The biblical pattern whereby man messes up and animals pay the ultimate price is observable in numerous biblical episodes. They are detailed in my new book: “Taming the Beast: Human-Animal Encounters in the Bible” (Wipf & Stock Publishers) on which this blog is based. This pattern begins with the devastation of all land and avian animals by the colossal flood that God unleashed for the sins of the human race.

A similar case where animals galore perish as a result of human depravity takes place when God “firebombed” the morally degenerate twin cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham wants the blameless folks of the doomed cities spared, yet he does not mention in his long exchange with God the inevitable collateral demise of animals there. Apparently, the lives of innocent animals were neither on God’s mind nor Abraham’s.

Similarly, this weekly Torah portion of Shoftim presents us with a biblical law known as the........

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