(1) The LORD spoke to Moses, saying: (2) Speak to Aaron and his sons and to all the Israelite people and say to them: This is what the LORD has commanded: (3) if anyone of the house of Israel slaughters an ox or sheep or goat in the camp, or does so outside the camp, (4) and does not bring it to the entrance of the Tent of Meeting to present it as an offering to the LORD, before the LORD’s Tabernacle, bloodguilt shall be imputed to that man: he has shed blood; that man shall be cut off from among his people. (5) This is in order that the Israelites may bring the sacrifices which they have been making in the open—that they may bring them before the LORD, to the priest, at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting, and offer them as sacrifices of well-being to the LORD; (6) that the priest may dash the blood against the altar of the LORD at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting, and turn the fat into smoke as a pleasing odor to the LORD; (7) and that they may offer their sacrifices no more to the goat-demons after whom they stray. This shall be to them a law for all time, throughout the ages. (8) Say to them further: If anyone of the house of Israel or of the strangers who reside among them offers a burnt offering or a sacrifice, (9) and does not bring it to the entrance of the Tent of Meeting to offer it to the LORD, that person shall be cut off from his people. (10) And if any person of the house of Israel or of the strangers who reside among them eats any blood, I will set My face against the soul who eats the blood, and I will cut her off from among her kin. (11) For the soul of the flesh is in the blood, and I have assigned it to you for making expiation for your souls upon the altar; as it is the blood that effects expiation on the soul. (12) Therefore I say to the Israelite people: No soul among you shall partake of blood, nor shall the stranger who resides among you partake of blood.

(7) the LORD God formed man from the dust of the earth. He blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.

(20) God said, “Let the waters bring forth swarms of living souls, and birds that fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky.” (21) God created the great sea monsters, and all the living souls of every kind that creep, which the waters brought forth in swarms, and all the winged birds of every kind. And God saw that this was good.

(24) God said, “Let the earth bring forth every kind of living soul: cattle, creeping things, and wild beasts of every kind.” And it was so. (25) God made wild beasts of every kind and cattle of every kind, and all kinds of creeping things of the earth. And God saw that this was good.

(3) Every creature that lives shall be yours to eat; as with the green grasses, I give you all these. (4) But flesh with its soul, its blood, you may not eat.

(10) When you cross the Jordan and settle in the land that your God ה' is allotting to you, and [God] grants you safety from all your enemies around you and you live in security, (11) then you must bring everything that I command you to the site where your God ה' will choose to establish the divine name: your burnt offerings and other sacrifices, your tithes and contributions, and all the choice votive offerings that you vow to ה'. (12) And you shall rejoice before your God ה' with your sons and daughters and with your male and female slaves, along with the [family of the] Levite in your settlements, for he has no territorial allotment among you. (13) Take care not to sacrifice your burnt offerings in any place you like, (14) but only in the place that ה' will choose in one of your tribal territories. There you shall sacrifice your burnt offerings and there you shall observe all that I enjoin upon you. (15) But with all your soul's desire, you may make a zevach and eat meat in any of your settlements, according to the blessing that your God ה' has granted you. The impure and the pure alike may eat of it, as of the gazelle and the deer. (16) But you must not eat the blood; you shall pour it out on the ground like water. (17) You may not eat in your settlements the tithes of your new grain or wine or oil, or the firstlings of your herds and flocks, or any of the votive offerings that you vow, or your freewill offerings, or of your contributions. (18) These you must consume before your God ה' in the place that your God ה' will choose—you and your sons and your daughters, your male and female slaves, and the Levite in your settlements—happy before your God ה' in all your undertakings. (19) Be sure not to neglect the Levite as long as you live in your land.

(20) When ה' enlarges your territory, as promised, and you say, “I shall eat meat,” for your soul has a craving to eat meat, you may eat meat with all the craving of your soul. (21) If the place where ה' has chosen to establish the divine name is too far from you, you may make a zevach of any of the cattle or sheep that ה' gives you, as I have instructed you; and you may eat with all the craving of your soul. (22) Eat it, however, as the gazelle and the deer are eaten: the impure may eat it together with the pure. (23) Only be strong, do not eat the blood; for the blood is the soul, and you must not consume the soul with the flesh. (24) You must not eat it; you must pour it out on the ground like water. (25) You must not eat it, in order that it may go well with you and with your descendants to come, for you will be doing what is right in the sight of ה'.

