NOTES for Лев 17:1-16
One of the most important prohibitions of the Old Testament, which we find already in the “post-flood” covenant with Noah, is the prohibition against eating blood. Both there and in today’s reading it is emphasized that the reason for this prohibition is that in the blood of an animal is its life, its soul. Blood, as we know, really does play an essential and irreplaceable role in the functioning of the organism: its disease or loss is equivalent to the loss of life.
Thus today we read not simply about a certain ritual taboo, but about God declaring His undivided authority over life and death. Indeed, since He is the Creator and source of life, He is also its master. Only He can permit a person to kill animals for food, though this was not so in the beginning, just as He forbids the killing of a human being.
Meanwhile every day people quite legally kill thousands of their own kind — in abortions, executions, wars — and in essence drink rivers of human blood before the Lord. This commandment is assimilated by humanity with the greatest difficulty. When will we all understand that we have no right to kill?