The first plague of blood, according to the rabbis, occurred in every source of water. It was ubiquitous. To use a modern term, all waters were infected by this plague.
Many individuals from the general population as well as from the Orthodox Jewish population occasionally need blood transfusions. Hospitals and blood banks try their best to screen donors so that donors with certain infectious diseases or other blood-borne illnesses or pathogens do not enter the donor pool.
There is a Talmudic maxim “bari veshemah, bari adif”—which basically means that certainty trumps doubt. If someone is, chas v’shalom, in an accident or is in need of a transfusion, we hope that the blood that is transfused does not cause more harm than good. Usually that is the case. Sometimes it is not, and the results can be fatal.
There is another issue. Our Sages have explained that forbidden foods have a particularly harmful effect on the soul. They cloud our thoughts and engender in our hearts contemptible character traits that hinder our religious devotion. This is why the ReMA advises against having a non-Jewess nurse a Jewish baby even though her milk is technically kosher.
It was very important that Moshe be nursed by a (his) Jewish mother, not an Egyptian wet nurse. Just as there is a special spiritual value to eating kosher food, so too is nursing from a Jewish mother. In addition: “How then the mouth that will speak directly to God imbibe milk from an Egyptian?” Milk and blood are two human products. Part of being a “holy nation” requires a special diet known as kashrut. Whenever possible, this extends beyond just the food we eat to that which enters our body intravenously. Obviously this doesn’t apply in matters of life and death.
The Jewish community of Bergen County is quite robust and mature. I think it is time to create a kosher blood bank composed of shomer Shabbos donors that would be available to local area hospitals. This can be managed through the American Red Cross blood bank. There are no guarantees but it is less likely that this blood would carry some of the pathogens which may elude the normal filtration systems currently in place, plus it has the advantage that this blood transfusion comes from another member of the tribe. Hatzalah or the RCBC can shepherd this project.
