Our Gemara on Amud Beis discusses a case where one performs an act of killing an animal, but not a kosher shechitta. In such a case, since it’s not a true shechitta, if this was a child or mother of an animal slaughtered on the same day, he would not be liable. The text of the Mishna is:

“All agree that one who slaughters an animal and it becomes a carcass by his hand because the slaughter was invalid, or one who stabs an animal, or one who uproots the windpipe and the gullet, is exempt with regard to the prohibition against slaughtering a mother and its offspring.”

There is a famous Teshuva of the Noda BeYehuda (YD II:10) who rules that though hunting for sport is not an activity for a “nice Jewish boy,” as it is a frivolous waste of time, it is not a violation of tzaar baalei chaim (causing animals to suffer). His reasoning is, if killing an animal was a violation we wouldn’t be allowed to eat them either. So killing, per se, is not necessarily inducing suffering, as long as it is done in a relatively quick and painless manner.

However, Tosafos Rabbi Akiva Eiger on this Mishna makes an interesting deduction from the text. He notes the Mishna is careful to say, “He is exempt with regard to the prohibition against slaughtering a mother and its offspring,” as if to say, technically he is exempt from this. However he still is liable for causing the animal to suffer. This indicates that Rabbi Akiva Eiger may disagree with the Noda BeYehuda. What could be the basis of distinction in the argument?

Perhaps Rabbi Akiva Eiger holds that the idea of slaughtering is not an assurance that the animal does not suffer, rather it is a Torah-granted method that permits the slaughter and consumption of food. True, it might minimize suffering, but who’s to say the animal doesn’t actually suffer? Clearly, animals sense when they’re about to be slaughtered and are afraid of it. We even have a famous Gemara (Bava Metzia 85a) where Rabbi Yehuda Hanasi suffered a divine punishment for not showing mercy on a calf that was being led to slaughter and tried to hide under his cloak.

So according to Rabbi Akiva Eiger, animals suffer in all forms of death - the Torah just sanctions it. The Torah sanctions other suffering when necessary, such as capital and corporal punishment. However, the Noda BeYehuda found it to be untenable nor acceptable that on a daily basis, the consumption of meat would be allowed for expedience, if it caused animals to suffer.

These two points of view are substantial, psychologically and philosophically. You might say that Rabbi Akiva Eiger sees the Torah world as more black and white, in a sense that animal suffering is just not important if God decrees it to serve a function. After all, in the totality of world events, there is suffering constantly for all kinds of reasons. Does that make God cruel? Of course not! He designed the world in a certain way where loss and suffering is a part of the physical experience. We might not like it, but the overall wisdom of allowing for entropy and deterioration of physical matter makes existence possible. If change never happened, we wouldn’t be able to think or grow or have a free will. It is the very allowance of change which also automatically invites entropy and chaos. One plus One has to equal two.

On the other hand, the Noda BeYehuda takes a different stance. Quite simply, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck. Similarly, if it suffers like a duck, then it is suffering like a duck. There is no way that on a constant mass consumer basis, the Torah would sanction such suffering, and therefore we must presume that a slaughter is so instantaneous and quick that the animal does not suffer at all. And therefore, any type of quick death would not be a violation of animal suffering.

We can relate this dispute to the famous dispute between Rambam and Ramban regarding the teaching in the Gemara (Megillah 25a) that we silence a chazan who praises God for having mercy on the mother bird. The simple reading of this is that the commandments are not there and do not need to make sense because of small, subjective human concerns. Animals do not have enough intelligence to even suffer. It’s a slippery slope to see the mitzvos as a function of God’s mercy, because many commandments indeed do cause suffering, as we noted earlier. Rather, Ramban (Devarim 22:6) argued that the commandment to have mercy on the mother bird is not for the mother bird, but rather to teach humans compassion, and preclude developing in them cruelty and apathy to apparent suffering.

However, Rambam (Moreh Nevuchim III:48), despite this Gemara which he sees as aggadic hyperbole, says obviously the reason for this commandment is to protect the bird from suffering. Further, he maintains since emotions are not a part of intellect, an animal’s emotions are the same as a human’s. In fact, he says the mother bird suffers a loss of its offspring in the same way that a human mother would suffer the loss of her offspring, and the pain is no different.

Looking at it this way, we can say that Rabbi Akiva Eiger follows the Ramban’s school of thought. Even though in a general sense, the laws of the Torah might teach compassion, any specific rule may override that. It’s not that the animal doesn’t suffer, but rather it’s permitted in that circumstance. The Noda BeYehuda follows the Rambam’s school of thought. If the animal looks like it is suffering, then it is, and quite obviously that matters to the Torah. Therefore, any type of killing that is not quick, is a violation, but we can deduce from the permissibility of slaughter, that quick killing is allowed.