The Prohibition of Murder
INTRODUCTION TO PARASHAT HASHAVUA
PARASHAT
NOACH
*********************************************************
This
week’s shiurim are dedicated by Joseph and Phyllis Eisenman
in honor of Judah L. Eisenman
*********************************************************
The
Prohibition of Murder
By Rav
Michael Hattin
Introduction
Parashat
Noach tells the story of the Flood.
Morally bankrupt humanity is swept away, and all of animal life with them, and
only one righteous individual, his wife and family are preserved. Bidden to construct an ark, Noach is
to save not only himself, but to take with him the possibility of a new
beginning for all life. The rains
fall, the floodwaters rage, and the earth and its vileness are washed away. The ark bobs unsteadily on the
waters, traversing a featureless ocean that stretches off to eternity. Finally, after many monotonous
months, the waters begin to recede; the interred ark-dwellers are awakened from
their timeless rocking by the jarring sound of the boat's underside striking
land. More time passes, now
interminably, until the heavens shed their oppressive grayness and the first
treetops appear.
The ark
now firmly grounded on the slopes of Mount Ararat and the surface of the
devastated earth finally dry, God commands Noach, his family and the animals to
disembark. Noach, perhaps
experiencing an unsettling mixture of trepidation and joy, does so. A destroyed world lays before him,
bereft of any life save his small circle of family and the animals that huddle
expectantly at the portal of the listing craft.
His feet finally planted on terra firma, Noach immediately erects an
altar and offers sacrifice to God.
His powerful expression of resignation and gratitude, of recognition of God as
the Sustainer of life and its Master is met by a Divine pledge to never again
obliterate all life.
"For as
long as the earth endures, the times of planting and harvest, the seasons of
fall and spring, summer and winter, and the cycles of day and night will not
cease" (Bereishit 8:22).
The Divine Proclamation
"God
blessed Noach and his children and He said to them: 'Be fruitful and multiply,
and replenish the earth. Fear of you
and dread will be upon all of the animals of the earth and upon all of the birds
of the sky; everything that creeps upon the ground as well as the fish of the
sea are given into your hand. Any
creature that lives shall be your food, for I have given you all of them without
restraint, as freely as the plant vegetation.
But nevertheless, do not consume the flesh of a creature while it is
still alive. Moreover, I will
require of you an accounting of your blood that is your soul, from every beast I
will require an accounting; and from humanity, even from a man's own brother,
will I require an accounting of the soul of the person. He that sheds the blood of a person
shall have his own blood shed by other people, for man was wrought in God's
image. As for you, be fruitful and
multiply, swarm upon the earth and increase" (Bereishit 9:1-8).
Exhorting
the progenitors of a restored humanity to propagate and to repair the world, God
indicates to them that they will be sovereign over all other forms of life. The animals of the earth, the birds
of the sky and the fish of the sea will all be subservient to humanity and
fearful of their rule. In addition,
God grants humanity permission to consume other creatures with impunity, with
one critical qualification: man is not permitted to eat part of an animal while
it is still alive. Finally, the
prohibition of bloodshed is spelled out, for the stability of the post-diluvial
world will be predicated upon an acknowledgement of the inviolability of human
life. He that intentionally takes
the life of another human being will forfeit his own life; such is the natural
consequence that must follow a wanton disregard for the 'Godly image' that
invests the life of all people with inherent value. The section concludes again with a
directive to Noach and his descendents to procreate and to secure their rightful
place in the world.
Analyzing
the passage in terms of its component parts, we note the following features:
1)
a blessing of Noach
and his descendents,
2)
a directive to them
to be fruitful and to multiply,
3)
a decree that all
other forms of life will be fearful of human authority and subject to human
dominion,
4)
a granting of
permission to consume all other life forms with the single provision that such
consumption not involve unnecessary brutality,
5)
an emphatic
prohibition concerning the taking of human life,
6)
a concluding command
recalling the opening directive to procreate.
