The Mother Bird
- Leann Shamash
- Aug 17, 2021
- 4 min read
Updated: May 4
An introduction to this re-post of The Mother Bird
I published this post four years ago for Parshat Ki Teitzei and here we find ourselves,
four years later we have arrived to a reference to this page in Masechet Makot, where punishments for various crimes are described, including Shiluach Haken, or sending the mother bird away from her nest.
כִּ֣י יִקָּרֵ֣א קַן־צִפּ֣וֹר ׀ לְפָנֶ֡יךָ בַּדֶּ֜רֶךְ בְּכׇל־עֵ֣ץ ׀ א֣וֹ עַל־הָאָ֗רֶץ אֶפְרֹחִים֙ א֣וֹ בֵיצִ֔ים וְהָאֵ֤ם רֹבֶ֙צֶת֙ עַל־הָֽאֶפְרֹחִ֔ים א֖וֹ עַל־הַבֵּיצִ֑ים לֹא־תִקַּ֥ח הָאֵ֖ם עַל־הַבָּנִֽים׃
"If, along the road, you chance upon a bird’s nest, in any tree or on the ground, with fledglings or eggs and the mother sitting over the fledglings or on the eggs, do not take the mother together with her young." Deuteronomy 22:6
שַׁלֵּ֤חַ תְּשַׁלַּח֙ אֶת־הָאֵ֔ם וְאֶת־הַבָּנִ֖ים תִּֽקַּֽח־לָ֑ךְ לְמַ֙עַן֙ יִ֣יטַב לָ֔ךְ וְהַאֲרַכְתָּ֖ יָמִֽים׃ {ס}
Let the mother go, and take only the young, in order that you may fare well and have a long life.
In Makkot 17a:8. it says,With regard to one who takes the mother bird with her fledglings, thereby violating the Torah prohibition: “You shall not take the mother with her fledglings; you shall send the mother, and the fledglings you may take for yourself” (Deuteronomy 22:6–7), Rabbi Yehuda says: He is flogged for taking the mother bird, and does not send the mother, and the Rabbis say: He sends the mother and is not flogged, as this is the principle: With regard to any prohibition that entails a command to arise and perform a mitzva, he is not liable to receive lashes for its violation.
This is a piece not about the flogging or the need for flogging, or the ultimate identity of the mother bird, or whether she is good for sacrifice or not? This post is about the moment before an action, a prohibited or a permitted action takes place. What are we thinking as we approach the nest? Are the temptations stronger than our urge to right? Perhaps one of the meanings of Masechet Makkot is punishment for acts, but what of those actions, planned or unplanned, that lead us to take actions? Come with to that one tiny moment, separated from the consequences that follow.
THE MOTHER BIRD
1.
And the mother bird
builds her nest.
Carefully.
Artfully.
Straw speedily swept up
In her beak a dried leaf,
now a bit of mud,
feathers added for softness.
She is a sculptor, an artist,
a builder of homes,
offering shelter for her children.
She builds not from love,
but from intuition
deep and old.
She senses that predators exist.
She builds to protect her young
hoping,
if a mother bird can hope ,
that one day they will leave the nest
and fly,
fly away.
2.
A man walks upon a dusty road,
hair, the color of moonlight
swinging with his stride.
It is morning
and the quiet sings
a quiet song.
The village is yet far
and the sun hot.
The man pauses to drink
for a moment
under the branches
of a tree
He seeks shelter from the sun.
And the man hears a call of warning,
the piercing call of a bird.
3.
The man looks up.
Through the leaves he sees the nest.
The mother bird looks down upon him,
scolding, warning.
And he begins to climb
He is tall, his long limbs reaching
steadily upward.
He is thinking
eggs for his family,
tasty and fresh.
4.
And the man climbs higher.
5.
The mother bird squeals
She ruffles her feathers
She tries to puff herself up
to look larger.
She presses a little harder
on the eggs beneath her.
She is fierce.
6.
What more can the mother bird do?
She is smaller and but a bird
her children are vulnerable
Her body shelters them from harm.
7.
And the man climbs higher,
his hair covered now with dust and twigs.
8.
He reaches the nest
The mother bird has stopped
her call.
And the man's and the bird's eyes meet.
All is still except for a slight breeze.
9.
Perhaps it is a bat kol?*
10.
And this is Torah
in a tree
one warm, sunny morning.
The powerless and the powerful
meet on a branch.
The hand that can take,
that can make change
and the mother that protects her young.
11.
The breeze blows
It runs through the hair of the man
and the feathers of the bird.
12.
And the man extends his hand.
13.
And here the story ends
As he and the mother bird meet each other’s eyes.
14.
Torah is about words
but it is more about what we do
how we act
while standing on the branch of a tree
one quiet and sunny morning.
15.
And all the rest is commentary
* A Bat Kol is Gd's soft and gentle voice heard in the world.
** Rabbi Hillel said about Torah, ‘What is hateful to you, do not to your neighbor: that is the whole Torah, the rest is the commentary; go and learn it.’ Talmud: Shabbat:31a
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