Throat with a correctly sharpened knife ensures that the animal does not experience any pain. In fact, the basis of the commandment of Shechita is founded on that all-important command, “You shall love your fellow as you love yourself” from which we derive that even wherever it is necessary to kill, we are to choose an easy death for our fellow-creatures for this, too, is included in “You shall love your friend as yourself.” Another outcome of slaughtering at the throat is that through cutting through the main veins and arteries of the neck helps to remove all the blood of the animal so that we do not eat the meat with any of the blood because eating blood is forbidden.
Taken from “Metsudas Dovid —Taamay HaMitzvos” of Rabbeinu David ibn Zimra (“the Radvaz”) and from various other Codifiers.
Most knowledgeable people accept that the Jewish method of slaughtering animals for food, called “Shechita,” which has been practised by the Jewish People from time immemorial, is a Divine command in the Torah. As such, they understand that G-d Almighty, Who created the world and gave His People the Torah to live by, knows what is best for His creatures and that He has commanded this exact method of slaughter because it is the most merciful and that it is altogether consistent with G-d’s command to us to be merciful as He is merciful. They note and accept that G-d did not command His People, “You shall slaughter in the most merciful manner possible” (which would amount to a clear instruction to use whatever quicker and more merciful methods became available as technology progressed) but that He commanded that the slaughter is to be exactly as He taught it to Mosheh our Teacher, and that this method has been carefully preserved and passed on in exactly the same way as the rest of the Torah and which we have today.
These people go further and assert that from the very fact that G-d the Merciful Creator has commanded that slaughter shall be done in this precise way, then ipso facto, this must be the most merciful way to kill animals for food.
There are others, however, who oppose Shechita. Sadly, this opposition is usually based on one of two things, ignorance or bigotry (the bigotry in this instance is plain old-fashioned anti-Semitism) and oftentimes in the arguments against Shechita, both, ignorance and anti-Semitism, are clearly present.
The following essay is adapted from “The Word and the Circle of Willis — an examination of Shechita” by AYbeZ, published in the Kislev 5746 / December ’85 issue of “Concord” magazine (Vol.14 No.1). That article is only one of the many that have been written in recent years to explain Shechita for the modern mind for there is nothing wrong with trying to understand the Mitzvos of HaShem. (“To understand,” not to justify or excuse.) After all, the Torah and the Mitzvos of HaShem are commanded to us as thinking human beings, living in all ages and times, including our own modern times. The Torah is not for robots. Indeed, we are in duty bound to try to understand as much as we can the Mitzvos that HaShem has commanded us, so that we can do them properly.
So, this essay should help to get rid of the ignorance. Once the ignorance concerning Shechita is banished, the Divine wisdom and compassion in Shechita will become clear beyond doubt. As has been said, “Argument thrives where facts are scarce” and when the facts are explained, the ignorance, and the arguments that come from ignorance, will disappear. Unfortunately, the anti-Semitism is more difficult to eradicate.
