[It is good medicine t'ruf'ah for a person] to honor the creatures nivra’im entirely, all of them, since he recognizes in them the quality of the Creator ma'alat haborei who "formed the human with wisdom" and so formed all creatures – the Wisdom of the Maker hayotser is in them, and one [can] see for himself that they are so very very honored, for the One who forms [them] cares for all…And it is evil in the eyes of the Holy One if they despise any creature briyah of his creatures, and this is what it means to say: Mah rabu ma'asekha "How great/diverse are your works" (Ps.104:4) – rabu is the language of rav beito (Esth. 1:8), that is, greatly important in [God's] house…and it is worthy for a person to understand Wisdom through them, without despising bizayon [any of them].…Moreover, it should be that one's mercies are gifted to all the creatures, without despising them and without destroying them, for so is the highest Wisdom gifted to all the creatures, silent and growing and moving and speaking… (end of chapter 2)

[Therefore a person should] not uproot a growing thing except out of need, nor kill any animal ba'al chayyim except out of need. And he should choose a good death mitah yafah for them, with a carefully examined knife, to show mercy however is possible. This is the principle: compassion chemlah [should rest] upon all beings, to not hurt them…unless [the purpose is] to raise them from level to level / high to higher, from growing to living, from living to speaking, for then it is permitted to uproot the growing thing and to kill the animal, because the debt of the act [outweighs] the merit. (end of chapter 3)

The Ramak applies standards and categories for human beings to other creatures in four ways in these passages. He specifically extends the phrase asher yatzar et ha'adam b'chokhmah, "who formed the human with wisdom" to other creatures. He intimates that the every creature is a rav in God's house. In the context of the book of Esther this means "official", but taken out of context, as Cordovero does, it most significantly means "rabbi".

The expression Cordovero uses for proper slaughter, mitah yafah, is the most important example. The phrase mitah yafah derives from a Talmudic law found at Sanhedrin 45a and 52b that the court must choose a good or easy death for someone who is going to be executed for a capital crime. In the Talmud, this principle is derived directly from the commandment "Love your fellow like yourself". By appropriating this terminology, Cordovero concretely extends this principle of love to other animals.

He also expands human ethics when he emphasizes that one should not despise any creature. The language he uses, bizayon, relates directly to Pirkei Avot, where Ben Azai says, "Don’t despise al t'hi baz any person, and don’t reject to any thing davar, for you don’t have a person who doesn’t have his hour, and you don’t have a thing that doesn’t have its place." He davka uses the term related to human beings when he could have made his point with the term used for "things". *

Both of these passages are adjacent to passages that emphasize how important it is to love fellow human beings and to pray for their well-being. The integration of these two ethical dimensions is summed up in Cordovero's own words: "A person should constantly pray for mercy and blessing for the world."
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