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Abraham states that psycho-analysis of neurotic cases enables us to infer an early cannibalistic stage of libido-organization.
That the early Hebrews recognized such a stage, and provided against the possibility of a relapse into it, can be similarly inferred from the strict Mosaic injunction against the eating of blood:
Moreover ye shall eat no manner of blood whether it be of fowl or of beast, in any of your dwellings (Leviticus vii., 26).
I will set my face against that soul that eateth blood, and will cut him off from among his people (Leviticus xvii., 10).
Blood is equated with life:
For the life of all flesh is the blood thereof (Leviticus xvii., 14). By not eating the blood, one has circumvented incorporating life.
The strict avoidance of blood is a cardinal observation in every Jewish home to-day. Before it can be cooked, meat is always soaked in cold water for half an hour, then sprinkled with coarse salt and let stand for an equal time, to drain the blood.
In addition to the koshering of meat, and of equal importance in Jewish dietary procedure, is the strict avoidance of a mingling of meat and milk.
It is forbidden also to mingle any foods made from milk or meat (broths, cheese, etc.), and, further, all things which even indirectly come in contact with these foods—e.g. the dishes in which they are prepared or served, the waters in which they are washed, the towels with which the dishes are dried, and so forth. This results, practically, in certain limitations of diet (creamed chicken, for instance, is quite impossible; butter is never placed on a dinner table; nor is white coffee served—the milk in it rendering it taboo), and in the necessity for duplicate kitchen equipment, one set is provided for meat service, and one for dairy service.
The supposed source of this ritual separation is a line in Exodus (xxiii., 19):—