Animals have a great advantage over man: they never hear the clock strike, however intelligent they may be; they die without any idea of death; they have no theologians to instruct them…Their last moments are not disturbed by unwelcome and often objectionable ceremonies; it costs them nothing to be buried; no one starts lawsuits over their wills.

—Voltaire

Who can say what cows feel, when they surround and stare intently on a dying or dead companion?

—Charles Darwin

It was the last day before the cows would be herded to different grazing grounds. Hunting season begins October 1st, and they have to be out of the way. It was thus also the last day for a walk around this particular area of Sauvie Island. From now until April 1st hikes are severely restricted.

I have no clue what cows feel. Does the possibility of not knowing about death outweigh the burden of not knowing that pain ends, either? Be it the fleeting pain that you and I know will be gone either by passage of time or the next dose of Ibuprofen? Or the chronic pain that we know will end with the loss of our current consciousness?

I have also always wondered about the fact that cows look at you. Ever noticed? Other animals out in the open might strike you with an evaluative glance before they decide to scurry to safety. Maybe your domesticated friends look at you when they want food, a walk or are simply bored or proud to show off a trick – but that prolonged stare of interest that you get from cows who don’t expect anything from you? It is puzzling.

Of course the premise that animals don’t know about death itself – still prevalent in the early 1970s, when anthropologist Ernest Becker wrote in his Pulitzer Prize–winning book Denial of Death that nonhuman animals know nothing about dying: “The knowledge of death is reflective and conceptual, and animals are spared it” – is questionable. Scientists now believe that at least some species recognize the special nature of death, elephants and chimpanzees among them. There is certainly some form of grieving in evidence, when loss occurs.

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You might wonder why the theme of death pops up a second day in a row: it is the season in the Jewish calendar where thoughts of life and death (as well as our personal behavior and responsibility for our actions) is writ large. The days between the New Year and the Day of Atonement are meant to be days of contemplation, days of fear of punishment but also of hope that repentance and change is possible and able to avert divine retribution. The core of the message – independent of religious belief – speaks to me: annual re-assessment of our own moral compass and conscious decisions to try to do better is a valuable thing.

The poem that is recited on the High Holidays, the Un’taneh tokef, captures it aptly, with looming threats and the possibility of getting it to the point.

Here is an excerpt:

Let us now relate the power of this day’s holiness, for it is awesome and frightening. …….All mankind will pass before You like a flock of sheep. Like a shepherd pasturing his flock, making sheep pass under his staff, so shall You cause to pass, count, calculate, and consider the soul of all the living; and You shall apportion the destinies of all Your creatures and inscribe their verdict.

On Rosh Hashanah will be inscribed and on Yom Kippur will be sealed – how many will pass from the earth and how many will be created; who will live and who will die; who will die at his predestined time and who before his time; who by water and who by fire, who by sword and who by beast, who by famine and who by thirst, who by upheaval and who by plague, who by strangling and who by stoning. Who will rest and who will wander, who will live in harmony and who will be harried, who will enjoy tranquility and who will suffer, who will be impoverished and who will be enriched, who will be degraded and who will be exalted. But Repentance, Prayer, and Charity annul the severe Decree.

……

Here is a traditional recitation by a Cantor.

And here is a Leonard Cohen songs that riffs of the poem:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgMaBreDuF4

Tomorrow is Yom Kippur – I will be off-line.

And thus the inevitable question if cows like music has to wait for another day.