An Earlier Precedent
This
passage, uttered to the remnant of humanity and its only hope for a brighter
future, is clearly an expression of God's expectations and demands concerning
man's place and role in the world.
As such, it calls to mind another section, stated by the Creator to the first
ancestors of humanity, under very different conditions but with similar
sanguinity:
"God
created the human being in His image, in the image of god He created him, male
and female He created them. And God
blessed them and said to them: 'Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and
dominate it. Rule over the fish of
the sea and the birds of the sky, and over all life that walks upon the earth.' God further said: 'Behold I give to
you all seed-bearing vegetation that is upon the earth, as well as all fruits of
fruit-bearing trees. They shall be
your food. As for all of the beasts
of the earth, the birds of the sky, and the living creatures that crawl upon the
earth I have given all manner of green vegetation for their food,' and it was
so. God saw all that He had
fashioned and behold, it was very good, and it was evening and it was morning,
the sixth day" (Bereishit 1:28-31).
Breaking
down God's above pronouncement into its constituent elements, we immediately
notice its relationship to the passage from our parasha. God fashions the first human beings
and ushers them into a pristine world with a 1) blessing. This is followed by 2) a directive to
be fruitful and to multiply, and 3) an imperative to rule over all other
creatures. 4) Humanity's diet is
spelled out, and the passage then concludes with a gratifying pronouncement that
'it was very good.' Clearly, the
implication of these correspondences is that Noach, his wife, and their
descendents are the successors to the first human beings, and are mandated by
God to rectify their failures and to succeed in repairing the world by
fulfilling His commands. Their
emergence from the floodwaters represents a new creation, for initially also the
primordial earth was covered by the waters of the deep. Adam and Chava had been the 'crown'
of Creation, occupying the apex of a pyramid composed of simpler life forms
brought into being in ascending order.
Noach and his family also stand at the zenith of their microcosm, for the
ark is the world in miniature and its confined denizens are the representatives
of all of its faunal variety.
The Distinctions Between The Two Decrees
More
telling than the comparisons, however, are the contrasts, for there a number of
glaring differences between the two passages.
The most striking of these distinctions concerns the matter of bloodshed,
for whereas Adam and Chava were never admonished by God to shun murder, Noach
and his descendents most emphatically were.
This pronouncement is accentuated by the recurring usage of the terms
'blood' ('DuM') that occurs no less than four times in the passage and is
alliteratively linked to 'ADaM' or 'man' occurring five times, 'life' ('NeFeSh')
occurring three times, and 'accounting' ('DaRaSh'), also occurring three times.
Conversely, Adam and Chava were not permitted to kill other creatures in order
to consume them and were instead restricted to a vegetarian diet, in contrast to
Noach who is permitted to ingest all other creatures, as long as they are no
longer alive when eaten. Of lesser
magnitude but still significant, Adam and Chava were told to exercise rule and
mastery over all other creatures, but Noach and his descendents will inspire
them with dread. Finally, Noach and
his family are given a second directive to 'be fruitful and multiply,' but Adam
and Chava were so enjoined but once.
How are we to make sense of these anomalies?
Bloodshed in the Garden of Eden
The
initial state of humanity had been one of great potential and expectation. Last week we investigated the unique
vocabulary that the Torah employed in the account of the creation of humanity,
for that passage is charged with unbounded exhilaration. Adam and Chava were fashioned in
'God's image,' in possession of a supernal soul that was nourished by its
attachment to the Divine. In that
pristine state of promise and perfect harmony, the prospect of consuming other
creatures for physical sustenance was inconceivable. In a perfect, 'Messianic' context,
vegetarianism, or the unselfish concern for lower creatures is within man's
moral reach. The morally refined
person cannot remain indifferent to the killing of any creature. This is not because animal life and
human life are of equal value, as some proponents of a vegetarian lifestyle
would have us believe. Rather, in
the ideal state of Eden where one basks in the intense glow of God's overarching
presence, the inestimable value of all sentient life, even an animal life devoid
of any higher spiritual capacity, is axiomatic.
