The Song of the Kanaani: Cats, Creation, and a Shepherd’s Prayer |
Kanaani Cats, Bereshit, and the Song of Creation
There are moments in life when a person begins to feel that the world itself is speaking.
Not through miracles.
But through quiet responsibilities that slowly find their way into human hands.
Jewish mystical tradition preserves a remarkable idea: every creature in creation sings its own verse before the Creator. This teaching appears in an ancient text known as Perek Shirah—“The Song of Creation.” In it the sun sings, the rivers sing, the birds sing, and the animals sing. Every being expresses its place in the great harmony of the world.
Sometimes a person lives many years before discovering what verse has been placed into his own life.
To understand that mystery, one must return to the beginning—to Bereshit, the opening of the Torah.
There the order of creation unfolds with deliberate care. On the fifth day the waters fill with living creatures and the sky with birds. On the sixth day the animals of the earth appear. Only afterward does the human being enter the world.
Our sages noticed this detail. It is not accidental.
The animals were already here.
The garden was already alive.
Only then does the human being arrive.
According to a well-known rabbinic teaching, the Holy One showed Adam the beauty of creation and said: Look at My works, how beautiful and praiseworthy they are. All that I created, I created for you. Guard it carefully. For if you destroy it, there will be no one after you to repair it.
Human beings therefore enter the world not as owners but as caretakers.
Jewish tradition even preserves a quiet Midrash that Adam drew the cat close to himself. It is a small detail, almost hidden in the folds of tradition, yet it hints at something profound: the closeness between human beings and animals belongs to the original design of creation.
From that moment onward the Torah repeatedly returns to people whose lives were shaped by care for animals.
Noah preserved every species in the ark and cared for them day and night.
The patriarchs—Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—were shepherds.
Moses himself was a shepherd. And not only in the abstract: he tended the flocks of Jethro, the priest of Midian, a figure so significant that an entire portion of the Torah bears his name. It is in that very portion—the portion of Jethro—that the Torah is given at Sinai.
Jethro himself was also a man of flocks and pasturelands. He knew what it meant to guard living creatures day after day, to guide them through heat and thirst, and to search for them when one wandered away.
The tradition teaches that Moses once noticed a small lamb that had strayed from the flock, thirsty and exhausted. Moses lifted the lamb onto his shoulders and carried it back with tenderness.
And the Holy One said to him:
“If this is how you care for one lamb, you are worthy to lead My people, Israel.”
Perhaps it is no accident that the Torah repeatedly entrusts leadership to shepherds.
A shepherd learns patience.
A shepherd learns responsibility.
Above all, a shepherd learns compassion.
This becomes even clearer in the life of King David. Before he became king, David was a shepherd in the fields of Bethlehem. There, among animals and stars, he sang the melodies that would later become the Psalms.
Jewish tradition sees a deep connection between Moses and David. Both were shepherds. Both spoke to God through prayer and song. And from the house of David, the tradition teaches, the Messiah—the ultimate shepherd of Israel—will one day emerge.
David’s son Solomon was said to understand the language of animals.
Later mystics continued to speak of this sensitivity. The great Kabbalist Isaac Luria perceived hidden spiritual voices within creation, and the Baal Shem Tov taught that every creature praises its Creator in its own way.
In this long tradition animals are never merely background to human history. They are fellow participants in the song of creation.
In Perek Shirah, the cat sings a verse drawn from the Psalms:
“I will pursue and overtake; I will not turn back until the task is complete.”
The sages did not read this as a zoological observation. The cat’s verse represents persistence—the quiet determination to continue until a responsibility is fulfilled.
Every creature sings its verse.
Sometimes a human being begins to realize what verse has been placed into his own life.
A Fragile Line of Life
The Kanaani cat is one of the rarest cat breeds in the world. It was developed in Israel by Doris Polacek, a woman who survived the Holocaust and chose to devote herself to life rather than destruction.
Working with the desert wildcat of the region, she developed a breed that carried something of the landscape of the Middle East within it—strong, elegant, and ancient in appearance.
But history is not always kind to fragile things.
The breed was never widely organized in international registries. Over time it became extremely difficult to find. Today it survives mostly through the dedication of a very small number of enthusiasts.
Perhaps Leah is one of the last breeders in Israel who continues this work. She does not maintain a public presence online and is difficult to locate.
In October 2023, during the war, two women met in the city of Holon. One had fled the north of Israel. Their friendship began through a shared love of flowers.
In wartime flowers become a quiet declaration that life still insists on growing.
From that friendship came trust.
And from that trust came a gift: two Kanaani kittens.
From those kittens new lines were born. Some remained with Ludmila. Some eventually reached new homes. From this lineage came a young cat named Laila.
Today this fragile thread of life continues through only a few hands.
Sometimes creation survives not through institutions but through fidelity.
When Light and Trial Meet
At one point an article was being prepared in the New York Post about the preservation of this rare Israeli breed.
It seemed like a moment of recognition.
And at that very moment Laila became seriously ill with a severe uterine infection.
Suddenly publicity meant very little.
There is a question that echoes through the Book of Job: does devotion survive when comfort disappears?
One night, at two o’clock in the morning, a journey began from Brooklyn to Ithaca—nearly six hours of driving toward Cornell University’s veterinary hospital.
Then the snow turned to rain.
The highway shone under the headlights, and the long road through the night left space for prayer.
Sometimes love looks different from what we expect.
Sometimes love looks like a long road before dawn.
The teaching given to Adam in the Garden still echoes: guard the world, because there will be no one after you to repair it.
Every person receives some small corner of creation to protect.
Sometimes it is a family.
Sometimes a community.
Sometimes a fragile branch of life that might disappear if no one cares for it.
The Kanaani cats are not numerous. They are not powerful. They are not widely known.
And when something living has been placed into human hands, responsibility follows.
Prayer becomes part of that responsibility.
Prayer for every small creature entrusted to human care.
If every creature sings its verse before the Creator, perhaps caring for these animals is itself a kind of song.
Prayer for Laila–Yom-Tov
Master of the Universe,
You who give breath to every living being
and sustain the world in hidden mercy,
A plea rises now not for honor or recognition
but for one of Your creations—Laila-Yom-Tov.
You formed her in wisdom.
You gave her warmth and breath.
You know her pain more deeply than any healer.
If it is Your will, grant her healing.
Strengthen her body and restore her life.
If it is possible, allow her to bring life into this world
and fulfill the purpose for which she was created.
Let her know, even once, the joy of motherhood
and leave behind a continuation of life.
And if Your path is different,
grant the strength to accept it with faith and humility,
knowing that all life rests in Your hands.
Have mercy upon Laila-Yom-Tov,
for Your compassion extends to every creature.
Let this day become for her