1. The Sabbatical year applies only in the Land of Israel, just as does the law that the Land may be leased but not sold; its purpose is to remind us that we are but tenants in the Land, holding it from His Hand, so He sets the rules just as a landlord does with his tenants. It's not a general rule for farmers everywhere, so I don't see what general rules one can derive from it.
2. "The Heavens belong to God, and He gave the earth to mankind". (Psalm 115:16)
3. It was the Garden, not the whole world, that Adam was "to work and guard".
4. The law about not chopping down a fruit tree is given in a context where the tree does not belong to one. In war, when besieging a city, a soldier has the legal right to chop down trees, but the trees are not his, he will not benefit from the fruit they will produce next year, so he has no stake in preserving them. It's in that context that he needs to be warned against senseless waste. Without such a rule, his natural inclination will be to chop down the nearest tree, regardless of its value, rather than taking one slightly further away but worth much less.
In the ordinary case, it is in fact permitted to chop down a fruit tree if its economic value as timber, or the value of its site for other purposes, is greater than the expected value of its future produce. The price of a new pair of shoes includes the cost of all the resources used to make it; if it's cheaper to buy a new pair than to fix the old one, it's because the resources that it would take to fix the old pair are more valuable than those used in making the new pair. That's generally so because the cobbler lives in an industrialised country where there are more valuable things he can use his time for, while the person who made the shoes has nothing more valuable to do with his time. Naturally the cobbler must charge at least as much for his time as he gets at whatever it is he does now, and it would be a waste of that resource to employ it fixing shoes.
5. Tzaar baalei hayim is deliberately causing animals distress, for no reason except the sadistic pleasure of seeing them suffer. It doesn't apply if there's a legitimate reason for doing whatever it is that discomfits the animal. It's not the animal's suffering that's important, but the attitude of the person who causes it; taking pleasure in another creature's suffering is wrong. That means factory farming, where any suffering the animals undergo is purely an unintended byproduct of the economic efficiency, does not violate this rule; but if it's possible to get a similar efficiency in a way that doesn't cause the animals to suffer, then that would be required.
6. Shechita wasn't given with a reason. We slaughter animals "as I have commanded you" (Deut 12:21). It so happens that it is painless, and that's a happy "coincidence" that speaks of Divine Benevolence, but it would be a mistake to insist that this is the reason for the commandment. We're not told the reason, and can only speculate. We would insist on shechita even if it were not painless, and naturally the discovery of an even more painless method than shechita should not affect us at all. We would merely lose a useful PR weapon, and that would be unfortunate, but let's not confuse the sizzle with the steak, so to speak.
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Date: 2007-05-20 02:42 am (UTC)2. "The Heavens belong to God, and He gave the earth to mankind". (Psalm 115:16)
3. It was the Garden, not the whole world, that Adam was "to work and guard".
4. The law about not chopping down a fruit tree is given in a context where the tree does not belong to one. In war, when besieging a city, a soldier has the legal right to chop down trees, but the trees are not his, he will not benefit from the fruit they will produce next year, so he has no stake in preserving them. It's in that context that he needs to be warned against senseless waste. Without such a rule, his natural inclination will be to chop down the nearest tree, regardless of its value, rather than taking one slightly further away but worth much less.
In the ordinary case, it is in fact permitted to chop down a fruit tree if its economic value as timber, or the value of its site for other purposes, is greater than the expected value of its future produce. The price of a new pair of shoes includes the cost of all the resources used to make it; if it's cheaper to buy a new pair than to fix the old one, it's because the resources that it would take to fix the old pair are more valuable than those used in making the new pair. That's generally so because the cobbler lives in an industrialised country where there are more valuable things he can use his time for, while the person who made the shoes has nothing more valuable to do with his time. Naturally the cobbler must charge at least as much for his time as he gets at whatever it is he does now, and it would be a waste of that resource to employ it fixing shoes.
5. Tzaar baalei hayim is deliberately causing animals distress, for no reason except the sadistic pleasure of seeing them suffer. It doesn't apply if there's a legitimate reason for doing whatever it is that discomfits the animal. It's not the animal's suffering that's important, but the attitude of the person who causes it; taking pleasure in another creature's suffering is wrong. That means factory farming, where any suffering the animals undergo is purely an unintended byproduct of the economic efficiency, does not violate this rule; but if it's possible to get a similar efficiency in a way that doesn't cause the animals to suffer, then that would be required.
6. Shechita wasn't given with a reason. We slaughter animals "as I have commanded you" (Deut 12:21). It so happens that it is painless, and that's a happy "coincidence" that speaks of Divine Benevolence, but it would be a mistake to insist that this is the reason for the commandment. We're not told the reason, and can only speculate. We would insist on shechita even if it were not painless, and naturally the discovery of an even more painless method than shechita should not affect us at all. We would merely lose a useful PR weapon, and that would be unfortunate, but let's not confuse the sizzle with the steak, so to speak.