The Parve Baker

Acharei Mot

No person among you shall partake of blood, nor shall the stranger who resides among you partake of blood. - Leviticus 17:12

Wherever the Torah addresses meat eating outside the requirements of the sacrificial system, it seems to be regarded as very desirable. Following the Flood, God blesses Noah and his children saying: …Every creature that lives shall be yours to eat; as with the green grasses, I give you all these (Gen. 9:3). Much later, the Israelites are permitted to eat some species and prohibited from consuming others (Lev. 11:1-23, Deut. 14:3-20). In this way, meat eating is transformed from a universal, undifferentiated human activity to a sign of a people’s elevated status as kadosh(consecrated) to God.

In the wilderness, any Israelite man who slaughters an ox or a sheep or goat in the camp, or does so outside the camp (Lev. 17: 3) must bring it to the Tent of Meeting as an offering before any of the meat can be eaten. The Israelites are promised that in the future, rather than limit their meat consumption to those occasions when people can travel to the Temple, when you have the urge to eat meat, you may eat meat whenever you wish…and you may eat to your heart’s content in your settlements…the tamei (ritually unclean) may eat it together with the tahor (ritually clean) (Deut. 12:20-22).

If consuming animal flesh can be done anywhere, anytime with or without making a sacrifice, how then does meat eating elevate us beyond our basest urges? The prohibition on consuming meat with the animal’s blood still in it remains both universal (Gen. 9:4) and specific (Lev. 17:12) for the life of all flesh - its blood is its life (Lev. 17:14). We honor all living beings by limiting our consumption to kosher meat whether we eat alone or in community.