The Good Shepherd

In both the Pentateuch and the New Testament, the relation between a shepherd and his sheep is constantly upheld as a model of tenderness, devotion, and compassion. Among the most famous examples is psalm 23, known as “The Lord’s Prayer,” where the speaker adopts the point of view of the sheep:

Yahweh is my shepherd, I lack nothing.
In grassy meadows he lets me lie. By tranquil streams he leads me to restore my spirit.
He guides me in paths of saving justice as befits his name.
Even were I to walk in a ravine as dark as death I should fear no danger, for you are at my side.
Your staff and your crook are there to soothe me.
(Psalm 23, 1-4, Jerusalem translation)

In the Gospel of John, Jesus identifies himself as the good shepherd, who will lay down his life for his sheep (John 10: 11).

This is not simply a phenomenon of the remote past. For a few decades, I have gone every year to the Sheep and Wool Festival in Reinbeck, NY. Everywhere, people are admiring sheep, buying pictures of sheep, and speaking of them with great affection. The exhibitors are largely artisans who spin, dye, and weave wool products, though there are also several sheep farmers and herders. Once I bought a Christmas ornament there that consisted of a glass ball with some colored wool inside. It came with a picture of the sheep from which the wool was taken, together with her name and a short description of her personality. In the decades that I attended the festival, I have never seen the slightest suggestion of cruelty toward sheep, and I am quite sure that would not be tolerated. Nevertheless, mutton and lamb are on the menu.

There are many stories in Jewish,^[1] as well as Christian, tradition that tell of shepherds that showed similar devotion. Roger A. Caras has written, “I am not certain that anyone who has not spent time with sheepherders can appreciate the intense involvement that exists between the shepherd and his flocks. The well-being of the flock is all; everything else falls by the wayside.”^[2]

If this sounds extreme, we might consider a comparable bond between caretakers and their animals in recent times. After the collapse of the nuclear reactor in Hiroshima, some farmers risked their lives by exposing themselves to radiation in order to return home and feed their animals, knowing that their meat could not ever be eaten or sold.^[3] Jocelyne Porcher uses the French word élevage, which is sometimes translated as “animal husbandry” but, as she uses it, has no English equivalent, for such human-animal relations.^[4]

Our bonds with animals mirror those among human beings in their historical era. Anthropologist Richard Tapper  suggests the term “ethnomorphism” to signify the way people project qualities of their own society, which they regard as universally human, on to animals According to him, premodern relationships of herders and peasants to animals resembled those of feudalism. The peasant had authority over the animals, much as the noble had over the peasant. But that authority was, in both cases, tempered by a sense of noblesse oblige, which obligated those in authority to consider the interests and feelings of those below them. This was gradually, though not completely, replaced by the relationships under laissez faire capitalism, which sanctioned ruthless exploitation. Today, many people, in an analogous way, think of animals, particularly domestic ones, as an idealized version of the technocratic meritocracy in the urban middle class today.^[5] Porcher, however, sees the relationships of pastoralists and traditional farmers as based on the patriarchal family, where the father has authority but is expected to look after the welfare of his children.^[6] All of these, however, are models, which only describe the relationship between people and their animals in a very approximate way.

In many conversations there over the years with exhibitors at the fair who keep sheep, I have been told by them many times that keeping animals is a constant reminder of their own mortality. This idea is elucidated in detail a recent article entitled “Until death do they part: Loving and killing in Swiss on-farm slaughter” by Märcz, Marvin, and Gibbert, though with cattle rather than sheep. In their introduction, the authors write, “… on the premise of a commercial beef production that is based on empathy and animal agency, we asked ourselves, why and how do farmers allow themselves to love the cattle that they inevitably kill, and how do they manage to balance caring and killing?”^[7] The authors studied a group of fairly traditional Swiss farmers, who, rather than sending their cattle to abattoirs, slaughter them on the farm. The procedures were highly individual, depending on the farmer, the animal, and the unique relationship between them. The bonds entailed intense empathy, thoughtful handling, and words of farewell. The authors summarize by saying that “the cattle life cycles involve the farmers intimately, in both life and death, and ‘wanting to be part of it,’ as many of our farmers framed it, means sharing the joy of newborns and their carefree youth just as much as sharing accidents and mourning of the herd.”^[8]

This sort of relationship may seem inconceivable to many people today, though it is documented in both historical and ethnographic literature. Porcher interprets élevage as an exchange of gifts, which, according to anthropologists, is also important  for the cohesion of human societies. The farmer or pastoralist extends his or her understanding beyond the boundaries of human society. S/he enjoys the companionship of animals as well as a means of livelihood. The animals receive protection, shelter, and food from human beings. This enables them to develop sensibilities that might otherwise be inaccessible to them. Eventually, they also sacrifice their lives.^[9]

