Rabbis: Presidential Pardon For Turkey Ineffective Unless Turkey Repents

“Without going through the real, painful, and necessary T’shuvah process, I’m afraid a presidential pardon, no matter how official, doesn’t expiate the sinner.”

Washington, November 24 – Leading spiritual figures in the Jewish world cautioned today that the annual White House ritual of releasing the traditional Thanksgiving fowl from impending slaughter only works, according to the ancient sources, if the release accompanies the bird’s sincere effort to set right any injustices it committed and to rectify the character flaws that led to those failings in the first place.

Rabbis from around the country weighed in on the decades-old practice of pardoning a turkey on Thanksgiving, noting that the laws of T’shuvah, or repentance, are clear: no release from punishment is effective without proper T’shuvah. The T’shuvah process consists of three steps: remorse, verbal confession, and resolution not to repeat the offense, with the resolution solemn enough that God Himself would attest to the commitment not to relapse. The annual turkey-pardoning ritual, the Rabbis warned, comprises none of those elements, meaning that the fowl will remain without atonement from its misdeeds and still subject to the physical and spiritual consequences of same.

“The Rambam is clear in delineating the T’shuvah process,” stated Rabbi Moshe Elefant of the Union of Orthodox Congregations of America, referring to the medieval sage Maimonides by a Hebrew acronym. “Unless I’m mistaken, no turkey has ever properly performed T’shuvah before or even after the presidential pardon. That casts doubt on the validity of the pardons given to turkeys on Thanksgiving since Abraham Lincoln – though I understand the first president to make it an official ‘pardon’ was Ronald Reagan. Still, without going through the real, painful, and necessary T’shuvah process, I’m afraid a presidential pardon, no matter how official, doesn’t expiate the sinner. Atonement requires real change.”

Veterinary experts questioned whether a turkey could engage in T’shuvah, given the fowl’s inferior cognitive and verbal capacity compared to that of humans. “As long as the concepts of ‘remorse,’ ‘verbal articulation of confession’ and ‘resolve’ are adapted to a turkey’s intelligence and tendency to squawk rather than speak, we might be able to discuss the relevance of the proposition,” explained Dr. Hodu Adkush of the University of Maryland. “Otherwise, it’s not a fair demand to make of turkeys. As birds go they’re not the smartest. A crow, yes – a crow probably has the capacity for actual evil, and the average crow is probably smarter than the average human. But turkeys are… kind of dumb.”

“I guess that just means they’re getting slaughtered, if they can’t properly repent,” she added. “I’ll have mine with mashed potatoes and gravy.”

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