It has been several weeks since my first class in animal chaplaincy… and I keep returning to my original notes, trying to read them more deeply. Sometimes words we hear once open themselves with new meaning over time. For me, this happened with a line from Jakob von Uexküll, the Baltic German biologist: “All animals, from the simplest to the most complex, are embedded in their unique worlds with equal completeness.”
These words come alive for me every day on Brighton Beach.
In the mornings, I hear the cooing of pigeons, the soft, beautiful call of the morning dove, which I especially love, and the cries of seagulls and other coastal birds. Sparrows appear only rarely here, and in recent times they have become noticeably fewer. Their occasional chirping sounds like an echo of earlier years, when they were common neighbors in yards and parks.
By evening, a different choir awakens: cicadas and crickets fill the air with their song. Their sound is thin but insistent… as if the earth itself were whispering: “I am alive.”
And then, an unexpected wonder: the green parrots that have made their home among the stone and wires of the city. Sometimes a flock appears right on Brighton Beach, and from time to time they are spotted in other parts of Brooklyn as well. Their loud, joyous calls erupt suddenly… like a fragment of the tropics breaking through into the urban landscape. Once brought from South America, they somehow survived winters that should have destroyed them. Today they build vast collective nests and proclaim with their presence: life always finds a way.
And then there are the cats — eternal companions of humanity since the days of Adam. The Talmud teaches: “If the Torah had not been given, we could still learn modesty from the cat” (Eruvin 100b). Cats come in many forms: domestic, stray, wild. Among them there is also the Kanaani, a breed that arose in Jerusalem. It began with the crossing of a wild cat and a street cat, and later Bengal, Oriental, and Abyssinian cats were added. This happened, in many ways, through an act of compassion — but that is another story, one I will tell more fully in a future journal.
I am even preparing to write a novel titled Kanaani. Who knows… perhaps it will one day be nominated not only for a Nobel Prize in Literature, but even for the Nobel Peace Prize.
When I listen to the evening crickets, the morning doves, the seagulls, the wild parrots, and the gentle purring of a cat… I realize that the world is already praying. The world is a choir. And in that choir, there is a place for everyone.
P.S. My deep thanks to Sarah Bowen for teaching me to see all of this.
Rabbi Moshe (Mikhail) Salita is a Brooklyn-based rabbi, legal scholar, and emerging animal chaplain whose work unites Jewish spirituality, international law, and compassion for all living beings.
He holds a Master’s in International Law (with honors) from the National University “Odesa Law Academy,” where he is currently a PhD student researching the restitution of unlawfully confiscated Jewish communal property in Soviet Ukraine. He also earned a Master’s in Library and Information Science from Pratt Institute (New York) and a Master’s in Education and Special Education from Touro University, with graduate certificates in Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) and Bilingual Education.
Rabbi Salita is an ordained rabbi of the Jewish Spiritual Leaders Institute (JSLI), a Doctor of Ministry student in Jewish Spirituality at the Graduate Theological Foundation, and an Animal Chaplain-in-Training with the Compassion Consortium in New York. His mission is to weave together justice, mercy, and creation care into one sacred path of Tikkun Olam — healing the moral and spiritual wounds of the world.
He serves as Executive Director of the Salita Foundation, originally founded by his brother, Dmitriy Salita — former WBF World Champion boxer, and inductee of both the New York Boxing Hall of Fame and the Jewish Sports Hall of Fame. Today, Rabbi Salita leads the Foundation toward a broader vision — uniting humanitarian ethics, environmental awareness, and cultural restitution.
Through the Foundation, he has launched the “Eco-Kosher Initiative,” a global program encouraging support for businesses and individuals who respect the environment, animals, and their communities. For him, “eco-kosher” is not limited to food — it is a moral philosophy of living in balance with creation, where sustainability and holiness walk hand in hand.
He is also devoted to preserving and gaining international recognition for the rare Israeli cat breed Kanaani — a living symbol of harmony between Jewish heritage and the natural world.
A descendant of Sruel ben Aharon Lekhtman, a Ruzhiner Hasid and brick-factory owner in Kitai-Gorod, Kamianets-Podilskyi — once a spiritual heart of the Ruzhin Hasidic movement in Tsarist-era Ukraine — Rabbi Salita continues his ancestor’s legacy of faith, integrity, and bridge-building. Sruel Lekhtman served as a close friend and estate manager for Pan Dembitsky, a Polish landowner remembered with respect in both Jewish and Ukrainian memory. Their friendship, crossing lines of faith and culture, remains a profound symbol of coexistence — especially meaningful for Ukraine today.
Although Rabbi Salita received Reform rabbinic education in the spirit of Jewish Universalism, he maintains a deep spiritual connection with Chabad, whose living Hasidic tradition unites intellect, compassion, and joy.
Following the example of the prophets — from Adam, the first caretaker of creation, to King Solomon, who understood the language of animals, and to Rav Papa, the sage who spoke kindly of cats — Rabbi Salita teaches that true holiness is revealed through compassion for all living beings. His life’s work is to show that caring for animals and serving God are one and the same sacred breath.
