blood is not kosher
assuming vampires breathe, and are therefore alive, what do they do
If they’re alive and they need it to survive, it’s permitted (provided they don’t kill people in so doing).
If they’re not alive, halacha doesn’t apply to them.
Either way, there is no reasonable halachic restriction on a vampire drinking blood.
but would it need to be from a kosher animal
can they drink, like, dolphin bloodOkay now that gets interesting and I would want to actually ask a rabbi whether that would be a thing. like, if one must consume the blood of living things to survive, does it make a difference whether one limits it to the blood of kosher animals or not. I could see it being ruled either way. (I would think if there is only one type of blood one can metabolize or if only one type of blood is available, one can consume it regardless.)
I remember learning that human blood (not sure about animal blood) is permissible to consume if it has not been “poresh” (”separated”) from the body (in the context of “if you cut your lip or your finger and immediately and instinctively put it in your mouth, you don’t have to spit out the blood”).
So
Drinking blood out of a goblet or vacuum-sealed bag would be assur, but sinking your teeth into someone and drinking directly (so that the blood never touches the air or is in a vessel) would be okay.
I know that applies to one’s own blood, but I don’t know if the principle applies to someone else’s. But it may count as a possible precedent!
Okay, so I asked my rabbi about this (… yes, my actual rabbi). Short answer, @fenrisesque, is that the ideal situation is for the vampire to intravenously ingest blood that was donated by a human in order to stay alive, assuming that donation doesn’t kill the person. If
homemadeintravenously doesn’t work, thenstoreboughtoral ingestion is fine too. This applies whether or not the vampire can drink animal blood. Long answer, which I find fascinating but is long so under a cut:THIS IS SO BEAUTIFUL please thank your rabbi for me
(also, consuming blood from a live person who will not be harmed by the loss of blood is completely different from killing and eating a person – because it is forbidden to derive material gain from a corpse, which includes using it for food, separately from any kosher/nonkosher issues.)