“If you come across a bird’s nest on any tree or on the ground, and it contains baby birds or eggs, then, if the mother is sitting on the chicks or eggs, you must not take the mother along with her young. You must first chase away the mother, and only then may you take the young. “(Deuteronomy 22:6- 7)

What is the reason for this unusual mitzvah? Maimonides argues that we send away the mother bird to teach us compassion. He insists that animal mothers, just as human mothers, suffer when their offspring are harmed. In Part 3, Chapter 48 of the Guide to the Perplexed, Maimonides writes:

As far as pain is concerned, there is no real distinction between the pain of humans and the pain of animals, because the love and compassion of the mother for her young is not reasoned intellectually, but has only to do with emotions and instincts, which are found among animals no less than among human beings.

Others have different explanations for the mitzvah. A Mishna (Torah commentary) in Tractate B’rachot, Chapter 5, Mishna 3, supports a view that aspects of compassion are beside the point. The Mishna lists three occasions when a person praying must be silenced, and one case is when the worshiper prays to God to show him compassion, because God’s compassion extends even to a mother bird. In the ensuing Talmudic discussion, Rabbi Yossi bar Zvida explains that in calling attention to the mother bird, the worshiper presents the laws of God as “springing from compassion, whereas they are only decrees.” (B’rachot 33b) The foremost Torah commentator, Rashi, in clarifying Rav Yossi’s comment, writes that “G-o did not give us His commandments because of compassion, but rather to place upon the Jews a set of decrees to make them aware that they are His servants.”

A modern Torah commentator, Rabbi Shlomo Riskin, Chief Rabbi of Efrat, has another perspective on the Mishna in B’rachot. He says compassion is indeed the issue and that Maimonides would argue Rav Yossi reflects a minority opinion. He stresses that G-d is known as Harachaman, the compassionate one; that in the attributes of G-d indicated in the Torah (Exodus 34:6), the first attribute of G-d, after omnipotence, is mercy; and that the Torah gives many examples of G-d’s mercy.

Why, then is the worshiper to be silenced? Rabbi Riskin argues that the Mishna’s ruling teaches that sending away the mother bird is not a complete act of........

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