“The body language of animals is a whisper of the nefesh; to hear it is to awaken the neshamah.”
On September 3, 2025, a new stage of my life began — training in animal chaplaincy, the spiritual accompaniment of people and animals. From that day on, I also began to keep my journal, striving to record thoughts and observations daily.
A Simple but Profound Truth
At the very first class, I heard a thought that seemed simple, yet carried great depth: animals are silent beings. They do not speak with words, but with their bodies. Their posture, movements, and gaze — this is their language. When we learn to understand it, we not only enter more deeply into the world of animals but also become more attentive to people — in chaplaincy and in everyday life.
ABA: Behavior as Language
For me, this idea immediately resonated with my experience in Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA). In ABA, behavior is understood as a form of communication. What an animal or a person does is not random, but an expression of need, motivation, or inner state.
An animal turning its head away may be “saying”: “I need space.” A dog raising its paw may be “asking” for attention. A cat rubbing its face against a leg expresses trust. All of this is behavioral signaling, a kind of words without words.
ABA teaches us to seek the function of behavior: attention, access to food or play, escape from discomfort. The same logic applies in animal chaplaincy: when we read the body language of animals, we recognize their inner world.
Torah, Talmud, and Kabbalah: From Naming to Soul
The Torah tells us that Adam named all living creatures (Genesis 2:19). To give a name, one had to grasp the essence. Noah, caring for each being in the ark, had to understand the signals of the animals; otherwise, it would have been impossible to sustain them.
The Talmud teaches: “Whoever shows mercy to living creatures, Heaven shows mercy to him” (Shabbat 151b). Kabbalah adds: animals possess a nefesh — a living soul — while humans have in addition a neshamah — a soul of compassion. But for compassion to become alive, one must be able to hear that which is not spoken in words.
A New Language of Compassion
And here ABA and Kabbalah converge. For the analyst, every movement is a signal. For the chaplain, it is the cry of a soul. For the kabbalist, it is a reflection of the inner light.
And I realized: to learn to read the body language of animals means to learn to speak a new language. A language of compassion, uniting science and faith, behavior and soul, nefesh and neshamah.
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.
