The peculiar demonic prohibition of not "eating on the blood"

Yesterday’s Torah reading included a most unusual commandment which has been interpreted in numerous different ways: “Do not eat on the blood”. What might be the nature of the activity prohibited here?

From the context – a verse containing prohibitions against soothsaying and divination – it would seem that “eating on the blood” is forbidding some sort of parallel activity (Vayikra 19:26). Indeed, in his explanations of the commandments in the third section of the Moreh (3:46), Rambam interprets this law with reference to an ancient pagan rite in which participants poured the blood of animals into a pit and then ate food over it – in the apparent belief that this would provide them some kind of supernatural powers of insight (see also Ibn Ezra).

Yet in his legal codes, Rambam interprets this prohibition in an entirely different fashion, drawing upon the teachings of the Oral Tradition which offers a long list of very different applications of “not eating on the blood”, connecting it first with the law of the wayward and rebellious son, and then to other forms of prohibited eating such as (i) not eating an animal until its blood has been properly processed, (ii) not eating before prayer, and (iii) when addressed to judges, eating at the time they hand down a death penalty.

Talmud Reclaimed notes the unusual relationship here between the Written and Oral teachings. The typical structure of a commandment, as we demonstrate at length, is a core immutable teaching (either explicit in the biblical text or a “perush mekubal” transmitted through the Oral Tradition) which contains the primary intent of the law. The finer details are then delegated to the Sanhedrin of each generation to define and legislate in accordance with their application of Talmudic wisdom, hermeneutical principles and in the context of the needs of that generation.

But with the prohibition of “do not eat on the blood”, something very different is happening. This law is categorised as a “Lav Shebichlalot”, meaning that there is no clear transmitted action that it prohibits. Instead the Court is empowered to legislate prohibitions which accord with its umbrella meaning – in this case some kind of demonic or uncivilised eating. This would appear to mean that the Court is empowered even to disapply the seemingly literal meaning of eating over a blood-pit, and identify entirely new forms of this biblical law. Nevertheless, since no specific action is proscribed by the Torah, the biblical punishment of lashes cannot be applied to the breach of this commandment (ein lokin al lev shebichlalot - see further Kessef Mishneh to Hilchot Avodah Zarah 12:14, commentary of Rabbi S. R. Hirsch to the verse, Talmud Reclaimed chap. 5).

Another fascination feature of this prohibition, discussed later in the book, is the way in which one of its applications – which is known only from the Oral Tradition – appears to have been referenced early in the First Temple period. It is often hard to offer any degree of proof to support the antiquity of the Oral Tradition – after all exclusively oral teachings typically leave little if any historical footprint. It is therefore highly significant that, when King Shaul’s famished army hurriedly slaughters animals to eat, he rebukes them for “eating on the blood” – clearly referencing our verse in a way which appears to rely on the interpretation of the Oral Tradition which includes in its words a prohibition against eating an animal until its blood has been properly removed (I Shmuel 14:31).

Far from being a Tannaitic rereading of a verse concerned solely with banning occult practices, a tradition of the prohibition’s broader interpretation can be seen to have existed as early as the time of Shaul, the first Jewish king.

May Israel continue to stand tall and proud in the face of the surrounding hate-filled critics and their demonic behaviour.

First posted on Facebook 12 May 2024, here.