When Animal Chaplaincy Meets Judaism: On Cats, Chesed, and the Beginning of Geulah

A Personal Reflection

In my life, a certain inner line has gradually taken shape, one that I did not fully recognize before, and only now, as I am going through training in the Animal Chaplaincy program at Compassion Consortium, an interfaith school where different spiritual traditions do not compete but seem to enter into a quiet dialogue with one another, I have begun to see that what I am studying there — attention to animals, the ability to be present with them, to be with them without words — does not distance me from Judaism, but rather brings me back to it from a different side, a more living, more human, and perhaps deeper one.

This realization became especially clear when I opened the book Let Your Life Speak by Parker J. Palmer, because his words helped me see what had long been living within me but had remained unnamed, and at a certain point this connected with what I know from Jewish tradition, especially where he quotes Rabbi Zusya of Anipoli:

“In the World to Come, they will not ask me why I was not Moses; they will ask me why I was not Zusya!”

At that moment, I paused, because I understood that this is not about comparison, but about authenticity, about the responsibility to live one’s own path — the one given by the Creator.

Looking back, it becomes clear that my connection with animals did not begin with this program and not even recently, but much earlier, in my childhood, next to my grandfather Leo, a livestock specialist, an educated man and a director of a state farm, someone who lived a difficult life but was not broken by it, a person respected and remembered to this day, who would sometimes, with a smile, call me “the godfather of cats” when I was seven or eight years old, and at the time it sounded like a joke, but now I understand that there was already truth in that joke.

When I look at all of this through the lens of Jewish sources, the picture becomes strikingly coherent, because the Talmud states very clearly that if the Torah had not been given, we would have learned modesty from the cat, and this means that we are explicitly told that the cat possesses qualities from which a human being can learn, and this is no longer merely a discussion about usefulness, but about spiritual sensitivity.

Moreover, in the tradition associated with Rav Pappa, it is stated clearly that in Egypt, in the time of Moshe Rabbeinu, homes in which cats were present were protected from snakes and scorpions, and this connects the cat not to something marginal, but to the very reality of those days when our people were leaving slavery and moving toward freedom.

There is also a midrash that says that Adam brought the cat close to human life, and this is important to me, because it speaks not about animals in general, but specifically about the cat, which the first human, created by God, drew near, meaning that this relationship is not accidental or late, but rooted in creation itself.

At this point, another layer appears for me, a very personal one, because the Kanaani cats — the breed I am working to restore, a breed that is now on the verge of disappearance — originate in Israel and did not emerge in a laboratory or as an artificial project, but out of life itself, out of a culture in which people feed street cats, where the simple act of feeding is an act of chesed, of kindness, and from this simple act something greater emerges, so that in a certain sense Kanaani is a breed born out of chesed, a living connection between human beings, the land of Israel, and the creation of God.

When I look at some of these cats and see on their foreheads a marking that resembles the letter “M,” I understand that one can explain this as coincidence or as a natural pattern, but one can also see in it a hint, a symbol, a quiet reminder of Moshe, of those times when the relationship between humans and animals was a natural part of life, and it feels right not to dismiss such associations, but rather to allow them to deepen perception, because sometimes it is precisely through such subtle details that a person begins to see more than just the surface.

Against this background, a certain paradox becomes especially visible to me, one that I have encountered in conversations with religious people, when I was told that there is no commandment to save animals, that Noah was commanded but we were not, and that it is enough simply not to cause harm, and I was even told that it does not matter that this is an Israeli breed, because, as someone once said to me, “ants were also born in Israel,” and at that point, I must admit, I could not help but smile, because while there is a certain logic in that statement, there is also a certain narrowing of perspective.

There is also another fact, widely known but rarely spoken aloud, namely that in some Orthodox neighborhoods in New York, such as Crown Heights, Williamsburg, or Boro Park, cats are almost never kept in the home, as if a distance has developed between religious life and the cat, despite the fact that the Talmud speaks of the cat with respect, and this creates a noticeable tension between text and lived reality.

If we then turn to Israel, the picture changes completely, because cats are everywhere, they are fed, they are cared for, and this is perceived as a natural expression of chesed, through which, as many believe, blessing comes, and this applies not only to secular people, but also to religious ones, including those often referred to as Dati Leumi, people who live on the land, serve in the army, work in hospitals and on farms, and who do not see a contradiction in living alongside animals, but rather experience it as part of a normal and deeply Jewish life.

In Israel there are also places such as Jerusalem Biblical Zoo and Ramat Gan Safari, where there is active work to preserve and restore animals mentioned in the Tanakh, and this is no longer theory, but action that connects text, land, and living reality.

When all of this is brought together, it becomes difficult not to notice a continuous line that runs through the entire tradition, because Adam named the animals and brought the cat close to human life, Noah saved the animals, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were shepherds, Moses was a shepherd, David was a shepherd, Solomon understood the language of animals, and it becomes clear that the greatest figures were not detached from the world of animals, but were deeply connected to it.

And so a simple but important question arises, one that I ask first of all myself: if this line is so evident, is it possible to step away from it entirely and still retain the fullness of the vision of the world that the Torah presents.

In the end, I come to a simple thought: we all speak about the Messiah, we all wait, and I believe, like others, that he will come from the people of Israel, but perhaps the direction is already visible today, because where there is connection to life, to the land, to animals, and to chesed, there one can already sense the breath of the future, and perhaps it is precisely through this connection, through this careful and loving relationship to the world that was entrusted to us, that what we call redemption begins to unfold.

Amen.