Parasha Thoughts
By Rabbi David Shasho
In this week’s parasha we learn about the mitzvah of sending away the mother bird from the nest. The Torah forbids one to take an ownerless mother bird when it is sitting on its eggs. One must send away the mother bird and only then is one permitted to take the eggs or young birds. This mitzvah gives a person a long life.
The Rambam explains that the reason for this mitzvah is based on another mitzvah of not slaughtering a mother animal and its young on the same day. This is because it is cruel, especially since animals instinctively love their young and suffer when they see them slaughtered or taken away. Another reason is to symbolize that people should avoid doing things that will destroy a species by killing a mother and its young on the same day which is like mass extinction.
The Ramban comments that these mitzvot are meant to teach compassion and that people should accustom themselves to act mercifully. The Abarbanel adds that just as we are allowed to cut a fruit off a tree, but not the tree itself because that cuts off the life source, so too we can take the children which are the fruit and send away the mother leaving her to produce more birds.
The only other place in the Torah which mentions long life with a mitzvah is honoring one’s father and mother. One connection we can make is that just as one must not take advantage of the natural love of a mother bird for its child and take both of them, so too we should not take advantage of our parents’ love for us and abuse our connection with them for our own selfish needs.
If we send away the mother bird and we don’t take advantage of the love our parents have for us, our lives will be blessed and strengthened. The parasha continues by saying that if you keep this mitzvah, you will merit a long life, then you will build a new house, then put up a fence, and plant a vineyard…
The midrash states that if we keep this mitzvah properly it will bring the day when Eliyahu Hanavi will come.
Shabbat Shalom.