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Pesach and pets
During Pesach we are not permitted to eat, own, or benefit from chametz (leaven, but it's more complicated than that now). Traditional interpretations of halacha raise this as a problem for pet owners, because keeping your pets alive benefits you. So you have to find compliant forms of pet food, or send the pets elsewhere for a week, or perhaps sell the pets along with your chametz (I'm not sure if that works -- that would make you the custodian of someone else's pets for the week).
I think this interpretation of "benefit from" makes sense in the case of livestock (that you're ultimately going to profit from in some way), but I don't see it for pets. Pets aren't profit centers; they're family members -- you can argue about pecking order within the family, but that's another matter.
Still, I am mindful of the traditional problem. I can't change the food (one is on a special diet), and I'm not going to send them away or sell them, but I can still do something, without even invoking compassion or arguing about whether pikuach nefesh (serious health issues) applies to non-humans.
So, I hereby transfer ownership of the cat food in the house to the cats.
I think this interpretation of "benefit from" makes sense in the case of livestock (that you're ultimately going to profit from in some way), but I don't see it for pets. Pets aren't profit centers; they're family members -- you can argue about pecking order within the family, but that's another matter.
Still, I am mindful of the traditional problem. I can't change the food (one is on a special diet), and I'm not going to send them away or sell them, but I can still do something, without even invoking compassion or arguing about whether pikuach nefesh (serious health issues) applies to non-humans.
So, I hereby transfer ownership of the cat food in the house to the cats.
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However, if cat rabbis exist, I doubt the cats are communicating this to the humans very effectively, so keeping their version of Jewish law would have to be up to them.
Cellio, I hope you have a ... er, what's the right wish for the holiday? Happy Passover? or is that too flip for the occasion?
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Nope. Under Jewish law, the identity of the birth mother is what matters. If a Jewish family adopts a non-Jewish child, they have to convert the child formally. If I had given birth to my cats they'd be Jewish and I'd be the subject of many medical-journal articles. :-)
Happy Passover? or is that too flip for the occasion?
Happy Passover is just fine. Thanks!
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With respect, though - I think the halacha in this is much ado about nothing. If the cats got out, and ate the neighbor's garbage including some stale bread, it would not be an issue.
But, let me take your logic in a different direction. If they are not exactly family, and not the sort of pet the Bible implies (because you don't receive a benefit), then they are either children (who need not practice) or room-mates. Room-mates who are not Jewish don't have to pay any attention to Halacha. Correct?
So, if you don't eat their kibble, you should be fine. :-)
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Non-Jews don't need to worry about any of this, right. It's just that the house, and by default its contents, are owned by Jews, and Jews aren't allowed to own chametz, so I have to make sure I don't own it. If I had a non-Jewish housemate I'd take care of the problem that way, as
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-- Dagonell
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(The way chametz sales generally work is that all the chametz you don't want to completely get rid of gets sold to a gentile, and a week later it gets bought back. I'm describing this passively because there are details that have to be right for the sale to be valid, so generally the community's rabbi executes the sales on behalf of everyone who asks him to. But during that week the stuff really does belong to that gentile; he can show up and cart away your beer if he wants to. It only becomes yours again when he sells it back -- and I don't think the cats can conduct that sale.)
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If they don't complain about it, they must have agreed, right?
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The way I've solved the pet problem in the past is to sell the cat's food to the roommates and ask them to feed the cats for the week, or to feed the cats non-chumetz for the week (tuna and chicken and such). This year, I think we're going with the first solution -- the cats get sick if they don't have their anti-hairball food, especially with the winter coat shedding.
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I wouldn't acquire a pet who required chametz food during Pesach, because that would be making a choice to bring chametz into the house unnecessarily. But since they're already there, I owe them continued sustenance, with or without lap cuddles and other warm fuzzies.
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How do Jewish farmers of livestock deal with this requirement?
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I don't actually know how Jews who own livestock deal with the problem. I'm guessing they sell the livestock along with their fields, and maybe when you're dealing on that scale it's even practical to have someone else come in to tend them.
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=0)
They're not Jewish. They're cats. Cats have no religion, other than "feed, adore and pay attention to ME..." ;o)
Re: =0)
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Don't let the nitpickers faze you -- I think you've hit on the perfect solution. ;)
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Are non-humans ever bound by the halacha at all?
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However, there is the following joke:
A Jewish hiker is lost in the woods, when, all of a sudden, he is confronted by an obviously hungry bear.
He realizes that he is in SERIOUS trouble, as the bear is evidently thinking of him as a snack, and he starts to say the Sh'ma, which you are supposed to attempt to say before death, if you can manage it.
Then he notices that the bear is ALSO praying in Hebrew!
"Amazing!" he thinks, "I'm saved! The bear is ALSO a member of the tribe!"
Then he hears WHAT the bear is saying:
". . . shehakol n'heyeah bidvaro. . . "
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Nope. It's not about what they can eat; it's about what I can own. So since I'm not going to dip into the kibble anyway, it's not like I actually need to own their food. Ok, I can't use their food to feed strays, but I wasn't going to do that anyway.
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Is Parrot Food Kosher?
("Are parrots religious?" is a disturbing question for another time. Short answer: No.)
Depending upon the diet the parrot is given, there may be grain products, where the question is "Is it chametz free?" Interesting question, and on looking into it, I've got a headache.
The problems of transfering ownership of items to a creature that can understand ownership, token economies, cause and effect and can talk about it is an exercise left to the reader.
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Haha I love this cat entry! My cats would argue that they too have ownership of the cat food - on a daily allocation basis. They'd like full control... but alas no.
wrong icon!
Re: wrong icon!
(But the second one is very cute.)
Re: wrong icon!
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