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Certain dog breeds have distinctive personalities. I was running on the levee the other day while a man was training a young Labrador retriever. Of course, as soon as the dog saw me he ran up to me, jumped up and waited for me to pet him. The gentleman was apologetic, but I told him there was no need; I knew the dog would act this way because retrievers are “friendly” dogs.
What about birds? When I was a child, we had a parrot named Bam Bam, after the Flintstones character. My father despised the bird, who would bite your hand when you reached in the cage, spit seeds all over the floor, and make an obnoxious racket in the apartment at strange hours. One day Bam Bam flew away after “escaping” from his cage on our balcony, but whether or not this was an accident remains a secret. In other words, he had a miserable “personality.”
Our sages also believed birds had personalities. That’s why, in the week’s portion Ha’azinu, we read about G-d’s protection over the Jewish people as mirroring that of an eagle for her young (Deuteronomy 32:11). The sages say that this behavior of the eagle stands in contrast to the “selfish” personality of the raven. We read in Midrash Tanchuma (9th century; Eikev 2:1):
- When the raven reproduces, it reproduces white [young]. Then the male says to the female that another bird has begotten the chicks. So they reject and forsake their young. What does the Holy One, blessed be He, do? He brings forth gnats from their dung. Then [the gnats] fly, and [the young] eat them. This is what is written (in Job 38:41), “Who provides prey for the raven.” (And presumably how they turn black). But the eagle is merciful, as it is written (in Deut. 32:11), “As an eagle stirs up its nest and hovers over its young; it spreads its wings, takes them up, and bears them aloft on its pinions.” Still, the mother eagle is concerned about predators. What does she do? She places them on her wings and says, “Better that the arrow should go through me and not through my children.”
This is a beautiful metaphor, but it isn’t true that eagles carry their young around on their backs. They are, however, very attentive to the needs of their young and care for them in the nest until they’re ready to fly. Similarly, G-d protected us in the desert until we were ready to venture out on our own.
When they were considering what the national bird of the US would be, none other than Ben Franklin considered the turkey before choosing the eagle. I’m guessing the sages would agree with his choice.
- Rabbi Scott Hoffman
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