In the Hebrew Bible, afar — a word that alternately means dirt, dust and ashes — carries surprising emotional resonance for such a mundane substance. It is the clay from which God forms the first human (Genesis 2:7) and the rubble to which Moses reduces the golden calf (Deuteronomy 9:21). When Job’s friends come to comfort him, they begin by weeping alongside him, tearing their robes and throwing afar over themselves. The awesome divine promise made to Abraham in Genesis 13:16 is that his offspring will be as numerous as the afar of the land.
According to the Torah, afar is also the substance required for the obligation of kisui ha-dam, covering the blood of a wild animal or bird after it has been slaughtered (Leviticus 17:13). A mishnah on today’s daf asks: What substances qualify as afar, for the purposes of covering the blood of a slaughtered animal? Here’s what it says:
One may cover the blood with fine manure, with fine sand, with lime, with crushed potsherds, and with a brick or the lid (of an earthenware barrel) that one crushed. But one may not cover the blood with thick manure, nor with thick sand, nor with a brick or the lid of an earthenware barrel that one did not crush. Neither may one merely turn a vessel over the blood.
Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel stated a principle: With regard to a substance in which plants grow, one may cover blood with it; and with regard to a substance in which plants do not grow, one may not cover blood with it.
From the anonymous exposition, it seems that the primary concern is the size of the particulate matter. Coarse matter does not qualify for this mitzvah; fine particles do. But Rabbi Shimon adds an interesting qualification: It must be a substrate in which plants can thrive. From death, new life.
After further debating the physical properties of afar, the Gemara shifts from the legal to the spiritual, exploring the theological weight of dust:
Rava says: As reward for that which our patriarch Abraham said: “And I am but afar and ashes” (Genesis 18:27), his children merited two mitzvot: The afar of the red heifer and the afar of the sotah.
This is the second way that Abraham is connected to the notion of afar. God promises Abraham that he will become a great nation, that his descendants will rival the afar of the earth in number. And Abraham, humbly, declares before God that he is merely afar and ashes. Afar, for Abraham,is a symbol of strength and greatness, but also of limitation and humility. It becomes his blessing multiple times over — in the abundance of his progeny, and in these two relatively mysterious mitzvot that were granted as a reward for his humility.
Let’s look more closely at the mitzvot: The red heifer was a mechanism by which the Jews were once able to rid themselves of corpse impurity. This rare animal, when discovered, could be sacrificed in the Temple, burned on the altar, and its ashes mixed with water and sprinkled over those with corpse impurity as a purification ritual. This, in turn, allowed those tainted by death to reintegrate into all aspects of religious practice, like making the paschal offering. It was a tangible way of turning back from death toward life.
The sotah ritual may also have primarily served to bring people back from the brink — in this case the near death of their marriages. If a man believes his wife has committed adultery, he may be too consumed with rage to continue in the marriage. The sotah ritual, through which a priest in the Temple mixed dust into water and ink and made the accused woman drink it, was a mechanism of clearing her from guilt — enabling the marriage to continue and infusing it with new life, perhaps literally. After all, if she was found innocent, the potion would increase her fertility.
Both of these Temple rituals are restorative, utilizing afar to bring new life in the wake of death and destruction. But today’s daf reminds us that we do not need a miraculous red heifer or a dramatic Temple rite to tap into this power. Every time a person slaughters a simple pigeon for food, they must perform kisui ha-dam. In the very moment they take a life, they are commanded to take afar — the symbol of Abraham’s humility and vitality, the substrate of creation — and cover the blood. By covering the blood with a substance in which plants can grow, the Torah asks us to immediately participate in an act of healing. Through the simple, humble dust of the earth, we cover the tragedy of death with the promise of new life.
Read all of Chullin 88 on Sefaria.
This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on July 27, 2026. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.
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