The
Talmudic tradition asserts that "the First Man was not permitted to kill any
creature and to consume its flesh" (Tractate Sanhedrin 59b). The Ramban (13th century,
Spain) elaborates: "the diet of the first humans differed from that of all other
animals, for Adam and his wife were given 'all seed-bearing vegetation that is
upon the earth, as well as all fruits of fruit-bearing trees' as their food,
whereas the other creatures were to eat 'all manner of green vegetation,' but
not the fruit or the grains.
Humanity was prohibited from consuming meat until the time of Noach's
descendents, as our Sages assert, and this is the straightforward reading of the
Biblical texts" (commentary to Bereishit 1:29).
Thus, according to Ramban's reading, a clear hierarchy existed even
within the noble vegetarian state, for the food of man was not the same as the
food of the lower creatures, any more than his higher moral purpose or
definitive spiritual caliber could be equated to theirs. Nevertheless, existence in that
Garden was conditioned by an enhanced awareness, a heightened sensitivity to
life's worth and preciousness. As
Ramban explains: "animate creatures also have a sentient capacity that is
similar to the intelligent soul of man.
They also exercise a form of choice by seeking their own benefit and
sustenance, and they too avoid pain and death."
It goes
without saying that a Divine command to abstain from bloodshed, the premeditated
taking of another human life, was superfluous in the realm of the Garden of
Eden. It is only in the aftermath of
abrogating God's command and taking from the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge that
the offspring of Adam and Eve begin their precipitous descent towards killing. To eat from the tree in violation of
God's authority was to stake out an independent moral path and to suffer the
consequences. The fratricide that
soon unfolded was its extreme consequence, and that vile act was to become a
shocking paradigm for humanity to follow.
Man's Decreased Moral Capacity After the
Flood
The
floodwaters swept away the accumulated deeds of humanity's viciousness, and with
it, the Divine optimism and anticipation that had accompanied their initial
creation. The hopes that man would
forge a world of perfect harmony and respect for all life had to be modified
accordingly. Henceforward, humanity
would have to learn the painful lesson on their own that in the absence of their
attentiveness to the commands of an Absolute Moral Being, life could become
brutal. Thus, when God addresses
Noach as he leaves the ark and stands to rebuild the world, He communicates to
him an idea that is no longer as obvious as it should have been: "I will require
of you an accounting of your blood that is your soul, from every beast I will
require an accounting; and from humanity, even from a man's own brother, will I
require an accounting of the soul of the person.
He that sheds the blood of a person shall have his own blood shed by
other people, for man was wrought in God's image." The phrase 'even from a man's own
brother' is a not-so-veiled allusion to Kayin's murder of his brother Hevel, for
he had been the first to introduce the novel idea of murder into the world.
It is
perhaps in this connection that the Divine permission granted to Noach's
descendents to consume the flesh of other creatures, is to be understood. The Ramban and others tend to
understand the dispensation as an emphatic statement of animal life's debt to
Noach the human for having guaranteed their survival through either his moral
merit or else his ark-building efforts (see Ramban's commentary to 1:29, and
Radak's comments on 9:4). The
context, however, seems to be suggesting another dimension. Recall that God's address to Noach
contains two new injunctions that were not directly communicated to Adam and
Chava, namely the permission to consume meat and the prohibition against
bloodshed. Recall also that the two
are associated by a similar vocabulary that pivots around the words 'blood' and
'life-force.' The implication of
this fact is that both of these commandments are integrally linked.
Understanding the Permission to Consume
Other C5reatures
In the
post-diluvial atmosphere, man could no longer be expected by God to easily
recreate the ideal state of Eden, a state of moral perfection and heightened
sensitivity to spiritual life-affirming truths.
