The Messianic Role of Pets! Oh My!

Let's follow Rabbi Bakst down a Rabbi hole indeed! This time he will discuss in an article the Messianic Role of Pets!

The Messianic Role of

the Proliferation of Domestic and Exotic Pets

(Based upon the Kabbalah School of the Gaon of Vilna) by Rabbi Yoel Bakst z'l

Dinah Says: For years, I've observed people increasingly treating their pets like humans. In the 70s, pets were simply animals you petted, fed, and loved, without considering them as human or treating them as such. Recently, I've noticed people dressing their dogs in clothes and costumes, placing them in baby carriages, and even choosing to have only "fur-babies" instead of children. You go to the grocery store or mall and people are walking their pets and pushing them in baskets and service animals are at an all time high. In the Adamic Kabbalah, we are trained to observe world phenomena and trends to understand our place in the messianic era. It may sound unusual, but it's true. The state of the world—through events, trends, human behaviors, and geopolitics—can offer insights into the primordial past and the messianic future. Let's take a look at what insights Rabbi Yoel has on these phenomena.......

"According to National Geographic (2014), in the United States alone there are approximately 78.2 million pet dogs, 86.4 million pet cats and 5.3 million house rabbits. Aside from these common animals people also keep the following as pets: ferrets, gerbils, hamsters, chinchillas, fancy rats, guinea pigs, canaries, parakeets, parrots, turtles, lizards, snakes, tropical fish, frogs, tarantulas and hermit crabs. Increasingly throughout American homes, as well as throughout the industrialized world, exotic and wild animals are competing to become “man’s best friend”. These animals include:  Anteaters, foxes, deer, bobcats, cheetahs, jaguars, leopards, cougars, lions, ocelots, tigers, opossums badgers, minks, skunks, otters, monkeys of all varieties, raccoons, flying squirrels, groundhogs, hyenas and sloths. It is believed that more exotic animals live in American homes than are cared for in American zoos. In 2013 pets outnumbered children four to one in the United States.

Since the year 2000, a small but increasing number of jurisdictions in North America have enacted laws redefining pet's owners as “guardians”. The cultural thrust behind this phenomenon has been characterized as simply changing attitudes and perceptions to actually working toward legal personhood for pets themselves. Granted that humans have always had pet dogs and cats and have had strong emotional attachments to these animals.  And granted that aristocracy and individuals among the cultural elite in every generation throughout the world have had their share of caged lions, tigers and bears. It is, however, undeniable that regarding the interaction between humans and animals, we are witnessing a phenomenon that is unprecedented in world history.

Pets and other animals have been anthropomorphized with increasing human attributes. Soaring to new heights in our generation of Disney animated cartoon animals (e.g., the debut of Mickey Mouse in 1928), the entire animal kingdom has come alive. Animal preservation, animal research, animal rights and animal consciousness is becoming more and more interfaced with human rights and human consciousness. Animals, to varying degrees and in varying ways, are increasingly being treated more and more like humans. Regularly appearing new scientific studies indicate that certain members of the mammal kingdom, e.g., dolphins, elephants, whales, monkeys, apes and even rodents, are revealing levels and aspects of intelligence that are simply amazing and unexpected by the scientific community.

There cannot remain any doubt that we are, in fact, experiencing an unimaginable and unprecedented paradigm shift with regard to the animal kingdom. It is now becoming more common place — and acceptable — that people even marry their pets. Although around the world bestiality remains illegal and such marriages have no legal status, human-animal unions are occurring even with public and private ceremonies."

Dinah Says: The Torah speaks explicitly on this issue:

"Do not lie with any animal to defile yourself with it." (Leviticus 18:23)

It was not to long ago that there was a wedding between a woman and her german shepherd. Unbelievable times we live in!

The Question

From the perspective of the prophesied Messianic Era, these phenomena are not only expected in the Final Generation (Dor Acharon), but they are an intrinsic part of the messianic process. I suggest, based in part by the sources quoted below, that it is not simply that we are only now discovering the intelligence quota of these animals. Rather, animals as a whole are literally evolving to higher degrees of consciousness that were not necessarily present until the last century, if not only in the last several decades.

The question is What are the spiritual roots of the growing “animal consciousness movement” and the unprecedented interaction in our generation between animals and humans that is growing exponentially around the world?

The answer is both profoundly simple and simply profound.  We know that the Torah, especially as understood in the Kabbalah School of the Gaon of Vilna, maintains that our present reality is literally teetering on the edge of time (and space, i.e. the space-time manifold). From the beginning of civilization (I.e., the last some 6,000 years) our reality has been in the time-based, historical period of what is known as the collective Josephic Messiah. According to well-known calculations (and obvious geopolitical events) the Nation of Israel, along with the entire spectrum of the rectified Seventy Nations, are about to “flip the lip” of time into the prophesied and much anticipated Davidic Messianic Era. In other words, we are about to witness the entirety of all lower 3-Dimensional reality undergo a complete transformation back into our original higher-dimensional home. This is nothing less than the necessary return to the original, higher-dimensional “Garden of Eden” and the higher-dimensional Adam and Chava before the chait of the Eitz HaDaat — the “Fall” of Adam.