(Devarim 12:15) "Only with all the desire of your soul shall you slaughter": Of what is Scripture speaking here? If of "lust-flesh" (i.e., slaughtering a non-consecrated animal for food), this is spoken of elsewhere (v.20); and if of the eating of consecrated flesh, this has already been spoken of (as being permitted only in Jerusalem, whereas here it is written "in all of your gates"). It must be speaking, then, of consecrated animals (which had sustained a blemish) and were redeemed (and were to be eaten in "all of your gates").

כי ירחיב וגו׳ WHEN [THE LORD THY GOD] SHALL ENLARGE [YOUR BOUNDARY … AND YOU SHALL SAY, I WILL EAT FLESH … YOU MAY EAT FLESH] — The Torah teaches the proper rule of life — that one should not desire to eat flesh unless one lives amidst abundance and wealth (cf. Sifrei Devarim 75:5; Chullin 84a; see also Rashi on Leviticus 17:13).

בכל אות נפשך וגו׳ [YOU MAY EAT FLESH] WITH EVERY LONGING OF YOUR SOUL — In the wilderness, however, the flesh of a non-holy animal was forbidden to them as food, unless one first dedicated it to the altar and offered it as a peace-offering (Sifrei Devarim 75:4; Chullin 16b).

תזבח ואכלת בשר, “you will slaughter and proceed to eat meat;” Rashi comments on this that the Torah does not speak about animals raised for food, but about animals raised to be offered as a sacrifice on the altar. What the Torah actually comes to approve here is the killing for food of animals raised for a holy purpose. According to Rashi, based on Sifri, the Torah speaks here of an animal that had been raised by its owner to be offered as a sacrifice. Before it could be sacrificed however, it developed a blemish that disqualified it as the sacrifice it had been intended for. This animal may now be slaughtered and its meat be eaten, though its wool may not be shorn nor may it not be milked for its milk to be drunk. The word: רק, “only, except,” is the hint of what is the true meaning of the verse. An animal destined as a sacrifice, when disqualified through a permanent blemish, may be used by its owner secularly only as food, but not for any other mundane purpose. However, if it had been shorn by someone other than the owner, the wool is not subject to any restrictions just because it had originally grown on the back of an animal that had been sanctified.

(15) With all your soul's desire - in parts of the country where it is not acceptable to God for us to offer sacrifices. In such locations meat may be eaten without first having become an offering on the altar.

