“When the Lord your God will expand your border, as He spoke to you, and you will say: I will eat meat, because your heart will desire to eat meat; with all your heart’s desire, you may eat meat” (Deuteronomy 12:20). “When the Lord your God will expand…” Halakha: is it permitted for a person of Israel to cover the blood of slaughter on a festival?8Upon slaughtering birds or undomesticated animals, one is required to cover the blood with dirt (Leviticus 17:13).
This is what the Sages taught: One who slaughters an undomesticated animal or a bird on a festival, Beit Shammai say: He digs with a shovel and covers the blood. Beit Hillel say: He may slaughter only if he had earth prepared.9Mishna Beitza 1:2. Rabbi Ḥagai said in the name of Rabbi Aḥa: One who does not have earth prepared should not slaughter. Why?
Because the difference between Festivals and Shabbat is only preparing food alone.10Mishna Megilla 1:5. The only difference between the prohibition of labor on Shabbat and Festivals is the dispensation to perform certain actions on Festivals in the course of food preparation. Covering the blood is not directly connected to food preparation, and therefore digging dirt in order to cover the blood would be prohibited on a Festival.
Therefore, if one slaughtered on a festival, one must have earth prepared to cover it with. Rav Bisena said in the name of Rav Aḥa: Come and see, the Holy One blessed be He said: ‘What I prohibited for you in a domesticated animal, I permitted for you in an undomesticated animal…until [I permitted all of them] in fish.’11The reference is to a statement cited in full elsewhere: “I prohibited the fat of a domesticated animal for you, but I permitted it for you in an undomesticated animal.
I prohibited the sciatic nerve for you in an undomesticated animal, but I permitted it for you in birds. I prohibited for you birds without slaughter, but I permitted fish for you” (see Vayikra Rabba 22:10; Ḥullin 109b). The Rabbis said: There are many matters that the Holy One blessed be He prohibited and then permitted them elsewhere. Know that the Holy One blessed be He prohibited slaughtering and eating [an animal] until one brings it to the Tent of Meeting [as an offering].
From where is this derived? As it is stated: “[If anyone…offers a burnt offering or a sacrifice], and to the entrance of the Tent of Meeting does not bring it, to present it to the Lord, that man shall be excised from his people” (Leviticus 17:8–9). What [else] is written there? “And he did not bring it to the entrance of the Tent of Meeting, to present an offering to the Lord before the Tabernacle of the Lord, it will be accounted as blood for that man; he has shed blood, and that man shall be excised from among his people” (Leviticus 17:4).
But He then permitted it to them here, as it is stated: “Only, with all of your heart’s desire, you may slaughter and eat meat in accordance with the blessing of the Lord your God that he gave you within all your gates, the impure…” (Deuteronomy 12:15). From where is it derived? From what we read here: “When the Lord your God will expand your border.”