Our alignment with animals

King Solomon states it bluntly.

If you look at the Torah from 10,000 feet, the letters are too small to read. 

It’s a metaphor. Oh. 

Metaphorically speaking, if you look at the Torah from 10,000 feet, you’ll see that human beings are placed at the top of the heap, but the gap between ourselves and non-human animals is rather narrow. 

You can infer that the Author or authors of the Torah were very concerned that humans were evincing a haughty attitude toward the Animal Kingdom. The Torah clearly conveys the message we’re not all that different from our furry, feathered and scaly neighbors. 

This point is driven home during the holiday of Sukkot, which started Friday night. During Sukkot, it is customary to read The Alignment’s favorite Jewish text, Ecclesiastes. 

This is what Ecclesiastes 3:19-21 has to say on the subject:

“For in respect of the fate of man and the fate of beast, they have one and the same fate: as the one dies so dies the other, and both have the same lifebreath; man has no superiority over beast, since both amount to nothing.

“Both go to the same place; both came from dust and both return to dust.

“Who knows if a man’s lifebreath does rise upward and if a beast’s breath does sink down into the earth?”

While the author of Ecclesiastes (King Solomon himself, according to the rabbis), is putting it rather bluntly, he is also merely stating the obvious. 

It isn’t just that we all live and we all die. We all have two eyes, two ears, one nose, one mouth, a brain and a heart. We all need to eat, breathe and sleep and we all like to procreate (with a few exceptions). 

So where do we get off thinking that we’re so far superior to other animals? It’s pure hubris. 

Even the one thing that supposedly sets us apart and above – language – is dissolving like a sandcastle as the waves of science crash on the beach.

Chickens, perhaps the most oppressed and exploited animal on our planet, have been found to make dozens of distinct vocalizations to communicate information, such as the proximity of a predator or the presence of food. 

Chickens, who suffer terribly at the hands of humans, have been found to make dozens of distinct vocalizations.

My canine companion, Maizie, also communicates with a range of different vocalizations, including grunts, whines, barks and yelps. (The barking, I could do without. But it comes with the package.)

As the New York Times recently reported, scientists have been unable to locate anything unique about human vocalizations. Whether you’re looking at our brains, our genes or our vocal cords, there is no fundamental difference among human and non-human animals.  

We’ve come a long way since Descartes famously and tragically derided animals as unthinking machines. 

As the Times stated, “With each (new scientific) discovery, the cognitive and moral divide between humanity and the rest of the animal world has eroded.”

In other words, we are – or at least should be – in alignment with non-human animals. 

King Solomon was way ahead of his time. His message is highly relevant now. 

And the implication is clear: 

If animals are so similar to us, we shouldn’t be confining, mutilating, and killing them – or eating their flesh. 

Chag Sukkot Sameach, dear readers of The Alignment! 

And thank you, King Solomon, if it was indeed you, for writing Ecclesiastes. And thank you, rabbis of yesteryear, for including Ecclesiastes in the Tanakh, the official Jewish canon. 

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