Hungry? Who Should You Feed First – Yourself or Your Pet?: Gittin 62a

Imagine coming home from work and you are starving. Just as you unlock the door you hear your pet calling out for something to eat.

This happens to me almost every day when I come back from shul. As I open the gate of the house our Guinea Pigs start to whistle telling me that they would like some cucumbers for breakfast.  

Who should we be feeding first ourselves or our pets and animals?

According to the gemara we need to feed our animals before we feed ourselves. The gemara tells us that a person is not even allowed to taste anything before he feeds his animals or pets. The gemara learns this from the verse in Deutoronomy 11:15 “And I will give grass in your fields for your animals, and you will eat and be satiated.”

The same way G-D is concerned first of all  with the food of the animals we should follow in his ways and feed them first. This law has the potential to remind us on a daily basis that we must restrain our own physical\animal  needs in order to first take care of the needs of those whose welfare is depenedent on us. I think this is truly beautiful Torah and is in itself a great reason for children to own pets knowing that on a daily basis even they need to be concerned with the welfare of their animal before taking care of their own needs.

It is interesting to note that this law only applies to food and not drink. When it comes to drinking, people come first. This is learned from the story of Rebbbeca and Elazar where Rebbeca said to Elazar “drink and I will also give your camels to drink.”

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Water Rights: Gittin 60b

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Causes of Economic Depression and Inflation : Gittin 57a

What are the causes of economic crisis? Why have the  prices of basic commodities increased  by 100% followed by a world economic meltdown? 

The Talmud tells us that economic crises are a wake up call to change our ways.

It is told in the Gemara that before the destruction of the holy temple in Jerusalem the price of grain was 40 Modiut (measures) per Dinar.  The price of grain went up slightly and its new price was set at  39 Modiut per Dinar.  The sages wondered what was the cause of this increase. They searched and found that there was a case where a father and his son had relations with a betrothed woman. The father and son were  brought to court, were subsequently found guilty and stoned.  After the verdict was carried out the price of grain returned to the original price of 40 Modiut per Dinar.

According to this Gemara the moral level of society can influence the costs of basic commodities and effect the local and world economy. Society’s moral level influences the amount of “Shefa” in the world and the harmony of interaction between people effect the economy.

The Chofetz Chaim, European Jewry’s greatest sage of the 20th century, wrote that the Great Depression of 1929 was brought about because of that generation’s lack of trust in Hashem which led to a lack of trust between people.  Though the period leading up to the Great Depression was one of great prosperity, the  lack of confidence and trust between people ultimately caused the sources of credit to shrivel up. This in his words, “Caused the central artery for the flow of economic life to become clogged by animosities.”

This is quite similar to today’s economic meltdown, which was initiated  by the subprime mortgages, which were based on the unethical loan of money to people who most likely not be able to pay it back and would have to suffer the consequences of morgage defaults.

When the price of commodities rises unexpectedly and the world is facing an economic meltdown we should look for both the observable and metaphysical reasons as to why this is happening.

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