Who knew that the mitzvah of "Shliach Ha"ken" means beating the hell out of the mother goose?
Live and learn!
Live and learn!
Township police and the state Division of Fish and Wildlife are investigating reports that children were brought to a goose nest to beat and harass the birds on a daily basis, perhaps to steal the eggs.
The incidents took place over the course of five days earlier this month near a retention pond on Cedar Bridge Avenue, according to a woman who says she saw the attacks and called police several times.
The woman, who asked that her name not be included in the story for fear of retaliation in the community, told New Jersey 101.5 that her office overlooks the pond where the Canada geese are nesting.
The first time the attacks took place was about 2:15 p.m. May 13 when the woman said she heard screaming outside her office. She said she "saw a group of boys (maybe 10 of them) screaming and clapping and walking towards a goose who was flapping his wings and honking."
She said she wanted to scream at them to stop, but "they could not hear me so I went to get my phone and they left."
She said she didn't think anything of the incident at the time and "thought maybe they were walking by the pond and the goose was going after them so they were trying to make it get back."
She saw a group of boys head to the pond the next day around the same time and when she looked from her second-floor office window she saw "a smaller group of boys swinging large sticks around at the goose. Again, by the time I got my phone out they were leaving."
She said that's when she called Lakewood police who "told me that since the boys were no longer there, there wasn't much that could be done but they would send someone out to check the area."
The attacks continues for a third consecutive day, she said.
"This time I saw the big sticks make contact with the goose and noticed a second goose. After I got out of work, I drove over to where the boys were and saw that there was a nest ...
As my husband drove us home, I called the police again. This time I was crying and they asked me to go back and meet an officer there. I showed the officer where the nest was and the sticks that had been used."
She said she did not see the boys on Thursday but they did return on Friday afternoon.
"This time I saw them stomping near the nest and saw them hit the mother goose so hard that she fell into the water," she said. "The geese were screaming and going towards the kids but when they would get close the kids would hit them.
"I yelled out the window, 'I hope you know what you are doing is illegal!' and the woman hurried the kids into the van. I was too far away to get a plate number."
She called the police again, who arrived a few minutes later.
"They also had animal control with them and said that she (the mother goose) didn't appear to be hurt," she said.
Township police confirmed the investigation on Thursday and urged anyone with information to call
Sgt. Kenneth Burdge at 732-363-0200 or the Division of Fish and Wildlife at 609-292-2965.
10 comments:
Attention Lakewood Residents:
When you go out in public, please try to see how you appear to the outside world.
SO . . .
They hate us enough already, you know that by now. When you go out in public, they are all looking at you with critical eyes.
Thanks,
A fellow Lakewood Resident
It doesn't look like the touched the mother goose. The tried to scare it away, which is the mitzvah.
Maybe ALSO farkert: when you are in public make sure that all your actions make a kiddush Hashem and there will be internet posts on hefech Kiddush Hashem!
The mitzvah (biblical commandment) is to be compassionate to the mother goose so she doesn't see you stealing the eggs (her kids) when you need to feed your family.
But in 2019, to feed your family, please go to the supermarket and buy a dozen eggs for a $1.09. This kind of symbolic religioning (replacing compassion) is what brings out the worst in people. Frum (pious) some people complain, leads to it's Yiddish acronym: feel rishas, vainig mitzvahs (lots of evil, little compassion).
Avoida Zora (idolatry). Pushing our compassion to be just a show for public relations and fundraising. Then using that money and power to further the cruelty. And the cycle repeats.
Joe Yeshivish, pointing out how to ACT in public, instead of real compassion, is feeding this cycle. You can't fool all the people all the time.
They don't want to hurt the feelings of the geese when taking the eggs, so they beat the crap out of the geese to take their mind off the eggs. Makes sense to me.
Joe Yeshivish 2:26,
You confuse hate with dislike. Hate should be reserved for true sonay Yisroel. Nazis, Iran, Hamas and Satmar would foot that bill. But your non-Jewish or non-religious neighbors don’t hate you, but they surely dislike you for the way you impoverish local school districts and ruin neighborhoods by scorning local building codes. And oh yes, by being wilfully ignorant of your own halacha and lack of secular education.
I don’t hate you but I do pity you.
It's INSAAAAAANE in any case to attempt the mitzva with geese who are very aggressive in defense of their young & have the means to inflict serious injury when they attack, even on adult men. There was even an incident of a goose killing a kayaker who passed by a nest. During the struggle with the attacking goose the kayaker drowned.
There are shitos that say that it is adioraysah to do the mitzvah even if you don't want the eggs. When the mother bird flies around crying, it raises Hashems compassion for Klal Yisroel.
Unknown 5/28 12:10,
Who authored the shitos that it’s a d’orisa to beat a mother goose even if you don’t want the eggs?
Geese cry? Hashem listens to their cries?
This is sarcasm, right?
You want to raise messed up kids? Teach them to abuse animals.
What's next, drowning puppies?
Post a Comment