{"id":12313,"date":"2026-07-14T00:04:51","date_gmt":"2026-07-13T21:04:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ph.yhb.org.il\/en\/?p=12313"},"modified":"2026-08-09T08:28:40","modified_gmt":"2026-08-09T05:28:40","slug":"17-14-04","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ph.yhb.org.il\/en\/17-14-04\/","title":{"rendered":"04. The Permission for the Jewish People to Eat Meat"},"content":{"rendered":"

During the forty years in the wilderness, when the Jewish people lived near the Mishkan and the altar, they could eat domesticated animal meat only as part of a shelamim<\/em> offering. The animal would be slaughtered as an offering; the kohanim would sprinkle its blood on the altar, offer its fats upon the altar fire, and receive their portion of the meat. Only then could the people eat from the offering, and only in a state of ritual purity. Once they entered Eretz Yisrael and settled across the Land, however, they were far from the place of the Temple. They were then permitted to slaughter animals wherever they lived and eat their meat without bringing them as offerings on the altar. As the Torah states (Devarim 12:21): \u201cIf the place that the Lord your God will choose to place His Name there is far from you, you shall slaughter from your cattle and your flock, which the Lord has given you, as I have commanded you, and you shall eat within your gates according to all your heart\u2019s desire.\u201d As the Torah describes it, the meat the Jewish people ate in the wilderness was initially bound to the sanctity of a shelamim<\/em> offering. When they merited entering Eretz Yisrael, that sanctity expanded throughout the Land itself, and meat could be eaten anywhere through proper halakhic she\u1e25ita<\/em>. [2]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

Because the Jewish people sanctify themselves through the service of God, their eating need not remain a merely physical act. Their calling places them above the animal realm, and for that reason they may eat meat even outside the framework of an offering. Moreover, through the merit of bringing offerings to God as the Torah commands, the Jewish people became able to draw the sanctity of those offerings into ordinary eating as well. When the Jewish people eat for the sake of Heaven, their eating becomes akin to an offering: the food is raised into the service of God and rises before Him, like an offering, as a pleasing aroma.<\/p>\n

This pattern already appears with Noa\u1e25. He, too, was permitted to eat meat in the merit of the offerings he brought. Before the flood, it is stated (Bereishit 7:1\u20133): \u201cThe Lord said to Noa\u1e25: Come, you and your entire household, into the ark, for I have seen that you are righteous before Me in this generation. From every pure animal you shall take for yourself seven pairs, male and female, and from the animal that is not pure, two, male and female. Also, from the birds of the heavens, seven pairs, male and female, to keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth.\u201d After the flood ended and Noa\u1e25 left the ark, he understood that God had commanded him to bring seven pairs from the pure species so that he could offer some of them as sacrifices. And so he did: \u201cNoa\u1e25 built an altar to the Lord, and he took from every pure animal and from every pure bird, and he offered burnt offerings on the altar\u201d (ibid. 8:20). Only afterward were Noa\u1e25 and his descendants permitted to eat meat (ibid. 9:2\u20133).<\/p>\n

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[2]<\/a>. This follows the view of R. Yishmael in \u1e24ullin<\/em> 16b; it is also the position of Rashi and Ramban to Vayikra 17:3. R. Akiva disagrees. In his view, while the Jewish people were in the wilderness, they could eat cattle and sheep either as sacrificial meat or through ne\u1e25ira<\/em> \u2013 killing an animal without proper she\u1e25ita<\/em>. Only when they entered the Land were they commanded to perform she\u1e25ita<\/em> for ordinary meat. Rambam rules accordingly (MT, Laws of She\u1e25ita 4:17). This view may be understood in light of the sanctity of the Land. Once the Jewish people entered Eretz Yisrael, even ordinary meat was drawn into a higher level of sanctity, expressed through the mitzva of she\u1e25ita<\/em>. In the wilderness, by contrast, she\u1e25ita<\/em> applied only to animals brought as offerings. Other meat could not yet be elevated in that way, and so it was eaten without she\u1e25ita<\/em>.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

During the forty years in the wilderness, when the Jewish people lived near the Mishkan and the altar, they could eat domesticated animal meat only as part of a shelamim offering. The animal would be slaughtered as an offering; the kohanim would sprinkle its blood on the altar, offer its fats upon the altar fire, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[235],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-17-14"],"yoast_head":"\n04. 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