LEVITICUS VI:1-VIII:36
THE SHEDDING OF BLOOD
The Torah warns against eating or drinking the animal’s blood, even though its flesh is permitted. According to the explanation of the Ḥakhamim, the prohibition refers to dam shebe’en, the blood that is in sight, which is found fluidly on the surface of the flesh. Therefore, before cooking it, the meat should first be soaked to soften it and cover it completely with salt, to suck the blood that is on the surface. It is clear that this process does not remove the blood that is mixed with the animal’s flesh inside. We might conclude, however, that there is no intrinsic prohibition against ingesting blood: the problem lies in the blood that is in plain sight. Because the Torah identifies blood with the vital elan of being and probably considers that by drinking blood one would be ingesting the essential substance that gives encouragement, life itself.
According to the Chief Rabbi of Israel, Avraham Yizḥak HaKohen Kook, the permissible food for man is in the vegetable kingdom. Man became a carnivore after the episode of the Flood. The “permission” to consume meat was a kind of concession that God granted to sinful man, whose immoral actions deserved the destruction of the planet. Even Noaḥ and his family, whom God saved from the Flood, are given a restrained and limited label by the Ḥakhamim, who consider Noaḥ a righteous person only when compared to others of his generation. It is estimated that, had he lived in the time of Avraham, Noaḥ would not have reached the spiritual level of the patriarch.
If we assume with Harav Kook that the permission to eat meat occurred as a concession to man’s frailty, we can conclude that the destiny of humanity is to return to vegetarianism.
The Talmud suggests that the person who acts as Shoḥet nurtures destructive instincts. The influence on the character of the person who is to kill an animal cannot be minimized; especially, if we consider that there are people who faint in the presence of a creature’s Brit, what might be their reaction to the act of Sheḥita?
It should be noted that a large part of the kashrut laws refer to the permitted meats and the prohibition of mixing milk or its derivatives with meat. If we rely on the opinion of Harav Kook, a vegetarian Judaism willtotally eliminate this set of laws that serves as the fundamental support for current practice.
Living beings kill other animals in order to survive or at least consume the living product of the earth in its plant manifestation. When trying to differentiate between animals and the plant kingdom, alluding to the fact that the former manifest pain and perhaps sadness – like a dog that does not move from its sick master’s bed – it can also be alluded to that plants react to the music used to make them bloom.
According to the prism of Judaism, the animal kingdom can serve as food for humanity. At the same time, however, the principle of Tza’ar balei ḥayimimplies that pain should not be inflicted on an animal. This contradictory perception, which the Sheḥitahpermits but forbids making the animal suffer, is aimed at the moral education of the person.
The animal can be slaughtered solely to survive, but it cannot be killed for fun: fox hunting with dogs trained to chase it, a sport so dear to English lords, is simply an abomination according to the Jewish view.
The Bible instructs that one should not remain indifferent to “the shedding of blood,” a euphemism that denotes the murder of a person, and therefore, any event or situation that refers to blood is treated with special care. When a bird and certain animals are sacrificed, the blood that is shed in this act must be covered with earth, a kind of symbolic burial of the element identified as the source of life. Although tosurvive man has to kill, Judaism strives to minimize the emotional and spiritual damage that this can cause to the individual.
MITZVAH: ORDINANCE OF THE TORAH IN THIS PARSHA
CONTAINS 9 POSITIVE MITZVOT AND 9 PROHIBITIONS
131. Leviticus 6:3 Raise the ashes (from the Altar)
132. Leviticus 6:6 To light a fire daily upon the altar
133. Leviticus 6:6 Do not quench the fire of the Altar
134. Leviticus 6:9 Eat the remainder of the Minḥa offering
134. Leviticus 6:10 Do not leaven the remainder of the Minḥa offering
135. Leviticus 6:13 The Daily Mincha Offering of Kohen Gadol (High Priest)
136. Leviticus 6:16 The Minḥa offering of a Kohen is not consumed
Leviticus 6:18 The Procedure with the Ḥatat Offering (for Sin)
137. Leviticus 6:23 Do not eat the flesh of the Ḥatatoffering whose blood is splattered inside (the sanctuary)
138. Leviticus 7:1 The Asham Offering Procedure (for Guilt)
139. Leviticus 7:11 The Shelamim (for Peace) Offering Procedure
140. Leviticus 7:15 Do not leave any meat of the Todah(thanksgiving) offering after the time allotted for its consumption
141. Leviticus 7:17 The Obligation to Burn the Remnants of the Sacred Offerings
142. Leviticus 7:18 Do not eat of the Pigul offering, an offering with wrong intentions
143. Leviticus 7:19 Do not eat the flesh of unclean sacred offerings
144. Leviticus 7:19 The Obligation to Burn Unclean Sacred Flesh
145. Leviticus 7:23 Do not eat Ḥelev (forbidden fat of the offering)
146. Leviticus 7:26 Do not ingest the blood of any animal or bird
