Parshat Acharei Mot, meaning “After the death,” as this parshah follows on the heels of the death of Nadav and Avihu (two of Aaron’s sons), opens with the institution of Yom Kippur, “a law for all time: to make atonement for the Israelites for all their sins once a year.” ¹

And after some other instructions regarding sacrifices, God makes a prohibition against eating blood. Leviticus chapter 17 reads: 

And if anyone of the house of Israel or of the strangers who reside among them partakes of any blood, I will set My face against the person who partakes of the blood, and I will cut him off from among his kin. For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have assigned it to you for making expiation for your lives upon the altar; it is the blood, as life, that effects expiation. Therefore, I say to the Israelite people: No person among you shall partake of blood, nor shall the stranger who resides among you partake of blood. ²

So what is going on in this mitzvah, and why is it treated with such seriousness? First of all, it demonstrates the sanctity of life. It can be seen as a degradation of the animal’s stature to, in addition to killing it, eat its blood. 

In addition, this mitzvah of the prohibition of eating blood is the source for the requirement to “kasher” meat prior to eating it. Soaking, salting, and again rinsing meat expunges it of its blood. Meat that has not gone through this process is therefore not kosher, even if the meat itself is from a kosher animal. ³

But on a deeper level, we can recognize that the Torah associates our blood with both our body and our soul, as it says in verse 11, “the nefesh (soul) of the flesh is in the blood.” That is to say, the blood is the “meeting spot” for the body and spirit.

Rebbe Nachman of Breslov used this teaching to find a further mystical dimension to the connection between blood and the soul. He taught that we must purify our own blood—our own convergence of the soul and the body—by being truthful in our speech. Likutei Moharan, the main book of Rebbe Nachman’s teachings, relates:

Melancholy stems from polluted blood. And the blood is polluted by falsehood. It is impossible for a person to speak falsely unless he has already polluted his blood, just as it is impossible to speak truthfully unless he first purifies the blood. This is because the essence of speech is the soul… We see then that when a person speaks falsely, his blood is polluted. ⁴

The singer Leonard Cohen similarly expounded on the relationship between blood, body, and soul, when he wrote in his 2012 song “Come Healing”:

O longing of the branches

To lift the little bud

O longing of the arteries

To purify the blood 

And let the heavens hear it

The penitential hymn

Come healing of the spirit

Come healing of the limb ⁵

Given the spiritual significance of blood as essential to the entirety of a person, how do we actualize this mitzvah today? On the ritual level, by keeping kosher, we can know we’re not eating blood. But if the Torah makes it a mitzvah to respect the blood of animals, how much more so should we be concerned for the blood of humans? 

In the United States, we must see the blood of the nearly 45,000 people who die from gun violence each year ⁶ as an insult to, and degradation of, these people’s bodies and souls—and we must respond accordingly. 

We can also work to fulfill the mitzvah of honoring the sanctity of blood by supporting the nearly 800,000 people in America facing end-stage kidney disease, which requires either dialysis or a kidney transplant. ⁷

As agents of the Divine, we should protect the health of blood today by advancing technologies such as dialysis, a process that uses a machine to remove waste from blood and serve some of the other functions that kidneys would otherwise be needed for. 

Others, still, ought to consider becoming living kidney donors, as a kidney donation can be an even greater blessing for the health of a recipient’s blood and the preservation of their life. And if we can’t go that far, we can help by being advocates to assist in finding living donors for those who need them. Additionally, we should all be organ donors after our lives. 

The dominant view among traditional Jews is that organ donation is not only allowed but encouraged. Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, of blessed memory, wrote in 1968, “According to halachah there is no obligation to donate organs… but there certainly is a mitzvah to do so.” ⁸

A smaller step, but still a great mitzvah, is the donation of blood. Donating blood, plasma, or platelets is something most of us are able to do, and by doing so we are giving “the life of the flesh,” the sustainer of the body and the soul, to someone else, honoring their life and showing how connected we truly all can be.

At the end of the day, God loves life and the preservation of it. And the principle of piku’ach nefesh, preserving life, uses the same word, nefesh, that God uses in this parshah to say, “the life of the flesh is in the blood.”

By being commanded to respect the blood of animals, we can see that it is precisely the blood that illustrates how precious every bleeding creature, especially the human being, is. That should inspire a sense of profound responsibility in all of us.  

Sources

1.  Leviticus 16:34
2.  Leviticus 17:10-12
3.  Grilling meat over an open fire serves the same function as soaking/salting/rinsing. In fact, grilling or roasting liver is the only halachically accepted method of kashering liver, due to its high blood content. 
4.  Likutei Moharan 51:1:3-4
5.  Leonard Cohen: Old Ideas, “Come Healing”
6.  Gun Violence Archive: “Past Summary Ledgers” 
7.  National Institute on Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases: Kidney Disease Statistics for the United States

 July 1968 (19 Tammuz, 5728), Iggrot Moshe, Yoreh Dei’ah, Vol. II, Siman 174, and again on March 10, 1978 (Rosh Chodesh Adar II, 5738), Iggrot Moshe, Yoreh Dei’ah, Vol II, Siman 72