To Keep Them Alive

The Parashat Noach gives us an unmistakable indication of how the Torah intends for us to honor the lives of animals. Bereshit chapter 6, verse 20 concludes with …sh'nayim mikol yavo'u eleycha lehachayot, words that caused one songwriter to whimsically urge us to Rise and Shine as “the animals came on by twosie twosies.” But more important than the stipulation that Noah must take sh'nayim mikol - “two of everything,” is the conclusion of the verse: two of everything you will bring with you lehachayot - “to keep them alive.”

“To keep them alive” is the wording of every English translation I could find, from King James to Webster to JPS. The only exception is the BBE (Bible in Basic English) which reinforces the matter more emphatically by translating lehachayot as a command for Noah to take two of each animal and “to keep them from destruction.” Could any command more clearly articulate Noah's responsibility and reason as a one-man animal-rescue league? It is simply unambiguous: the Torah intended for Noah, and intends for us, to keep animals alive.

Which brings me to fur. I live in New England where the first frost of the impending Winter arrived before Sukkot. Each year the bitter stretch of harsh winds, blustery snows, and cold-that-bites-into-your-bones gets a little harder to face. But what really gets me hot under the collar is the annual outbreak of fur coats in synagogues. Look, I know fur is warm and pretty - that's why the animals like it as their skin. But not only is it in impeccably bad taste to slaughter animals to steal their coats, such an action is clearly against the Torah's command for us to take the animals and keep them alive.

Bereshit 6:20 does not tell Noah to take the animals lagur - i.e., to give them a place to live, but specifically invokes lehachayot using the root "chaya" meaning to live a life. Clearly the Torah's meaning was for Noah to give the animals refuge from the flood in order for the animals to sustain their lives unto the generations of their species. Killing of animals in any way disgraces the spirit and the letter of Adonai's command to Noah in Bereshit. And wearing a fur coat to shul, wearing the warm and lovely skin of an animal killed solely for the purposed of pilfering its skin to make that coat, dishonors the Torah in a most blatant fashion.

“Why should people be allowed to kill animals if it is not necessary,” asked the late Tel Aviv Chief Sephardic Rabbi Chaim David Halevi, “simply because they desire the pleasure of having the beauty and warmth of fur coats?” Rabbi Halevi's April 1992 verdict (also supported in responsum by former Chief Rabbi of Ireland David Rosen) stated that Jewish law prohibits wearing or manufacturing fur garments and asked the key question, “Is it not possible to achieve the same degree of warmth without fur?” The answer, especially in our twenty-first century era of high-technology fibers and textiles is unequivocally “yes, of course!”

If fur were warmer than today's synthetic products, why do we see arctic explorers, mountain climbers, military personnel, police officers, firefighters, skiers and snowboarders all appearing in brands like Polartec, Gortex, Thinsulate, and other synthetic fibers that keep us splendidly warm in temperatures reaching as low as minus 100 degrees Celcius? There is never a need for any person to choose fur over a synthetic product for warmth and if we're being honest with ourselves, fur is not marketed for its warmth, but for its illusory veneer of glamour and status. But the fact is, if you're wearing fur, the only social statement you are making is that of a sadly anachronistic attachment to a fashion that is long past any moral or technological defense.

Beyond the unequivocal path set for Noah, of course, the Torah prohibits Jews from causing tsa'ar ba'alei chayim - unnecessary pain to any living being. But trapping animals for their fur causes immense pain only for the sake of vanity. Fur trapping is a brutal, sadistic way of holding injured and terrified animals captive, often in extreme temperatures, with no food, water or shelter, until a trapper eventually decides to return to kill them. Putting animals through intense such suffering simply to indulge human vanity is simply not in harmony with any Jewish teachings. As Jews, and as human beings we can and must behave better than that. We can and must act today as Noah did with his rescued animals, lehachayot - “to keep them alive.” Please, don't wear fur. And certainly, please don't be so blatant as to flaunt the teachings of our Torah by wearing fur to synagogue.