Podcast Summary

Podcast: New Books Network

Episode: Beth A. Berkowitz, What Animals Teach Us About Families: Kinship and Species in the Bible and Rabbinic Literature (U California Press, 2026)
Date: February 16, 2026
Host: Mike Motilla
Guest: Dr. Beth A. Berkowitz, Professor and Ingerberg Renner Chair of Jewish Studies at Barnard College

Episode Overview

This episode explores Dr. Beth A. Berkowitz’s new book, which uncovers how animals and their familial relationships are depicted in the Hebrew Bible and rabbinic literature. The discussion centers on what animals can teach us about the concept of family, the complexity of human-animal boundaries, and how ancient sources register animal affect and kinship. The conversation weaves together biblical law, rabbinic exegesis, animal ethics, and modern philosophical frameworks, challenging common misconceptions about both ancient and contemporary approaches to animals.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Theoretical Background and Main Themes

• Book’s Inspiration: The title riffs on Brian Massumi’s work, which sees “becoming human” as a process of embracing rather than rejecting animality (03:59).

• Ontological Gap Myth: Both the book and podcast refute the sharp categorical divide between humans and animals, advocating for attention to the “messy, playful middle.”

• Animal Family Laws: The book focuses on biblical laws involving animals and their families, such as not separating a calf from its mother, not killing a parent and child animal on the same day, etc.

  • Quote:

    “As other philosophers have pointed out, what humans say separates us from animals—thought, emotion, self-reflection, subjectivity—often reveals a lot more about us than about animals.”
    — (05:54, Host)

• Reading Like the Rabbis: The “ethics” the book pursues are found not just in legal content but in rabbinic ways of thinking and noticing.

2. Dr. Berkowitz’s Entry Point to Animal Studies

• From Jewish Difference to Animality: Berkowitz became interested in animals while exploring Jewish identity and difference through biblical commandments (07:03).

• Animality as Tool for Human Differentiation:

  “Animals are a really great way of asserting human difference ... we use animals all the time, we don’t even think about it, as a way of relating to each other and differentiating...”
  — (08:10, Berkowitz)

• Personal Perspective: Lifelong vegetarianism brought added sensitivity to how animals figure in culture and law.

3. Intimacy between Humans and Animals in Antiquity

• Daily Proximity: In biblical and Talmudic periods, humans lived closely with animals—herding, housing them, witnessing their family bonds (11:43).

  “Even in more sedentary settings, people would keep their animals in the bottom floors of the house... They would have seen animals give birth, seen them nurse and raise babies—so that family drama unfolded right in front of people.”
  — (12:27, Berkowitz)

• Contrast to Modernity: Today’s divisions between humans and animals (pets vs. livestock) didn’t exist in the same way.

4. Bambi and Sentimentality: Ancient vs. Modern Animal Stories

• Disney vs. Saldan’s Bambi: Felix Saldan, a Jewish hunter, depicted animals with realism and respect, emphasizing animal family bonds—similar to many rabbinic sources (14:03).

  “Saldan had respect for those bonds and curiosity about them—as the rabbis did. But his curiosity didn’t stop him from killing animals, neither did it stop the rabbis...”
  — (14:37, Berkowitz)

• Industrial Agriculture and Ethics: Today’s context (factory farming) shapes the moral stakes differently than antiquity.

5. Science of Animal Affect and Parent-Child Bonds

• Trauma of Separation: Modern science confirms that separating animal mothers and their young is traumatic, mirroring ancient observations (16:11).

  “It seems very clear that separating animal mothers from their babies is incredibly traumatic... The uncomfortable thing about a lot of the science is that they’re writing it to support animal agriculture.”
  — (16:23, Berkowitz)

• Ancient Sensitivity: While ancient sources sometimes lacked overt sentiment, they were aware of animal bonds, as dramatized in Egyptian art (19:00).

6. The Four Biblical Animal Family Laws

(20:36–21:56)

• 1. Do not cook a kid (young goat) in its mother’s milk.
• 2. Leave a baby with the mother for the first week of life.
• 3. Do not slaughter a parent and child on the same day.
• 4. Chase away the mother bird before taking eggs or chicks (Deuteronomy).

7. Humanitarian vs. Technical Rationales

Humanitarian (22:21)

• Compassion as Motive: Interpreters like Philo attributed these laws to empathy for animal kinship bonds.

  “The Torah is... full of virtue and compassion... It’s cruelty and savagery to separate mother and child immediately after birth, or to slaughter an animal parent and child on the same day.”
  — (23:15, Berkowitz paraphrasing Philo)

• Historical Development: Later commentators (e.g., Rashi, Maimonides) link the laws to evolving moral sensibilities and interreligious dialogue.

Technical (29:44)

• Rabbinic Legalism: The Mishnah and Talmud treat these laws with a matter-of-fact, technical approach, not as compassion-driven ethics.

  “There’s so little affect, so little empathy... it’s just very very technical in the treatment. I see zero interest in ethics in these technical discussions.”
  — (30:16, Berkowitz)

• Examples: Legal loopholes and exceptions suggest the focus is on legal adherence, not moral sentiments (31:22).

8. Genealogy and Public Animal Kinship

• Market Announcements: Sellers had to publicly announce when they sold an animal’s mother or child, making animal kinship publicly relevant (33:43).