That expectation did not dissipate, but was pushed off to an indefinite
future time to become the vision of a Messianic Age. In the meantime, of primary concern
was to guide humanity towards a deeper appreciation of human life, to impress
upon them the most basic demand of not killing each other! Permission was thus granted to man to
kill and to consume other creatures as a recognition of his underdeveloped moral
awareness, an awareness that could not yet conceive of the more exalted vision
that had been initially held out to him.
Nevertheless, a very faint memory of the nobler concept was preserved,
for humanity was forbidden to consume the flesh of a creature while it was still
alive. The license to kill was not
to be misunderstood as license to be cruel, brutish, and crude.
But what
was to become of the utopian vision of a perfected world in which killing of any
sort would again be unthinkable, and in which our unique capacity for
God-awareness would finally be realized globally?
Once more, we turn to the commentary of the Ramban to explain: "The Torah
gave the People of Israel a commandment in addition to the prohibition of
consuming the limb of a living creature, for it forbade us from consuming any
blood, since blood is the life-force.
Thus the text proclaims: 'I have said to Bnei Yisrael: Do not consume any
blood, for blood is the life force of the creature' (Vayikra 17:14). This is the reason for ritual
slaughter, in addition to its efficacy at limiting the pain caused to the
animal. Thus, we bless God for
'having commanded us concerning ritual slaughter'" (1:29). In his commentary to Vayikra, Ramban
adds: "It is inappropriate for one life-force to consume another, for all life
emanates from God, both human as well as animal" (Vayikra 17:11).
The Special Prohibition of Consuming the
Blood
The
Jewish people were given a special commandment to not consume the blood of an
animal. Ramban explains that this is
because blood is the vehicle that carries all life; in its absence, life ebbs
away and eventually ceases. The act
of ritual slaughter, in which all of the primary blood vessels that nourish the
brain are swiftly severed with a perfectly sharp blade, therefore has two
purposes. Firstly, it is calculated
to dispatch the creature as quickly and painlessly as possible. This may seem to us to be a
self-evident objective, but for the Western World, the idea is a quite new. Up until very recent times, abattoirs
paid absolutely no concern to developing killing methods that were humane.
Additionally, however, the act of ritual slaughter is the most effective means
of draining away the blood, the life force of the creature that the Jew must not
consume, for the major blood vessels of the body are concentrated in the neck. The blessing recited over the act of
ritual slaughter thus becomes an expression of our recognition of a higher
ideal, for although we may consume the flesh of an animal we are enjoined to not
overstep our bounds by seeking to exercise human control over its animal soul as
well. By assiduously avoiding the
blood, we proclaim a limit to human authority and an acknowledgement that God is
the Author of all life, and that animal life is not to be cheaply and
thoughtlessly traded as a commodity in the marketplace.
In other
words, the children of Noach representing humanity at large, are asked by God to
abstain from killing other people and to eschew acts of gross cruelty towards
other life forms. That in and of
itself is a sufficiently grandiose undertaking.
But the Jew is asked to go much further, to consciously preserve the
memory of another time, a time when all killing was frowned upon and all life
was sacred. To not consume the blood
is to strive for a time when the extent of our moral development will once again
proclaim our desire to live in God's presence as compassionate stewards of a
beautiful world, rather than as rapacious plunderers of its dwindling bounty. As always, the choice is exclusively
ours.
Shabbat Shalom
Note:
Without a doubt, Jewish tradition preserves many sources that support a
vegetarian lifestyle, but it is beyond the scope of this article to investigate
them here. It is essential to bear
in mind, however, that in Jewish tradition, vegetarianism is inextricably bound
up with heightened moral awareness and sensitivity, as the above analysis
explores. It would therefore be
self-contradictory as well as self-defeating for a person to present a great
compassion for animal life but an undeveloped appreciation for human life, as
unfortunately some well-meaning activists proclaim in word and demonstrate in
deed.