ABSTRACT
Studies of animals and religion tend to look at kinship between humans and animals more than kinship among animals. This contribution is about religion’s abiding concern for the families that animals themselves make, with a focus on the Hebrew Bible, and how that concern might speak to us today. Four laws in the Bible address animal families: Do not cook a kid in their mother’s milk; a newborn animal must remain together with the mother for the first week of life; do not slaughter an animal and their child on the same day; shoo away the mother bird before taking her eggs or chicks from the nest. Rabbinic interpretation largely rejects the most common understanding of these laws, which is to foster compassion for animals. By using the same language for animal and human families and requiring a public declaration of animal relations, the late ancient rabbinic work called the Mishnah offers a different path for acknowledging animal families. The recognition of animal families by the Bible and its readers can inspire a vegan utopianism that aims for all intimate relations to thrive, both human and animal.