The Davidic Messianic Era is simply picking up where Adam left off in the higher-dimensional “Friday afternoon” of the sixth, higher-dimensional “day” of creation. Since Adam existed in a higher dimension, Adam's original tikkun/work was of a very different nature than humanity’s tikkun/work since the Fall. However, this was not only true of the human level. Before reality collapsed into its present state, the same was true of all animal life. This is what the master expositor of the Kabbalah of the Gra, R. Shlomo Eliyashiv, known as the Leshem, has written:

"Before the sin [of the eating from the Tree of Knowledge] all species of animals were gifted with intelligence and understanding. They also possessed many natural capabilities that Adam [did not possess]; these capabilities would therefore enable Adam to perform all the necessary and relevant activities involved in his rectification work (tikun) of Creation. All of them had complete mental faculties and all of them spoke fluently... In fact, as the Ramchal has written, “Before Adam's fall all animals were on the level of human beings today”.

Adam was to rectify the world by reuniting every aspect of Creation to its supernal root. This involved, for example, various activities that we would now describe as the extraction and refinement of raw materials for the manufacture of essential commodities. As the Leshem explains, a crucial role in this production process was played by the animal kingdom:

"Even after he was placed in the Garden of Eden, Adam would go out regularly and rectify all the other aspects of Creation. His work consisted of unifying these aspects, via all the activities of production and craftsmanship [that were unique to his higher dimensionality]. This is what the Holy One meant when He said to him: "Be fruitful and multiply.  Replenish the earth and subdue it. Utilize the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and every living thing that crawls upon the earth" (Genesis 1:28).

Adam was given permission to utilize all aspects of the mineral, vegetable, and animal [kingdoms] throughout the entire world... With regard to the animal kingdom, he was given dominion over all the biodiversity of life — animals, birds, and fish. As explained by the Arizal, all of these [aspects of the mineral, plant, and animal kingdoms] were originally generated from the holy sparks (nitzotzot) that fell as a result of the Shattering of the Vessels. It was, therefore, Adam's job to rectify and elevate these sparks through all the various activities of production and craftsmanship."

The Leshem continues:

"As stated in the Midrash, all species of animals, birds, and fish were given to Adam as servants. He was to utilize each one in its respective natural habitat and in accord with the unique powers with which it was endowed.  Adam was to utilize all the various animals and beasts, each one according to its nature.  This then [as explained above] is the meaning of the Biblical directive, "Be fruitful and multiply.  Replenish the earth and subdue it. Utilize the fish of the sea, the fowl of the heaven, and every living thing that crawls upon the earth."  “Replenish”, “subdue”, and “utilize” allude here to the ability to elevate, to transform, and to rectify Creation. This rectification involved refining and elevating all the fractal sparks and shattered fragments that lie scattered throughout all levels of Creation and unifying them back into their Source. "

This was his great tikun. This is the meaning of the statement of the Sages, "[Mashiach] ben David will not come until all the souls in the 'body' will be completed."  These "souls" are the sparks and fragments that must be elevated, integrated, and unified back into the universal "body" of archetypal man – the original Adam. This tikun of all four modes of Creation – mineral, vegetable, animal, and human – was to be completed through Adam.

This formulation of the Leshem (and Ramchal) is not mystical speculation or kabbalistic ideas, rather these teachings are part of the extensive handed down tradition of Chazal. Additionally, this Rabbinic cosmology is following a logical symmetry. From a simple geometric perspective, a dimensional collapse ensued in which the former “Adamic” (human) level dropped one dimension below itself into what was previously held by the “animal” kingdom. In turn, the animal kingdom fell into the “plant” kingdom and the plant kingdom descended into the dimension of the inorganic “mineral” kingdom.  Present reality is now completing the tikkun of the Josephic Messianic Era. 

Before, however, we can fully enter into the Davidic Messianic Era, each of the four kingdoms of life must return to their original higher-dimensional stature. From the perspective of Messianic consciousness this is, in fact, what we are witnessing in the unprecedented proliferation of domestic and exotic pets and other unparalleled human-animal interaction. For Adam’s tikun to compete itself (Adam=Mashiach) the animal kingdom is, in various subtle and in not so subtle ways, quickly on a path to regain its original higher consciousness.

Is the humanization of our pets and in general with all animals, both domestic and wild, simply the misappropriation of projecting and anthropomorphizing our human traits onto animals? Or is it rather that animals are actually becoming more human-like? Moreover, if everything is being notched back up to its next level, what does that portend for us “humans”? We are also witnessing the return of humanity to its original, higher-dimensional angelic-like status of Adam and Chavah fully integrated and unified with a menagerie of higher-dimensional, human-like animals — together with the vegetable and mineral kingdoms!

The messianic return of higher animal consciousness is real and many of us are only too aware that it is happening all around us. However, like everything else that is occurring in our pre-Davidic messianic civilization, this phenomenon is also coming in through the “back door”, i.e., covertly, chaotically and often with negative and even horrendous consequences (e.g., millions of animals are eating far better than millions of undernourished and often starving children, and people are showing far more empathy for animals than for fellow humans).

Tragically, there is little Adamic Torah consciousness to help direct this prophesied and necessary process. Yet, for those of us who are actively “scouting for the signs of Mashiach”, this phenomenon — along with numerous other unexpected, bizarre and confusing phenomena — is apparently one of the many “signs and wonders” that must proceed the Ikvasa d’Meshicha.