In the gospel of the Ebionites, Yahshua indignantly rejects the Passover meat, and attacks animal sacrifice, saying “I have come to destroy the sacrifices, and unless you stop sacrificing [animals], my wrath will not stop from you.” If Yahshua had compassion for animals as part of his message, then that would explain why he gave his life for this principle. According to all of the gospels, Yahshua went into the temple and disrupted the animal sacrifice business:

And Yahshua entered the temple of God and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the moneychangers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. (Matthew 21:12; parallels at Mark 11:15-17, Luke 19:45-46, John 2:13-17)

John places the incident in the temple at a different time, but elaborates more fully on the event itself:
In the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers at their business. And making a whip of cords, he drove them all, with the sheep and oxen, out of the temple; and he poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. And he told those who sold the pigeons, “Take these things away; you shall not make my Father’s house a house of trade.” (John 2:14–16)

The animals which are being sold are sacrificial animals, and it is these dealers in animals whom Yahshua is angry with. The primary practical effect of this confrontation was to disrupt the animal sacrifice business — chasing out the animals to be sacrificed, or those who were buying or selling them to be sacrificed. “Cleansing the temple” was an act of animal liberation. Yahshua himself quoted the prophets when he said, “If you had known what that text means, ‘I require mercy, not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the innocent” (Matthew 12:7).