Law 6 of seven, a restraint
Do not eat flesh torn from a living animal
This is the seventh law in the order of history and the strangest to modern ears, and it is the one that tells you most about what the whole system is. The only dietary law given to all of humanity is not about the killing. It is about the waiting.
OneIn one sentence
You may eat meat, and you may not tear it from an animal that is still alive.
a limb from the living
אבר מן החיEiver Min HaChai
Literally a limb from the living. Eiver is a limb or a member of the body, and chai means alive. The name of the law is a description of the act.
TwoWhere it comes from
All seven laws are read out of a single verse spoken to the first human being. This one is found in the words אָכֹל תֹּאכֵל achol tochel, which mean you may surely eat, in Bereishis 2:16.
The Talmud finds this law in the doubled verb at the end of the verse, achol tochel, eating you may eat. The same passage records that the first human being was commanded on six of the seven, and that this one was added to Noach after the flood.
אַךְ בָּשָׂר בְּנַפְשׁוֹ דָמוֹ לֹא תֹאכֵלוּ
ach basar b'nafsho damo lo sochelu
But flesh with its life, its blood, you shall not eat.
The Rambam counts this among the seven and rules on it in the same chapter. It is the only one of the seven that concerns food, and the only one that concerns a creature that is not a human being.
Cited: Bereishis 2:16; Sanhedrin 56b; Rambam, Hilchos Melachim 9:1. Every reference on this site is listed in full, with its status, on the sources page.
ThreeWhat it actually asks of you
That an animal be dead before it is eaten.
That is the plain law, and in most of the world today it is met by the ordinary operation of a slaughterhouse. It was not always so, and in some places it still is not.
That your appetite stand under something.
This is the only law of the seven that regulates hunger directly. It says: there is a moment when you want it and it is not yet permitted, and in that moment you wait. The waiting is the law.
That cruelty to a helpless creature is a matter of law and not of taste.
The tradition has a broader principle about causing pain to animals, and it sits alongside this one. What this law fixes is the extreme case, and it fixes it for everyone, everywhere, permanently.
FourWhat it does not ask of you
It does not ask you to be a vegetarian.
Meat is permitted, explicitly, in the covenant after the flood. Vegetarianism is a choice you may make and this law does not make it for you.
It does not impose Jewish dietary law on you.
Kosher slaughter, separating meat and milk, and the rest of that body of law are commandments given to Jews. They are not part of the seven and you are not asked to keep them.
It does not require you to inspect your food supply.
The law is about what you do, not about a certification you must obtain. Ordinary meat bought in an ordinary shop is not the problem this law was written about.
It does not treat an animal as equal to a person.
The third law and this law are different laws for a reason. This one places a boundary around how a living creature is met. It does not make the creature a person.
FiveThe deeper layer
The deeper layer
Everything above is the plain law. What follows is the inner tradition's reading of it, and it never replaces what came first.
Ask why this law arrived late. The Talmud says the first human being was given six, and that this one was added to Noach. Not because it was withheld, but because before the flood eating meat was not permitted at all. There was no such act yet to place a boundary around.
So the seventh station of the law came into being at the exact moment a new descent was permitted: a human being may now take a life for his table. A new permission and a new limit arrive in the same breath, one verse apart.
And notice precisely what is forbidden. Not the taking of the animal's life. The tearing from it while it lives. The one food law given to all of humanity is not about the killing at all. It is about the manner in which a living thing is met at the moment it is most helpless.
The whole architecture of this teaching descends: from the making of the world, through a covenant with all flesh, to a verse about fruit, and it comes to rest on a plate, in the hand of somebody who is hungry and who nevertheless waits.
SixOne practice this week
Wait once, on purpose, before you eat.
Once this week, when the food is in front of you and you are actually hungry, stop for the length of one breath before you begin, and let the pause be about the fact that this was permitted to you rather than simply available. Then eat. That is the whole practice, and it is closer to the law than it looks.
SevenQuestions people ask
Does this affect anything I eat today?
Almost certainly not, in an industrialised food supply. The law is still yours, and it still tells you something: that the tradition placed a permanent limit on the most ordinary appetite a person has.
Do I have to eat kosher meat?
No. Kosher slaughter is a commandment given to Jews. The seven laws ask you for something else and something simpler.
What about eggs, milk, or living shellfish?
These are real technical questions in the law with real answers, and they turn on details of how the law is defined. This site does not rule. If you want a precise answer, a rabbi can give you one in a short conversation.
Why would a law about food be one of only seven?
Because the point of the whole structure is a dwelling built in the lowest place. Eating is the point at which a human being most resembles an animal. The tradition's claim is that if the law does not reach there, it has not reached anywhere.
This site does not rule on Jewish law and cannot answer a question about your own situation. The about page says how to find someone who can.
Where this sits
- 1Recognise the One G-d, and worship nothing else
- 2Treat the Name of G-d with reverence
- 3Do not murder
- 4Guard the boundaries of sex and family
- 5Do not steal
- 6Do not eat flesh torn from a living animal
- 7Establish courts of justice
Six restraints and one construction. Law seven is the only one that asks a society to build something, and the other six clear the ground it stands on.