Commento su Levitico 17:11

כי נפש הבשר FOR THE LIFE OF THE FLESH of every creature, not only of animals brought as sacrifices, is dependent on its blood (בדם היא), and it is for this reason that I have placed it [on the altar] to make expiation for the life of man: let life come and expiate for life!

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.¹⁸⁴Above, 3:17. 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 therein [and eat forbidden blood as a result of failing to distinguish between one kind of blood and another]. 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.¹⁸⁵See Ramban above, 3:9, that even in the same animal the prohibited fat is distinguishable from the permitted fat. So also are the fats of a permitted fowl and wild beast [which are permitted to be eaten] distinguishable from those fats of a permitted animal that may not be eaten. This is not so in the case of blood; hence He prohibited all blood, even that of fowls and wild animals which are not offered upon the altar.
Now the Rabbi [Moshe ben Maimon] wrote in the Moreh Nebuchim¹⁸⁶Guide of the Perplexed, III, 46. that the Chaldeans loathed blood, considering it impure, and only those who sought to establish contact with the demons and to foretell the future would eat it. Now the Torah always seeks to destroy these foolish theories, by [ordaining measures which are] contrary to their ideas. Therefore He prohibited the eating of blood and chose it as the means of purifying [the impure] by means of the sprinklings thereof,¹⁸⁷Such as in the case of the leper (above, 14:14). and to throw it upon the altar of G-d for atonement. Therefore He said, I will set My face against that soul that eateth blood,¹⁸⁸Above, Verse 10. just as He said with reference to him who gives of his children to Molech,¹⁸⁹Further, 20:6: And I will set My face against that soul. because this [practice of eating blood] leads to a kind of idol worship, such words not being stated concerning any other commandment. Now these words [of Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon] are sensible in themselves, however the verses do not indicate [that the reason for the prohibition against eating blood is] so [as the Rabbi has said], for they 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;¹⁹⁰Further, Verse 14. For the life of the flesh is in the blood.¹⁹¹In Verse 11 before us. 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.¹⁹²Deuteronomy 12:23.
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;¹⁹³Genesis 1:29. See Ramban there (Vol. I, pp. 57-58) for a full exposition of the thought presented here briefly. 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,¹⁹⁴Ibid., 8:21. He gave man permission to slaughter [and eat them], just as He said, Every moving thing that liveth shall be for food for you; as the green herb have I given you all,¹⁹⁵Ibid., 9:3. 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 befalleth them; as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath.¹⁹⁶Ecclesiastes 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 Intellect¹⁹⁷A concept of great significance in Medieval philosophy, the Active Intellect denoted an incorporeal substance, the role of which was to make the forms of the imagination “actual” objects of the intellect, after they have been only “potential” objects of the intellect. Yehudah Halevi in his “Al Khazari,” when presenting the view of the philosophers, writes of it: “This is the degree of the Active Intellect, namely, that angel whose degree is below the angel who is connected with the sphere of the moon” (p. 37). It is out of that Active Intellect that the animal soul originated. 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.¹⁹⁸Genesis 2:24. If one were to eat the life of all flesh,¹⁹⁰Further, Verse 14. 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 coarsensss 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 knoweth the spirit of man whether it goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast whether it goeth downward to the earth?¹⁹⁹Ecclesiastes 3:21. It is for this reason that He said, For as to the life of all flesh, the blood thereof is all one with the flesh thereof,¹⁹⁰Further, Verse 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 [in the hereafter]. 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,²⁰⁰Verse 12. 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:²⁰¹Sifre, R’eih 76. “Only be steadfast in not eating the blood.¹⁹²Deuteronomy 12:23. 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 life¹⁹²Deuteronomy 12:23. — this teaches you why it was prohibited. And thou shalt not eat the life with the flesh¹⁹²Deuteronomy 12:23. — 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]²⁰²Verse 13. 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];²⁰³See above, 1:15. 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,²⁰⁴See Ramban above, Verse 2. 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].

כי נפש הבשר בדם היא, for the life-force of all flesh is in its blood; why is the fact that the life-force is in the blood repeated twice in this verse? According to what I have written earlier this verse explains why the soul of the person eating blood is destroyed. The reason is that the blood contains the נפש, the essence of the animal it comes from. Consuming that life-force results in the soul- i.e. life-force of the person who consumed it becoming diluted with this spiritually inferior life-force. We still need to investigate why the Torah chose the expression נפש הבשר, "life-force of the flesh," instead of writing "the life-force is within the blood?" I believe G'd was anxious to answer a potential questioner that if the imbibing of the animal is so detrimental to the soul of a Jew, why did He not forbid the consumption of the flesh (meat) also? After all, the flesh too contained the life-force of the animal so that eating it would also cause irreparable harm to a Jewish soul? The Torah therefore repeats that it is only the blood in the flesh which contains the essence of the animal not the flesh itself. The essence of the animal is found in its blood, and not in the flesh. This is the meaning of נפש הבשר בדם היא. G'd did not make a human being in such a fashion. In the case of man, the life-force is not only in the blood but also in the flesh and the bones. Our sages refer to this life-force as הבלה, a certain moisture which survives in the bones of the righteous for many years after they have died. This is why they do not rot away. On the other hand, the wicked who are compared to animals are those who will not be resurrected when the time comes seeing that all their bones have dried out and have rotted away completely so that not an iota of their one-time life-force still exists.