But to understand undergoing slaughter as a gift, one must believe that the animals consent. Since the people and animals in their care do not share a common language, there is no way to ask that directly. Practices in ancient Greece and other cultures have required acts that are interpreted as implicit consent in as part of the ritualistic slaughter of  domestic animals.^[10] According to Swiss law, animals may not be slaughtered on a farm rather unless they consent, and they must show their willingness by allowing themselves to be led to the place of death.^[11]

The question of consent or refusal inevitably remains fairly subjective. But knowing the animals intimately certainly makes the claim of consent more credible.

Recognizing the reality of such a relationship does not solve any of the ethical questions relating to the keeping, slaughter, and eating of animals. What Porcher calls élevage is not exempt from criticism, whether it is practiced by Old Testament patriarchs or contemporary Swiss farmers. As with virtually all human activity, it entails possibilities for self-deception and failure to realize the full implications of one’s behavior.

Traditional farmers and herders, however, confront the human condition in some ways more directly than most people today, for whom the killing of food animals is kept safely out of sight. All life is nurtured by consumption of other life, whether animal or vegetable. But what all manner of living things share is, above all, the prospect of death, and that holds less terror when humankind does not attempt to encounter it alone.

[1] Märcz, Marvin, and Gibbert, “Until death do they part: Loving and killing in Swiss on-farm slaughter,” p. 11.

[2] Porcher, vivre avec les animaux: une utopie pour le xxi^e siécle, pp. 45-9.

[3] Marcel Detienne, “Culinary Practices and the Spirit of Sacrifice,” in The Cuisine of Sacrifice Among the Greeks, ed. Marcel Detienne and Jean-Pierre Vernant (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989), pp. 1-20.

[4] Märcz, Marvin, and Gibbert, “Until death do they part: Loving and killing in Swiss on-farm slaughter,” pp. 4, 7.

[5] Richard L. Tapper, “Animality, humanity, morality, society,” in What is an Animal?, ed. Tim Ingold (London: Routledge, 1994), pp. 54-55.

[6] Jocelyne Porcher, vivre avec les animaux: une utopie pour le xx^e siècle (Paris: Éditions la Découverte, 2011), p. 57.

[7] Lisa Märcz, Garry Marvin, and Michael Gibbert, “Until death do they part: Loving and killing in Swiss on-farm slaughter,” Journal of Rural Studies, no. 109 (2024): 1.

[8] Shlomo Pesach Toperoff, The Animal Kingdom in Jewish Thought (Northwell, NJ: Jason Aronson, 1995), pp. 219-24.

[9] Roger A. Caras, A Perfect Harmony: The Intertwining Lives of Animals and Humans throughout History (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996), p. 66.

[10] Alain Caille, “préface,” in Jocelyne Porcher, vivre avec les animaux: une utopie pour le xxi^e siècle (Paris: Éditions la Découverte, 2011), p. 9.

[11] Jocelyne Porcher, vivre avec les animaux: une utopie pour le xxi^e siécle (Paris: Ẻditions La Découverte, 2011), pp. 21-44.

Works cited:

Caille, Alain, “Préface.” In Jocelyne Porcher, Vivre Avec Les Animaux: Une Utopie Pour Le Xxi Siècle, 9-14. Paris: Éditions la Découverte, 2011.

Caras, Roger A, A Perfect Harmony: The Intertwining Lives of Animals and Humans Throughout History. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996.

Detienne, Marcel, “Culinary Practices and the Spirit of Sacrifice.” Translated by Paula Wissing. In The Cuisine of Sacrifice among the Greeks, edited by Marcel Detienne and Jean-Pierre Vernant, 1-20. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989.

Märcz, Lisa, Garry Marvin, and Michael Gibbert, “Until Death Do They Part: Loving and Killing in Swiss on-Farm Slaughter“, Journal of Rural Studies, no. 109 (2024): 1-12.

Porcher, Jocelyne, Vivre avec les animaux: une utopie pour le xxi^e Siècle. Paris: Éditions la Découverte, 2011.

Tapper, Richard L., “Animality, Humanity, Morality, Society.” In What Is an Animal?, edited by Tim Ingold, 47-62. London: Routledge, 1994.

Toperoff, Shlomo Pesach, The Animal Kingdom in Jewish Thought. Northwell, NJ: Jason Aronson, 1995.

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