FOR THE LIFE OF THE FLESH IS IN THE BLOOD; AND I HAVE GIVEN IT TO YOU UPON THE ALTAR TO MAKE ATONEMENT FOR YOUR SOULS. The sense of this verse is to state that He forbade us [to eat] blood because He has given it to us to be upon the altar and to effect atonement for our souls, and it is therefore the part dedicated to G-d, just as is the case with the forbidden fat. And if one should ask: “Why then has He forbidden us to eat the blood of a wild animal and that of a fowl, from which offerings are not brought?” We will dismiss the questioner by saying that it was His wish to keep us far away from eating any kind of blood, in order that we should never make a mistake. In the case of fat, however, He did not [categorically] forbid all kinds of fat, because [the permissible kind of fat] is distinguishable from the non-permissible.
... the verses ... always state the reason for that prohibition to be, For as to the life of all flesh, the blood thereof is all one with the life thereof; For the life of the flesh is in the blood. And in the Book of Deuteronomy He again states, Only be steadfast in not eating the blood; for the blood is the life; and thou shalt not eat the life with the flesh.
It is proper, therefore, to explain the reason for the prohibition against eating blood by saying that G-d created all lower creatures for the purpose of man, since only he amongst all of them recognizes his Creator. Nonetheless, He did not at first permit man to eat anything except for vegetation, but no living creatures at all, just as is stated in the Chapter of Creation where it is said, Behold, I have given you every herb yielding seed etc. for food; but when the flood came and they [the lower creatures] were saved by the merit of Noah, and he brought offerings from them to G-d which were acceptable before Him, He gave man permission to slaughter [and eat them], just as He said, Every moving thing that lives shall be for food for you; as the green herb have I given you all, since their existence was because of man. Thus He permitted man to use their bodies for his benefit and needs because their life was on account of man’s sake, and that their soul [i.e., blood] should be used for man’s atonement when offering them up before Him, blessed be He, but not to eat it, since one creature possessed of a soul is not to eat another creature with a soul, for all souls belong to G-d. The life of man just as the life of the animal are all His, even one thing befalls them; as the one dies, so dies the other; yea, they have all one breath (Eccl. 3:19).
Now in the opinion of the Greek philosopher [i.e., Aristotle] as interpreted by those who scrutinize his words, it was out of the Active Intellect that there emitted a very fine and bright flash and glitter of light, from which came forth the spark which is the soul of the animal. It is thus in a certain sense a real soul. It therefore has sufficient understanding to avoid harm, and to seek its welfare, and a sense of recognition towards those with whom it is familiar, and love towards them, just as dogs love their masters, and they have a wonderful sense of recognition of the people of their households, and similarly pigeons have a sense of knowledge and recognition. Now it is also known that the food one eats is taken into the body of the eater and they become one flesh. If one were to eat the life of all flesh, it would then attach itself to one’s own blood and they would become united in one’s heart, and the result would be a thickening and coarseness of the human soul so that it would closely approach the nature of the animal soul which resided in that which he ate, since blood does not require digestion as other foods do, which thereby become changed, and thus man’s soul will become combined with the blood of the animal! And Scripture states, Who knows the spirit of man whether it goes upward, and the spirit of the beast whether it goes downward to the earth? (Eccl. 3:21) It is for this reason that He said, the soul of all flesh, the blood is in the soul (Lev. 17:14) for all flesh, whether man or beast, has its soul in the blood, and it is not fitting to mix the soul that is destined to destruction with that which is to live. Rather, it is to be as an atonement upon the altar to be acceptable before G-d. This is the sense of the expression, Therefore I said to the children of Israel: No soul of you shall eat blood, meaning: “Because the blood is identical with the soul, and it is not proper that one soul devour another, therefore I had compassion upon man’s life and gave it [the animal’s soul] to him upon the altar, so that the soul of the animal should effect atonement for his soul.” Thus we have been taught in the Sifre: “Only be steadfast in not eating the blood. Rabbi Yehudah says, [From the fact that it states, only be steadfast, which indicates that a special effort was required], you learn that they were addicted to eating blood etc. For the blood is the life — this teaches you why it was prohibited. And thou shalt not eat the life with the flesh — this prohibits the eating of a limb cut from a living animal.” This is a hint and proof for what we have explained. It is for this reason that He further commanded that we are to cover up all blood of an [edible] wild beast or fowl [which have been ritually slaughtered] because their blood is not brought upon the altar, for even of fowls only two species [i.e., young pigeons and turtle doves] may be brought as offerings, and they too are not slaughtered [in the usual way]; but in the case of cattle, most of them that are found among men may be slaughtered to the Glorious Name and their blood is used for atonement, and it is therefore not to be covered. There was no necessity to require the covering of the blood of an ordinary [unconsecrated] animal, since the slaughtering of cattle for ordinary meat was not permitted in the desert, and even afterwards [when Israel came into the Land of Israel and a meal of ordinary meat was permitted], the commandment of the Torah is directed to the majority [and since in most cases cattle were brought as offerings, and their blood would be needed for the altar, therefore He did not require covering of the blood even if the cattle were not slaughtered as offerings].

(2) I have already written what I think on the level of the simple understanding about forbidden foods, in the prohibitions of the 'torn' [animals] (Sefer HaChinukh 73) and of forbidden fat (Sefer HaChinukh 147). But it is also possible to say about blood that besides the bad constitution [that it brings] - as it is of bad constitution - there would be in its eating a little acquisition of the trait of cruelty. As a man swallows from living beings, like him in the body, that thing in them that life is actually dependent upon and to which their spirit is connected. As it is well-known that beasts have spirits, which the wise men call a living spirit, meaning to say it is not an intelligent spirit. We can also see that their spirits have that aspect to guard from falling into one of the traps, and in a few other things. And Ramban, may his memory be blessed, wrote (Ramban on Leviticus 17:11) about the reason of blood, that it is well-known that that which is eaten returns to (dwells within) the body of the eater. And [so] if a person eats blood, there will be density and coarseness in the spirit of the person, just like the beast is dense and coarse. And he further wrote similar to that which I said, myself - that is not fitting for a spirit to eat a spirit.

