permitted their destruction from even preventable dangers.” This interpretation was followed by most subsequent scholars.?’ Some exceptions to this attitude existed; the Talmud discussed the mishnaic verse that prohibited the planting of trees too close to a neighbors field and how this should be remedied(B.B. 26a) without cutting fruit trees down. A midrash also stated that people who cut down good trees would not see blessings(Tosefta, Bik. end). More important, a discussion in the Talmud (Shab. 140b) took matters much further when it stated that those who consume more luxuriously than necessary have violated bal tashhit, in other words, the meaning of this verse was expanded to include any excessive consumption. Various later scholars added to this line of interpretation, for example, Judah heHasid, and subsequently, Jacob Emden as well as more recent writers, who made this a matter of piety, but this approach has not been taken consistently.?!(For a full discussion see the essay by Rachel S. Mikva.) These fairly isolated earlier examples enable us to develop the halakhah further in this direction and thus protect the natural world from those economic pursuits that are peripheral to human welfare.
The concept of bal tash-hit can become a more valuable tool, but we need to be aware of its limitations. The biblical verse is narrow and does not lend itself readily to expansion. Those who have done so have used it to attack excessive consumption, which is hard to define.
The halakhah has been most successfully developed in the areas of pollution control and zoning, as pointed out earlier in this essay. Here the traditional pattern can serve as a strong basis.
The halakhic concern for animals had its beginnings in the Bible and always understood animals as an essential part of the divine creation.” The rabbinic literature even moved in the direction of discussing what responsibilities domestic animals had for their behavior” and speculated about the soul of animals. All this placed domestic animals closer to human beings. These were paths not followed by the subsequent development of Judaism .
Concern was expressed for domestic animals, their food and care, and crossbreeding, as well as their status in connection with the Shabbat . The attitude toward crossbreeding has long been clear. The traditional halakhah has provided solid ground for dealing with the mistreatment of domestic animals especially in the modern factory farms.(See John Rayner’s essay.)