10. And whoever there is of the house of Israel, or of the strangers who sojourn among you, who eats any kind of blood; I will set my face against that soul who eats blood, and will cut him off from among his people. 11. For the life of the flesh is in the blood; and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes an atonement for the soul. 12. Therefore I said to the people of Israel, No soul of you shall eat blood, nor shall any stranger who sojourns among you eat blood. 13. And whoever there is of the people of Israel, or of the strangers who sojourn among you, who hunts and catches any beast or bird that may be eaten; he shall pour out its blood, and cover it with dust. 14. For it is the life of all flesh; the blood of it is for its life; therefore I said to the people of Israel, You shall not eat the blood of any kind of flesh; for the life of all flesh is its blood; whoever eats it shall be cut off. [Leviticus 17]It is repeated later in the second part of our double portion.
You shall not eat any thing with the blood; nor shall you use enchantment, nor observe times.
The prohibition of blood is a interesting one. Scholars cannot find another group within the region of the Israelites which practiced this prohibition. Torah however forbids Jew and gentile alike from eating blood. It's first case is when God prohibits Noah and his sons from eating blood.
Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things. 4. But flesh with its life, which is its blood, you shall not eat.[Gen 9]In many of these verses is nefesh the world for life and body. Nefesh however may also be translated as soul. To eat blood is to eat the soul of the creature, to eat it's life-force. In our portion we are told explicitly and repeatedly that blood is for God alone. For this reason there is a death penalty meted out for eating blood, but an odd one: karet. Karet come from the word to cut off in Hebrew. Often in these verses about the eating blood there is a penalty of cutting off the person from the congregation. While one might think this means in a literal sense to excommunicate a person, it actually is a death penalty meted out by God. Based on Psalm 90:10 the number of our years are seventy, we all have a number of years we are to live which are planned ahead by God. But those years are shortened when we engage in activities that carry a karet penalty. Desecrating Shabbat, the sexual transgressions which is also part of this portion, touching a dead person and not getting cleaned by the waters of sprinkling all carry a karet punishment.
I have been having a problem with the text. With last week's talk of tzaarat we had some form of skin disease which could affect clothing and buildings as well. This week we have these prohibitions concerning blood, and the prohibitions about certain types of sexual behavior. Both make me think of my public health profession, yet as a student of Torah, I also look at this in a spiritual way. The two are not very compatible and so I am left to dance a razor edge fence looking at both.
From the public health view I look at risk behaviors. And all of the items that would shorten one's life according to God also have the potential to shorten one's life in reality too. Excessive stress and exhaustion comes from a seven-day work week, Various both genetic and transmitted diseases can come form the sexual practices of Leviticus 18. And then there is the blood borne pathogens, the various diseases that come from body fluids. I can think of all of this as an ancient practice for health. Avoiding dead bodies, blood and improper sexual relations was just healthy.
On the other hand, there is the spiritual side, one I'm not as clear about lately. From the spiritual side there is a commandment a mitzvah that eating blood is not allowed by god many of karet punishments are also Huqim, laws that do not have a good reason, they are just what God wants us to do. We make a connection with God when we fulfill the rule. As part of my own spiritual practice, I do follow the blood rule, and since the same things that make steak red is what makes blood red, so I don't eat any red meat, even Kosher red meat. The spirit of the animal is still too close for me to eat.
These two positions just don't seem to want to reconcile, and yet both are true, and I believe both of them. While they should be mutually exclusive, instead they both seem to be in my blood. But how they both can be there I don't know.
Any ideas?
1 comment:
Is it possible that the scholars might have been familiar with a tribe which practiced something like the Maasai do today, in bleeding cattle and other animals and consuming the blood?
I used to wonder if this might be read as a more general prohibition against parasitism, but there is no 'thou shalt not milk cattle' admonition, and milking seems to serve the same purpose, making us parasites of certain animals rather than predators.
Could it have been a warning to the people of East Africa, to stay away from the blood of animals that resemble humans enough to carry and transmit human diseases? Ebola seems to have a reservoir in the great apes, and is a blood-borne disease.
Interesting topic.
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