Komentarz do Keritot 5:1

דם שחוטה – whether cattle or wild beast or fowl, whether the blood of a stabbed animal, whether the blood of tearing loose the windpipe and gullet before cutting, whether the organs, the cutting of which is an indication that the animal has been slaughtered according to the ritual (i.e., the windpipe and gullet), and similarly, the blood of the arteries with which the life goes out (i.e., the splashing blood), whenever it flows in an uninterrupted jet (i.e., splashing), meaning the middle, when the first goes out which is the beginning of the uninterrupted jet, and the last is after the flood diminishes and is reduce, which flows gently/comes down slowly nearby and does not splash from afar, for this is not the blood of the soul.

Introduction The Torah prohibits the consumption of blood. One who eats blood is liable for karet if done intentionally, and that is why this halakhah is found in tractate Keritot. If done unwittingly, he is liable for a hatat.

חייבים עליו – if he consumed form it an olive’s bulk, he is liable for extirpation.

If one ate blood of a slaughtered beast, a wild animal or a bird, either clean or unclean, or blood of an animal stabbed in his throat or neck, or of the blood of an animal slaughtered by having his throat ripped, or of the blood of the arteries whereby life-force escapes, he is liable. This is a list of all of the kinds of blood for which one is liable for a hatat, as long as he eats an olive’s worth of it. The blood does not have to come from a clean (kosher) animal, nor does it have to be the blood of an animal that is slaughtered in a kosher fashion. As long as the blood is the blood whose loss causes the death of the animal, one who eats it is liable. The idea that one is liable only for this type of blood seems to come from Leviticus 17:14, which refers to blood as the life-force. The rabbis deduce from here that one is liable only for blood which is the life-force, and not for other types of blood.

דם הלב – blood that is absorbed in the skin of the heart, and it is like the rest of the blood of the limbs which is a negative [commandment] and we are not liable for extirpation for it, but the blood that is found in the chamber/cavity of the heart, it comes from the throat, as the cattle pants at the time of the ritual slaughter and blood enters from the throat in the chamber of the heart, and we are liable for extirpation for if there is within it an olive’s bulk.

But [if he ate] the blood of the spleen or of the heart, or blood found in eggs, or blood of fish, or of locusts, or secondary blood, he is not liable. This is a list of either internal organs, taken out of the animal after it is dead, or blood found in other things, such as eggs, fish, or locusts, or blood that comes out after the animal is dead (secondary blood). While some of these are prohibited, they are only prohibited by the rabbis and not by the Torah; one who eats them is not liable to bring a hatat. Note that Leviticus 7:26 specifically states that animal (beast) and bird blood is prohibited. Since it doesn’t list fish or locusts, the rabbis deduce that fish and locust blood is not prohibited.

דם ביצים – there are those who interpret that the blood of the male testicles of a bull, a ram and a he-goat. But to me it appears that it is the blood that is found in the testicles of the chicken.

Rabbi Judah says: he is liable for secondary blood. Rabbi Judah holds that one is liable for eating secondary blood.

ודם התמצית (the last blood oozing through the cut of a vein/that which is squeezed out) – that is wrung out/drained and is pressed out and flows gently when it leaves [the body]. The language is (Leviticus 1:15): “and its blood shall be drained out [against the side of the altar].”

אין חייבים עליו כרת – there is no extirpation other than with the blood of the soul (from the arteries, that is splashing). As it is written (Leviticus 17: 14): “You shall not partake of the blood of any flesh], for the life of all flesh is its blood. Anyone who partakes of it shall be cut off.” But the Halakhic decision is that the blood of the spleen and the heart and the kidneys and the blood which oozes out of the arteries after the lifeblood flows out, they are [included] in the warning (Leviticus 7:26): “And you must not consume anu blood [either of bird or of animal, in any of your settlements].” But they are flogged [for their violation] and they lack any [punishment of] extirpation. But the blood that is found in the testicles [of animals], is forbidden, from the words of the Scribes. But the blood of reptiles, if they consumed from it an olive’s bulk receives flogging because of the eating of reptiles, not because of consuming blood. And the blood of fish and locusts are pure, permitted ab initio, but there must be scales in the blood of fish, which will prove for it that it is the blood of fish, because of the appearance of transgressions. But the blood of humans is prohibited from the words of the Scribes that depart from the human, but we don’t flog upon it.