Dvar Torah Mishpatim 5785 - A Tale of Two Donkeys

The Torah tells us (Shemos 23:5): “If you shall see the donkey of your hater lying under his burden, will you allow yourself to leave it to him? You must forsake everything and hasten to his aid.” The Torah tells us that despite hating someone, if you see his donkey suffering under its burden, you are obligated to help that person and relieve the donkey from its suffering. There are two positive aspects for helping. First, there is potentially a Torah commandment to prevent Tzaar Ba’alei Chayim (animal suffering). Second, the Torah does not think it appropriate to feel malicious joy that your enemy is suffering. Instead, “VeChadalta” – you should stop and not empower that feeling. Do not avoid helping him, but instead jump to his aid. (Hirsch). A contemporary case would be helping your enemy whose car is stuck in the snow.

A parallel case occurs in Devarim (32:4): “You shall not see the donkey of your brother or his ox falling on the road and hide yourself from them; you shall surely stand them up, with him.” Instead of your enemy, the person in trouble is your “brother.” Instead of the animal suffering under its burden, the problem is fallen packages, loading up the donkey or ox and helping your brother. Here, even though the donkey is not suffering, you are still obligated to help your brother pick up whatever has dropped and reload the donkey. One could extrapolate from this case that if someone drops their groceries or other items on the ground, one is obligated to help pick them up and help repack them so they can be carried.

The Gemara in Baba Metzia 32b poses the question, if the situations were reversed, loading the donkey of your enemy or unloading the donkey of your friend, which would take precedence? Unloading the donkey of your friend would seem preferable, because you would be alleviating the donkey’s suffering, which is arguably a Torah commandment, plus you would have the added benefit of helping your friend. Surprisingly, the Gemara concludes that loading of your enemy’s donkey takes precedence, even though you would be allowing your friend’s donkey to suffer and possibly violate the mitzvah of Tzaar Ba’alei Chayim (causing an animal to suffer). Why would that be? The Gemara mandates this in order “lakof es yitzro” to take control of your yatzer hora (evil inclination). Even though one would prefer helping one’s brother and not one’s enemy, and it is a mitzvah to alleviate animal suffering, nevertheless it is more important to require a person to help his enemy and let the animal suffer because it will help one conquer one’s yetzer hora.

Apparently, the act of helping one’s enemy will have a lasting impact on one’s psychological makeup. Human nature is to not want to help an enemy when he is in trouble. In fact, one might be happy that his enemy is suffering. However, when a person intentionally does an action that runs counter to his emotional or physical desires, he learns to control his desires. The Torah is giving us a blueprint for learning to live a happy and meaningful life by learning to control our desires. This is the meaning of the Mishnah in Avos (4:1): “Who is mighty? He who subdues his [evil] inclination. The Gemara is telling us, as Hirsch says, that the “duty of self-conquest” is even higher than the Torah mitzvah of alleviating animal suffering.

Learning self-control in challenging situations is a demanding, life-long project. We can learn from the Torah’s two cases involving loading and unloading that not only do we have the capability of succeeding in controlling our desires, but that we are obligated to undertake the effort to succeed.