Don't Eat The Flesh of a Living Animal

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Don't Eat The Flesh of a Living Animal

Don't Eat The Flesh of a Living Animal

Eating the flesh of a living animal is forbidden.

This teaches us to be sensitive to cruelty to animals. (This was commanded to Noah for the first time along with the permission of eating meat. The negative laws were enforced at the Garden of Eden.) This commandment (the seventh) was given to Noah in Genesis 9:4-5. ("Nevertheless, you may not eat flesh with its life, which is its blood.")

(Note that Adam and Eve were not given permission to eat animals, so all humans were constrained to be vegetarians until after the Flood. G-d permitted the eating of meat for the first time to Noah and his family after they left the Ark, which is why G-d at that time added the seventh commandment, which prohibits the eating of flesh removed from a living animal.)

Eating flesh from a living animal encompasses:

against eating a limb severed from a living animal, beast, or fowl; and
against eating the flesh of any animal which was torn by a wild beast, which in part, prohibits the eating of such flesh as was torn off an animal while it was still alive.

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