Seeing the C Change
Last week I found myself browsing in a bookstore, and I couldn’t help but notice something striking. The sections on Judaism and spirituality seemed to be shrinking, while entire walls were devoted to fantasy, supernatural romance, and stories that blur the line between the human and the monstrous. What was once a niche fascination has now become mainstream storytelling.
I do not want to sound like every generation lamenting the next, but there is something revealing here. These stories often romanticize what should unsettle us. They present the unnatural as desirable, even beautiful. Creatures that once symbolized danger or moral distortion are now recast as misunderstood and sympathetic figures.
At some level, that should give us pause. Because embedded in that shift is a deeper question: what have we become comfortable with, and what have we stopped questioning? After all, these are still stories about beings sustained by blood.
As a people shaped by Torah, that should immediately strike a nerve.
An Immovable Prohibition
In this week’s parasha, Hashem’s position on the consumption of blood is unmistakably clear. “If any person of the House of Israel or of the strangers who sojourn among them eats any blood, I will set My face against that person and cut him off from among his people” (Vayikra 17:10).
What is especially noteworthy is that this command is not limited to Israel alone but extends also to the stranger. This is not merely a covenantal boundary marker. It reflects a universal moral principle rooted in creation itself.
Its origins trace back to God’s covenant with Noah. After the flood, humanity is permitted to eat animals, but this permission is given with sobering realism. It is not an elevation of humanity, but a concession to what humanity has become.
God reiterates the original blessing, “Be fruitful and multiply,” but now it is accompanied by a new tension within creation. “The fear and dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth… Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you” (Genesis 9:2–3).
Humanity, once meant to steward creation, now stands in a fractured relationship with it. The image of God remains, but it is distorted. And so immediately, boundaries are set. “You shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning” (Genesis 9:4–5).
There is sobering realism here. Once humanity becomes accustomed to taking animal life, the line toward human violence grows dangerously thin. Blood becomes the symbol of that danger, and also of something far more sacred. The Torah teaches us that the life is in the blood.
This is precisely why blood is placed upon the altar. It forces us to confront the weight of life itself. It reminds us that life belongs to God, not to us. In that recognition, we are called back to humility, to reverence, and to responsibility.
So the prohibition is clear, and the symbolism is clear.
An Indecent Proposal
Which brings us to a deeply troubling statement made by Yeshua. “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him” (Yochanon 6:56).
It is no surprise that many who heard this were scandalized. Some of his own talmidim turned away. On the surface, his words seem completely at odds with Torah. So what is he saying? Surely, he is not advocating something that Torah explicitly forbids.
To begin to understand this, it helps to listen to a familiar voice within Jewish tradition, the voice of Wisdom itself, as expressed in Ben Siraq:
“Come unto me, all that be desirous of me, and fill yourselves with my fruits. For my memorial is sweeter than honey, and mine inheritance than the honeycomb. They that eat me shall yet be hungry, and they that drink me shall yet be thirsty. He that obeys me shall never be confounded, and they that work by me shall not do amiss.” (Wisdom of Ben Siraq 24:19–22)
Here Wisdom, Chochmah, is personified. She invites people not merely to learn, but to internalize, to take her into themselves so completely that she becomes part of who they are. This is not literal consumption, but spiritual integration.
This same pattern illuminates Yeshua’s words. He is not speaking of physical blood, but of life itself. If the life is in the blood, then to drink his blood is to receive, to internalize, and to participate in his life, a life fully aligned with the will of Hashem.
Blood on the altar teaches us the sanctity of life. Yeshua’s offering goes further. It calls us to recognize the sanctity of our own lives and to reorient them completely toward God.
“Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.” (Yochanon 6:56) This is covenantal language. It speaks of indwelling, participation, and union.
When we take Yeshua upon ourselves, we are not abandoning Torah. We are embodied to it. We are taking in the living Torah and allowing it to shape us from within.
Many paths can lead a person toward moral improvement, and many systems can refine behavior. But here the claim is something deeper, not simply to follow, but to become united with the life, the will, and the presence of Hashem.
Yeshua offers more than instruction. He offers transformation.
He is the living water that quenches even the deepest thirst, and bread from heaven that satisfies the deepest hunger. These are not metaphors of excess, but of necessity, because at the core of every human life is a hunger that cannot be filled by anything superficial.
We often speak about having a personal relationship with God, and the phrase can begin to sound worn, almost hollow. Yet this is precisely what is being offered. It is not abstract, distant, or theoretical. It is as real as hunger and as urgent as thirst.
It is the invitation to receive divine life itself, to be sustained by it, shaped by it, and ultimately united with the One who gives it.
He is the true food that gives eternal life.