It is from the roots of the commandment [that it is] because the soul is dependent upon the blood, as we said about the prohibition of blood (Sefer HaChinuch 148). And therefore it is fitting for us to cover the soul and to hide it from the eye of its seers, before we eat the meat. As we acquire a bit of cruelty in our souls when we eat the meat, and the soul is spilled in front of us. And with [domesticated] beasts, we were not commanded so, since the blood of beasts is given for a sacrifice of atonement for our souls, and it is impossible to cover [that]. And since it is so, the Torah did not want to differentiate for us between consecrated ones and non-sacred ones. And even while in the species of fowl, there are some of them that are offered on top of the altar, [they are] few. And the Torah never concerns itself with a lesser thing. And because of that, the Torah obligated us about covering the blood of all fowl.

I have already written at the end of the Order of Tsav about the prohibition of blood (Sefer HaChinukh 148) and at the beginning of Achrei Mot [about] the commandment of covering the blood (Sefer HaChinukh 187) all that I have known about the matter of distancing that the Torah distanced us from the blood of all flesh. And I say from the angle of the simple understanding that the commandment of slaughter is also from the same reason. Since it is well-known that the body's blood comes out of the neck more than from other places of the body, hence we were commanded to slaughter from there before we eat it. As [in this way] all of its blood will come out from there, and we will 'not eat the soul with the flesh.' And we can also say as a reason for slaughter from the neck with a checked knife, [that it is] in order that we not cause too much pain to living beings. As the Torah [only] permitted man - due to his status - to derive nourishment from them for all of his needs, but not to cause them pain for no reason. And the Sages have already spoken much about the prohibition of pain to living beings in Bava Metzia 32a and in Shabbat 128b, [as to] whether it is a Torah prohibition. And it appears to come out that it is a Torah prohibition (See Mishneh Torah, Laws of Murderer and the Preservation of Life 13:13).

Together with the permission of eating meat that is not offered in the Temple there is the prohibition of eating blood, as it is written (Deut. 12:20-23) ... that is to say, blood has a specific mission, which is to support the soul of the living animal, and therefore even though the Torah permitted us to eat meat, it did not permit us to eat blood.

Despite the fact that it was permitted to humans to eat meat, one should be very careful with the desire that is connected to the eating of meat, which tends to make a person go after brutishness and sin. And so we find that the desire to eat meat caused Israel to sin, as it is written (Numbers 11:4) "Now the riffraff among them craved a craving and moreover the Children of Israel wept again and said: Who will give us meat to eat?" And Moshe our teacher complained to Hashem: "From where should I [get] meat to give to this entire people, when they weep on me, saying: Give us meat so that we may eat! I am not able, I alone, to carry this entire people, for it is too heavy for me!" (Numbers 11:13-14). And so Moshe was commanded to answer Israel that their punishment was going to come in the fulfillment of their request: "for a monthful of days, until it comes out of your nostrils and becomes for you something-disgusting because you have spurned Hashem who is among you, by weeping before him, saying: Why, now, did we leave Egypt?" (Numbers 11:20) " and a rush-of-wind moved from Hashem and swept in quails from the sea... the people arose all that day and all night, and all the morrow day and gathered the quail; the least gathered ten homers [a large measure, some say a homer is 30 gallons] and they slaughtered all around the camp. The meat was still between their teeth, not yet completely chewed, when the anger of Hashem flared up among the people, and Hashem struck down among the people an exceedingly great striking. So they called the name of that place: Kivrot Ha-Taava/ Burial-Places of the Craving, for there they buried the people who had-the-craving"(Numbers 11:31-34). From this we learned for the generations how severe and dangerous the exaggerated desire to eat meat is, that it extinguished the light of the soul and kills the body.

In order to distance us from the dragging force of eating meat, the Torah calls the will to eat meat 'craving', as it says (Deut. 12:20) "When Hashem enlarges your territory, as promised, and you say, “I shall eat meat,” for your soul has a craving to eat meat, you may eat meat with all the craving of your soul". And if there is a craving in eating meat, behold it is proper to control it. As a corollary our sages said: 'the Torah is teaching the proper way of behavior, that a person should not eat meat unless they have an appetite" (Chulin 84a) - that is, when a person really wants to eat it.

(1) After these things the word of Hashem came to Abram in a vision, saying, etc. (Psalms 18:31) "As for God — His ways are perfect; the Word of Hashem is tried; a shield is He for all who take refuge in Him." If His way is perfect, how much more is He Himself! Rav said: Were not the mitzvot given so that man might be refined by them? . Do you really think that The Holy One of Blessing cares if an animal is slaughtered by front or by the back of the neck? Therefore, mitzvot were only given to make humans better.