in honor of
Minister of Agriculture Uri Ariel
Peace and blessings!
The verdict: Your proposal to exile cats to an unpopulated land
Like everyone else, I read the report about your genuine concern for the continued existence of the cats that were born in the land of our ancestors, and out of a desire to uphold the halacha prohibiting castration - you proposed to exile the cats of Israel to another country.
What can I tell you, Uri, it truly warms the heart that a halachic consideration is mentioned for the first time in such a clear and sharp manner by a representative of the Jewish Home.
It is surprising that until now we have not heard a peep from you regarding the ongoing damage and erosion of the foundations of Judaism in the country, such as conversion, kashrut, and Shabbat. And not even this time, on your Sabbath with your former brother Lapid, you destroyed every good plot and raised your hand to demolish the walls of religion and Halacha, and to abolish the yeshiva students from their Talmud without batting an eyelid and without conscience.
It is very surprising that until you mentioned halakha, you leaned - unlike your "chapifnik" custom - precisely on the side of the strict. If you had dealt with Torah even a little seriously and with the due respect, you would have realized that your words are not universally agreed upon.
It is clear that there is a prohibition against castrating animals from the Torah. But if Kiryat is not second or third, the First Rabbi of Zion, Rabbi Yosef Shlita, who, according to my memory, when this question was on his desk, wrote several permissible ways to castrate female cats, with an emphasis on street cats in the way of the Grama. Castration, but without surgical intervention, but with contraceptives known to veterinarians that will be given in their food - without being served directly in front of them, or through akum as mentioned in the Gemara, and there is no room here to elaborate.
And the bewilderment grew to the heavens of heaven. Why, regarding the ascent to the Temple Mount, in contrast to what borders on a clear question and a tangible risk to public safety, did you not think there was room for "strictness" and you banned ascending to the Mount of God? I wrote strictness in quotation marks, because apparently you do not mean 'strictness' but rather preserving the halacha in its form, on which all the great men of Israel agreed, including the great men who challenge you. And this halacha has no problem for you and your ilk to trample on.
So it's not that I'm moved by the whining of the left that they love their cats so much that they won't let them set history in their own image and likeness, but how did it happen to you that by the time you finally mentioned the halakha on your lips, you've proven to everyone how meticulous they are in lamenting and disdainful of reciting the Shema?
And between us. If you already have extra cats, send us some to the Haredi city where I live. Since then, we have buried bins and no cats. So it's true that we will be clean and there is light in our eyes, but still, as they say in your country, 'No bins - no cats' or something similar. Look at the children of our city who see a life-size cat in Jerusalem and the Galilee and are sure that it is a real tiger...
With the blessing of the Vydago, they will be the majority among the people of the land.
• The writer serves as a senior rabbi, lecturer, and commentator at the Hidabrot organization.
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