My father died on March 24, 1976. He was fifty-nine years old. I was a little less than two months shy of my twenty-sixth birthday. I saw him crying only twice in the years I knew him. He was one of the generation that fought the Second World War, a generation of men for many of whom, crying was not something done, at least not in public.
I came upon him unawares both times, leaving me with vivid memories. One was following the death of his mother in 1962; the other was a couple of years earlier when I was in the fifth grade. He was walking from the street to our house, and in his arms, he cradled the lifeless body of a beloved orange and white striped tabby cat named George Pappy George. He was our family cat. Dad had found him lying beside the road in front of our house.
My father had always acted and spoken like George Pappy George was a nuisance, an annoying thing that made life more complicated than needed. But I learned that was only on the outside. For inside, he deeply loved that cat more than we had realized. I discovered the powerful bonds that can exist between animals and humans from my parents.
There is an exquisite passage in the book The Outermost House by Henry Beston (1888-1968). I shared it in previous blogs, but I would like to share it again.
We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. Remote from universal nature, and living by complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creature through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image in distortion. We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein we err, and greatly err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth.
(Beston, Henry. The Outermost House. Pushkin Press. Kindle Edition.),
In this passage, Beston discloses his unadorned love and admiration for animals, for wild things; they are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations. I say this fully aware of the prima facie tension between it and what the Torah says towards the end of the first chapter of Genesis (Chapter 1, verse 26). I am using Robert Alter’s translation. “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and conquer it, and hold sway over the fish of the sea and the fowl of the heavens and every beast that crawls upon the earth.”
The tension originates from the Hebrew that Alter translates to “hold sway.” He explains his translation in a note. “The verb radah,” he writes, “is not the normal Hebrew verb for ‘rule’ (the latter is reflected in ‘dominion’ of verse 16), and in most of the contexts in which it occurs it seems to suggest an absolute or even fierce exercise of mastery.”
“An absolute or even fierce exercise of mastery.” Is there a way to reconcile this understanding with what Beston wrote? Beston’s and the Bible’s statements are about human and animal relationships. Beston talks about animals not being underlings but other nations. In Alter’s translation, the Bible talks about an absolute or even fierce exercise of mastery by humans over the non-human world.
To reconcile these statements, we could interpret the biblical passage as emphasizing the responsibility of humans to steward and care for the natural world. Rather than viewing it as an absolute mastery or dominion, it can be understood as a call to exercise benevolent and compassionate stewardship over creation. In this understanding, humans are called to recognize the intrinsic value of animals, as Beston suggests, while also acknowledging their responsibility to care for and protect the natural world. Instead of exploiting or subjugating animals, humans should strive to coexist harmoniously, recognizing all life forms’ interconnectedness and interdependence.
The reconciliation lies in finding a balance between recognizing the unique qualities of animals and our responsibility as stewards of the Earth. By promoting respect, empathy, and responsible stewardship, both views can be upheld in a way that acknowledges the inherent value of animals while also fulfilling our role as caretakers of the planet.
But then, have we done justice to the idea that humans are to “hold sway” over the rest of the world? Alter’s translation of “radah” adds a layer we must consider. If, as he suggests, the Hebrew verb “radah” in the original text conveys a sense of absolute or fierce mastery, it seems at odds with Beston’s perspective on animals’ intrinsic value and completeness.
Translation choices can sometimes convey nuances that may not fully capture the complexity of the original text. The use of “hold sway” or “rule” in the English translation might be understood in a broader context when examining the entirety of biblical teachings on this subject. Religious and ethical interpretations often realize stewardship involves caring for and protecting the natural world. This perspective emphasizes the idea of humans as custodians rather than as absolute rulers or exploiters of animals.
Thus, we might reconcile Alter’s translation by interpreting it as a call to exercise responsible stewardship and a caring, loving dominion over the Earth and its creatures. Instead of suggesting a harsh and oppressive mastery, it can be understood as an appeal to exercise power and authority with wisdom, compassion, and respect for the well-being of all living beings. We should act like Plato’s philosopher-king.
By interpreting the biblical text in this way and aligning it with Beston’s perspective, we can find a reconciliation that encourages a harmonious and mutually beneficial relationship between humans and animals, where humans fulfill their role as caretakers of the Earth while recognizing and appreciating the intrinsic value of all life forms.
I want to finish with a story about what happened this March. Kulfi and I were out for his afternoon walk. It lasts about an hour. Around halfway through it, we came upon a kitten, the size of a tiny fist sitting on the ground beneath a tree by a busy highway. A crow, about five times the kitten’s size, was pecking at it. We tried unsuccessfully to scare the crow off. We brought the kitten home. It was the first day of the Hebrew month Nisan. We named the kitten Nisan. He is now firmly ensconced as a member of our household. The picture at the top of the blog was taken by me one morning while Nisan sat attentively staring through lace curtains at the shadows of birds flitting around our backyard. I took him off the bed before Beth came down following her morning shower. She does, after all, hold sway over where we sleep.
All the best,
Gershon
Gershon Ben-Avraham 