  “To observe this prohibition, you had to keep track of your animal’s family tree. The contrast with today, where we don’t even know our animals have families, really stood out to me.”
  — (34:33, Berkowitz)

9. Absence, Obscuring, and the “Absent Referent”

• The Udders Debate: Technical rabbinic debates about eating animal udders serve to obscure the maternal connection.

  “It’s an organ with a lot of symbolism... eating an udder is like eating a woman’s breast. You’d expect interesting things to come out of that.”
  — (40:19, Berkowitz)

• Carol Adams’s Concept:

  “It’s the mother animal that nobody wants to recognize as a mother. The udder seems like the perfect absent referent.”
  — (42:54, Berkowitz)

10. Rabbinic Argument, Loopholes, and Internal Critique

• The Yalta Story: Yalta, a Talmudic woman, demands to eat udders, highlighting the rabbis’ own creative legal maneuvering (46:39).

  “The law can really be manipulated if you’re creative enough...for her, the udder is kind of the ultimate loophole.”
  — (48:35, Berkowitz)

• Rabbis as Satirists: Talmudic stories often feature internal satire and critique.

11. The Mitzvah of the Mother Bird & Indistinction

• Indistinction (Matthew Calarco): A conceptual space where human-animal binaries are refused or blurred (50:44).
• Live Knowledge Required: Practicing these mitzvot forced ancient people to attend to details of animal life (52:13).

12. Orphans, Dystopian Critique, and Social Commentary

• Talmudic Tall Tales: Bizarre stories (giant birds, animal revenge) may function like Handmaid’s Tale or Wall-E: they exaggerate and invert violence to provoke critique (54:12).

  “What it suggests to me is really this anxiety about the death of the mother and about the vulnerability of this infant who needs... warmth to survive.”
  — (58:05, Berkowitz)

• Critical Social Order: These stories expose the underlying violence of animal domestication and its mundane, everyday forms (59:19).

13. Reversing the Question: What Do Families Teach Us About Animals?

• Interconnectedness: Seeing animals through the lens of family expands both our concept of family and our empathy for animals (59:52).

  “Families teach us that animals have full lives like we do. Family is such a powerful construct for us. To extend it to animals allows us to relate more to them as having bonds, intimacies, dramas of attachment and separation.”
  — (60:00, Berkowitz)

14. Methodological and Disciplinary Shifts

• Broader Implications for Jewish Studies: Comparing animal studies to feminist approaches, Berkowitz argues that new questions about animals can make visible neglected materials and perspectives in rabbinic texts, opening new comparative and historical insights (62:14).

  “It allows us to maybe look at these texts from an animal’s perspective... the texts aren’t as anthropocentric and speciesist as we might imagine.”
  — (64:20, Berkowitz)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “To observe this biblical prohibition, you had to keep track of your animal’s family tree. ... The contrast between that and today, where we don't even know our animals have families, that just ... I sat with that for a while.”
  — Berkowitz (34:33)

• “If you’re trying to observe this mitzvah, you have to get into the details of birds and bird nests ... The law really forces people to get to know animals, otherwise you just can’t follow the law.”
  — Berkowitz (52:13)

• “I think stories like these are kind of like modern art, you look at it, you let it sink in... there’s anxiety about the death of the mother and vulnerability of this infant. ... On the other hand, there’s this wish to deny and dismiss that status.”
  — Berkowitz (57:38, 58:05)

• “Families teach us that animals have full lives like we do ... And if we kind of move it in the opposite direction, I think animals are teaching us about how our family experiences are not unique.”
  — Berkowitz (60:00, 60:29)

Key Timestamps for Important Segments

• 03:59–07:03 — Book’s philosophical framework & influence of Brian Massumi
• 07:03–10:17 — Berkowitz’s intellectual and personal background
• 11:43–13:39 — Ancient human-animal intimacy
• 14:03–15:48 — Bambi, animal stories, and modern vs. ancient sentiment
• 16:11–20:25 — Scientific perspectives & ancient sensitivity to animal affect
• 20:36–21:56 — The four main biblical animal family laws
• 22:21–30:16 — Humanitarian rationales from Philo to Maimonides; technical rabbinic approaches
• 33:43–37:16 — Market systems and genealogies of animals
• 39:21–45:26 — The “udder” debates, the absent referent, and literary symbolism
• 46:39–50:31 — Yalta, loopholes, and Talmudic self-critique
• 50:44–53:25 — Indistinction, mother bird mitzvah, and attention to animal lives
• 54:12–59:19 — Orphaned animals, dystopia, and social critique
• 59:52–62:14 — Flipping the question: families’ lessons for animality
• 62:14–65:30 — Disciplinary implications & methodology
• 65:36–68:49 — Future projects and directions in animal and Jewish studies

Conclusion

Dr. Berkowitz’s book and this conversation invite a rethinking of what constitutes family, kinship, compassion, and legal reasoning—both in ancient texts and in contemporary life. By refusing both oversentimentalization and cold technicality, and by “reading like the rabbis”—closely, attentively, playfully—the episode offers new ways to ethically and intellectually engage with the nonhuman world.

For Further Reading:

• Beth A. Berkowitz, What Animals Teach Us About Families: Kinship and Species in the Bible and Rabbinic Literature (UC Press, 2026)
• Brian Massumi, What Animals Can Teach Us About Politics
• Carol Adams, “The Absent Referent”