This article examines the attitude toward animals in the Pentateuch and ancient Near Eastern legal codes. Employing a comparative approach, it analyzes criminal and tort law in relation to animals and their carers—stealing and finding animals used in factory farms, the responsibility of watchmen and renters, and that of the legal “owners” of animals who cause damage. Demonstrating how animals form part of the biblical ethical system, in which ethical demands become binding statutes, it looks at why this process only occurred in the Hebrew Bible and not in other ancient Near Eastern cultures.

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Widely regarded as a broad, innovative philosophical treatise, Harav Abraham Isaac Hacohen Kook’s A Vision of Vegetarianism and Peace sets out his ideas regarding Jewish vegetarianism. God originally intending human beings and animals to be vegetarians; following Adam and Eve’s sin he allowed humanity to eat meat under certain conditions. One of the ways in which human culture has yet to fully develop thus relates to the animal world, human beings and animals both being destined to become noncarnivores in the eschaton. This chapter presents the biblical bases upon which Rav Kook’s thesis rests—verses from Genesis and Psalms that refer to God’s mercy and prophetic texts with an eschatological tinge. Addressing the Jewish dietary laws and other commandments relating to animals, he maintains that these are intended to educate human beings to be considerate of the animal kingdom and prevent animal suffering.

Promoted by Nathan of Gaza—a reputable figure—Sabbatai Tzvi was hailed as the messiah across the Jewish communities of the medieval world, thousands flocking to his side. One of his prominent detractors was R. Jacob Sasportas, who wrote numerous letters to his peers—rabbis of the western Sephardi diaspora—in order to dissuade them from giving Sabbatai their support and prove Nathan to be a false prophet. Much of Tzitzat novel Tzvi consists of his extensive correspondence on the subject, together with the responses he received. The rich language in which it is couched reflects the biblical citations on which all the parties drew in order to clarify their position and substantiate their arguments. Herein, I examine this significant but relatively neglected phenomenon, focusing primarily on Sasportas’ exegesis of Scripture and the peculiar meanings the biblical text assumed within the context of the polemic.

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