבת סג.-: – קשר []
  10. בבא קמא טו: – קשר, ועיין שם מו. []
  11. שם עט: – קשר []
  12. שם פג. – קשר []
  13. יד החזקה, נזיקין, נזקי ממון ה:ט – קשר []
  14. שלטי גבורים על המרדכי פרק מרובה []
  15. ים של שלמה בבא קמא פרק מרובה סימן מה – קשר []