• Table For Five

Why does God order us not to eat something that is already distasteful?

Table for Five: Re’eh

In partnership with the Jewish Journal of Los Angeles

Edited by Nina Litvak & Salvador Litvak, the Accidental Talmudist

However, be strong not to eat the blood, for the blood is the soul; and you shall not eat the soul with the flesh. – Deuteronomy 12:23

Rabbi Bentzion Kravitz
Founder and Jerusalem Director of JewsForJudaism.org

An evangelical street preacher at UCLA drew a jeering crowd by shouting insults at ethnic groups and minorities. When he screamed “The Jews killed Jesus and are damned to hell,” unless they accept Jesus as Lord and savior, a distraught student begged me to defend Judaism.

So, I demanded proof of his claim, and he argued that Jesus’ miracles proved his divinity. I countered using this week’s Torah portion, Re’eh. Apecifically Deuteronomy 13 which warns that false prophets can perform signs to test our faith. So, miracles don’t prove someone is God or the messiah.

I seized the opportunity to refute another missionary argument, that misquotes Leviticus 17:11 as saying “There is no forgiveness of sin without the shedding of blood.” The verse correctly says, “blood makes atonement.” But it is not the only way! The Torah teaches that charity and prayer also provide atonement.

The focus of Leviticus 17 is about the prohibition of not consuming blood because it has a higher purpose. This is repeated in this week’s parsha that states “Be strong not to eat the blood, for the blood is the soul; and you shall not eat the soul with the flesh.”

There are two takeaways. First, passages must be read in context and correctly translated, to determine their correct meaning. Second, reconciliation with God is never out of reach. God is merciful and provides numerous ways to repair our bond with Him, as Malachi 3:7 proclaims, “Return to Me and I will return to you.”

Dr. Erica Rothblum
Head of School, Pressman Academy

This verse comes in the middle of the Torah’s discussion of eating meat. The Torah could have simply prohibited eating blood. Instead, it offers, “Be strong,” reminding us that living intentionally requires discipline as well as gratitude. The Torah insists that we never become so accustomed to satisfying our physical needs that we forget the sanctity of the life that sustains them. Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch suggests that while the Torah permits us to benefit from life, it refuses to let us believe that life belongs to us. There is a difference between using God’s creation to sustain ourselves and claiming ownership over life itself.

We often think that holiness is found in designated moments or places. But this pasuk reminds us that holiness is cultivated in the ordinary. By placing boundaries around eating, the Torah teaches that a meaningful life is not built through occasional moments of inspiration but rather through daily habits of intention. Even in the simple act of eating, we are invited to remember the sacredness of life.

Perhaps this is one of the deepest purposes of ritual. We wash our hands before bread, recite blessings before and after meals, and observe the laws of kashrut not because eating itself is holy, but because these practices interrupt our routines just enough to awaken our awareness. Ritual rescues us from living on autopilot. It transforms consumption into gratitude and habit into mindfulness, until even lunch becomes an opportunity to remember that life itself is sacred.

Dini Coopersmith
Speaker and Trip Director, www.ReconnectionTrips.com

“Be strong”? Not to eat blood? With any other negative commandment, to abstain from something, the Torah uses the words-“Hishamer lecha”- ‘Guard yourself’, or ‘be warned against’. Blood seems like a distasteful substance, which most people would naturally abhor. Why is ‘strength’ necessary to refrain from eating it?

The Torah continues to explain – blood is the soul of the animal, the life force within it, that carries the character of the animal, almost has a live energy, an animalistic force or frequency. The Ramban comments interestingly, that people used to eat blood as part of a black magic practice or witchcraft, essentially a form of idol worship, to obtain prophetic abilities, or even demonic powers, gleaned from the energy or consciousness within the blood!

This reminded me of an article I just read, about our modern age pursuit of psycho-active drugs or psychedelic-assisted therapy, which enhance consciousness and provide a spiritual experience or healing through inhaling, ingesting or smoking. The resulting insights occur almost instantaneously, miraculously, not as a result of real inner work and learning.

And if belief in a shaman or a healer is necessary, this process seems to involve more than a whiff of idol worship…

Hashem says: Don’t go for the quick fix, do the real inner work of growth, change and connection to God. Trust that Hashem wants your best. Don’t resort to superstitious practices or occult traditions to reach insights or to foretell the future. And for this, one certainly needs to ‘be strong’!

Rebbetzin Miriam Yerushalmi
CEO, SANE; Counselor; Author, Reaching New Heights

In Chassidus, blood represents vitality and Binah (understanding)—the spiritual wisdom that generates true joy. Just as this joy enlivens the body and improves blood circulation, investing time in the spiritual activates the soul’s warmth and life. Flesh, by contrast, symbolizes unrefined materialism. Combining the two—consuming blood with flesh—represents the impossibility of mixing pure spiritual enthusiasm with ravenous, self-indulgent physical desire; the two cannot coexist. Diving mindlessly into physical gratification numbs the senses, building a barrier that buries the soul.

Yet, as the Lubavitcher Rebbe emphasized, we must care for the body because it is the sacred vessel housing the soul. Because “you are what you eat,” physical intake directly impacts both body and spirit. By separating the blood from the flesh, the Torah teaches us to elevate physical life without letting coarse materialism consume our spiritual vitality.

The Baal Shem Tov interpreted Jacob’s blessing of his son Issachar, “Yisas’schar chamor garem, Issachar is a large-boned donkey,” as, “Yesh sachar chomer garam, there is reward caused by physical matter.”

This reward can come from eating properly, or from refraining from eating improperly. I was once at an all-you-can-eat-buffet restaurant near the Dead Sea. Another patron commented on the fact that from their extensive menu of culinary indulgences, I had taken a first serving of only saladsf.

I just smiled in response, but I thought, “I’m happy to be at the Dead Sea, alive and able to resist the foods that aren’t good for me. You are what you *don’t* eat, too.”

David Brandes
Award-Winning Screenwriter and Writing Coach

A few days before Passover. Kemptville, a small Ontario rural village. It’s 1951. A tired Jew with a long greying beard shows up at our driveway unannounced but expected. He fills a cardboard box with sand and waits. Several crates, filled with squawking chickens soon arrive – enough for the ten Jewish families preparing to celebrate the holiday. The shochet pulls out his chalef (ritual knife), mumbles a quiet blessing, cuts the jugular of the first bird, and lets it bleed out over the box… A grisly sight for a six-year-old. One that stayed with me… particularly the gushing of the blood on to the dirt.

I came to learn that according to the Torah we were meant to be plant eaters in a harmonious world of humans and animals. Sadly, man’s evil nature got in the way of this utopian notion – just as it usually does. So, after the flood God reset the enterprise. Henceforth man would be allowed to eat meat but with an ethical boundary. The blood, the soul of the animal must be returned to the ground from which it came. This emphasizes our kinship with animals; and distances us from primitive notions that drinking blood empowers the drinker with the life force of the animal as well as assorted demonic forces. The late Rabbi Jonathan Sacks captures it best: “These genetic residues from earlier times which—because they are not rational—cannot be cured by reason alone, but only by ritual, strict prohibition, and habituation”.

With thanks to Rabbi Bentzion Kravitz, Dr. Erica Rothblum, Dini Coopersmith, Rebbetzin Miriam Yerushalmi, and David Brandes.

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