כי נפש כל בשר בדם הוא, “for every living creature’s life-force is in its blood.” From this we learn that the reason for our not being allowed to eat blood is that the purpose of the blood is to secure atonement for man. It is part of the essence of the creature. The reason is the same as the reason for the prohibition of eating certain fat parts that are burned up on the altar. These too serve to secure man atonement for his sins. For man to eat such parts of the animal would be counterproductive, as he would deprive himself of the chance to achieve atonement This leaves us with the question why the blood and fat of animals which are not allowed to be offered on the altar is also forbidden? Also, why then did the Torah not forbid all kinds of fat, not only that on the kidneys and the liver? The fat parts that are not easily identifiable from a distance have not been designated as atonement to be burned up on the altar. Seeing that all blood looks alike, no such distinction was made as to which part of the blood requires sprinkling on the altar, etc. Maimonides’ approach to the subject parallels that of Nachmanides, i.e the Torah widens the framework of the prohibition to make such practices as sacrificing to the demons even more unlikely. Ibn Ezra points out that the resident stranger has not been mentioned in this paragraph at all, as opposed to the paragraph dealing with meat offerings and burnt offerings, as the Israelites in the Land of Israel are obligated to enforce that such resident strangers do not offer sacrifices to their deities. On the other hand, when discussing the prohibition of eating blood, the stranger resident in the Land of Israel is mentioned as, seeing that the blood represents the life force of the animal, such a stranger is also forbidden to eat that blood.

Depends on the blood. By saying this, Rashi indicates that “flesh” of the verse does not mean actual flesh, but that every creature is called flesh as it says (Bereishis 6:12), “For all flesh (כל בשר) had corrupted [its way on the earth].” He also writes “depends” to indicate that the soul is not in the blood, because the soul has no tangibility. One cannot speak of it being anywhere, but only of dependency, that its existence depends on the blood since without blood the soul is gone. He also says “therefore” instead of saying “And I have given it to you” like the verse, so that the verse is saying: Because the soul depends on the blood, therefore I have given the blood to achieve atonement for the soul of a person. Thus the verse is not saying “And I have given...” as a separate statement. It seems that the verse uses the expression “flesh” to exclude fish and locusts that are not flesh, and [therefore], when Rashi says “every creature,” this is because a soul cannot rest on any flesh that is not [of] a creature, because there is no soul without life, and no life except [in] a creature. (R. Yaakov Taryosh).

כי נפש הבשר בדם היא, “for the life of the flesh is in the blood;” the word היא has the vowel chirik under the first letter where it is spelled with the letter ו, and the last time it appears in this paragraph in verse 14, it is also read as if it had been spelled with a ו as if it had been written with the letter י i.e. feminine. The two times in between when the word appears it is read as masculine, and it is spelled both times with the letter ו as appropriate.

ואני נתתיו לכם, "As for Me, I have given to you, etc." The Torah is telling us that the proof of the fact that the blood of the animal contains its "soul," its life-force, is that G'd allowed us to offer up the blood of the animal on the altar as a means to obtain atonement for our inadvertent trespasses. The process may be called נפש תחת נפש, G'd accepts one "soul" in lieu of another soul, i.e. the soul (life-force) of the sinner.

בנפש יכפר, and it can therefore atone for someone else’s life. (Ibn Ezra)

The verse also intends to warn us not to kill animals without an ulterior purpose. We are only allowed to take the life of an animal (the ones which are fit for consumption by Jews) to help us atone for our sins. The sequence of the words נתתיו לכם על המזבח are intended to demonstrate that the "gift" G'd has made us of the domesticated animals on earth carries with it some restrictions. We are not absolute owners of these animals to do with them whatever we please; rather they should serve to help us recapture our standing with the Almighty in the event that we became guilty of certain sins. We are taught in Sanhedrin 2 that if a domestic animal is guilty of an offence for which the Torah decreed that said animal has to die, such as initiating sexual intercourse with a human being, it is judged by a tribunal of no fewer than 23 judges, the same number required to judge a human being, someone who has killed a human being. It is not permitted to slaughter such an animal except when one wants to consume its meat. In Deut. 12,20 the Torah is on record as permitting man to indulge his craving for meat. In other words, the Torah had to write a special verse in order to permit us to eat meat which was not intended as sacrificial meat.