The Animal Laws Before Kashrut: A System of Purity

Pure Food (not Kosher Food)

The system of Jewish dietary laws, kashrut,^[1] is one of the best-known and most distinctive features of traditional Jewish religious practice. The roots of many of these rules appear in Parashat Shemini, which lists which species of animals may be eaten and which may not. Yet, in language, content, and context, the laws of kashrut in Parashat Shemini are framed in terms of טומאה and טהרה, pollution^[2] and purity. For example, when the Torah prohibits eating pork, it uses the clause טמא הוא לכם, “it is polluting to you” (Leviticus 11:7).

In their broader context, the dietary laws of Leviticus 11 open an extensive pericope on ritual purity and pollution, which we will be reading for several weeks. These Torah portions deal with the pollution produced by childbirth, bodily discharges, and scale disease (צרעת, often translated “leprosy”) and with the purification procedures used to cleanse people, objects, and the tabernacle from contamination.

Thus, the best way to understand the meaning of the biblical dietary laws in context is to analyze them through the prism of the purity laws in general. As Yitzhaq Feder argued in “Expiating with Blood,” (TheTorah.com, 2015) the purity laws, including those regarding prohibited foods, are fundamentally “primitive” in the sense of being rooted in basic human psychology. At the same time, their manifestation in the Bible reflects characteristic features of Israelite religion.

The Psychology of Pollution (טומאה)

The basic notion that certain objects pollute is extremely common cross culturally and may even be universal. Psychologists who have studied this phenomenon have found a strong correlation between disgust and attribution of contagious properties. One study, for example, found that participants would not drink juice in which a cockroach had been dipped even after being told that the roach had been sterilized. Their reluctance to drink the juice did not stem from a perceived health threat but from disgust at the roach, which led to the sense that it could contaminate the juice, making the juice disgusting and bad to drink.

Further research showed that while cultures often differ in the particular entities that they regard as disgusting and therefore polluting, these entities tend to belong to certain common domains, including food (especially meat), sex, death, disease, and moral offense.^[3] These categories show a high correlation with the entities described as polluting in the Bible.

The idea that holiness is averse to pollution is also common cross-culturally. From the cults of the ancient Near East and archaic Greece to Hinduism and Zoroastrianism, religions often share the belief that temples, priests, and other holy things and people must be guarded from contamination. This belief makes intuitive sense: If we view something as special and valuable, we express this value in part by guarding it from that which we find aversive.

Leviticus 11 and it's Parallel in Deuteronomy

Leviticus 11 (along with the rest of the parashah) belongs to the Priestly (P) Source. A parallel to this passage appears in Deuteronomy 14:3–21 (D Source), although the latter is shorter and the texts differ somewhat in wording and content.^[4]

Composition

The chapter in Leviticus can be broken up into two main sections.

Food – The first part (vv. 1–23) of the chapter lists different types of animals (land, water, and air) and divides them according to whether or not they may be eaten. Animals that may not be eaten are called טמא, “polluting,” or שקץ, “abhorrent.” Deuteronomy 14:3–21 parallels this section but uses טמא, “polluting,” for all prohibited species (see Appendix 1).

Contact – The second part of the chapter (vv. 24–47) focuses mainly on what types of animals cause pollution when touched. This section also adds in another set of animals that cannot be eaten, namely, small swarming land animals, not discussed at all in the previous section (or in Deuteronomy).

Before the chapter summary comes a call to be holy by following these rules. (For a schematic overview of the whole section, see Appendix 2.)

Redaction

The relationship between the versions in Leviticus and Deuteronomy is debated, but the most likely scenario, I believe, is that they were both based on a common priestly source.

Laws of Contact – This original text probably did not include the ritual purity regulations in Leviticus 11:24–28, 31–42, which are absent in D and were added by P.

Laws of Swarming Animals – The verses listing the impure swarming animals (29–30) and especially the verses prohibiting their consumption (41–42) are awkward in their current position; they may also be later additions.

Holiness Verses – The common source did not include the verses about holiness (vv. 43–45). These were probably added by the redactors of the Holiness School (H) at a late stage in the text’s development, since they have the characteristic language and distinct thematic mark of that school: an emphasis on the entire Israelite people’s obligation to strive for holiness.^[5]

Ritual Pollution and Dietary Prohibition: Separate Categories of טומאה?

As elsewhere in the Torah, the term טמא, “polluting,” refers both to the prohibition of eating and to ritual pollution caused by touching. However, since the passage in Leviticus deals with both the prohibition of eating animals and ritual pollution caused by touching them, it makes a linguistic distinction: the text uses טמא, “polluting,” when describing species that may not be eaten and also cause ritual pollution when handled, and it uses שקץ, “abhorrent,” for species that may not be eaten but apparently do not pollute by external touching.^[6] Deuteronomy 14, which does not deal with ritual pollution, uses טמא for all prohibited species, as noted above.

In addition, some pure animals that may be eaten (large land animals with cloven hooves that chew their cud) pollute ritually if they die on their own rather than being properly slaughtered. (Unlike D and E, P and H do not rule out eating carrion from permitted species for regular Israelites.)^[7]

All this suggests that dietary prohibition and ritual pollution are separate, albeit overlapping, categories.^[8] The former has to do with eating and is prohibited. The latter has to do with external touching and is not prohibited; it merely renders the person polluted.^[9]

The distinctiveness of the categories is implied by the summary statement in verse 47:

“For distinguishing between the polluting and the pure, between the living things that may be eaten and the living things that may not be eaten.”^[10]

Mixing the Categories of טומאה

But the picture is in fact more complex. According to verse 40, one who eats carrion from a permitted species becomes polluted ritually and must undergo the same purification as one who touches it. This indicates that ingestion is understood as a type of touching and may cause ritual pollution.

Moreover, verse 8 states of prohibited large land animals: “you shall not eat of their flesh or touch their carcasses: they are polluting to you.” This suggests that external touching does not merely cause temporary pollution but may in some cases be categorically prohibited. The law is paralleled in D and seems to contradict verses 24–28, which permit external contact with large land animals that are prohibited as food, so long as purification guidelines are observed.

Since verses 24–40 were probably added later in the text’s development, it is possible that the original author intended to prohibit touching these species categorically, while a later redactor rendered touching permissible by adding purification guidelines.^[11]

Summary

In short, while P makes a partial terminological distinction between ritual pollution and dietary prohibition, employing שקץ rather than טמא where the latter but not the former applies, it does not draw a sharp line between these categories. What we find here is instead a broad notion that certain animals can contaminate the body, albeit in different ways and with different practical implications.

The Concept of Pollution (טומאה)

P’s failure to differentiate sharply between ritual pollution and dietary prohibition is consistent with the general use of the term טמא, “polluting,” throughout the Bible to refer to prohibited foods as well as ritually polluting people, objects, and substances. In fact, טמא can refer to anything perceived as contaminating, including certain sexual contacts^[12] and occasionally transgression in general.^[13]

The basic concept behind pollution, or contamination, is that certain entities have the capacity to transmit a negative quality to other entities, usually by means of some sort of physical contact, or at least proximity.

Ritual Pollution: Negative but not Prohibited

The fact that this quality is inherently negative does not necessarily mean that contracting it is prohibited or even discouraged. Some of the sources of ritual pollution, such as menstruation and scale disease (צרעת), occur naturally and are unavoidable. There are even certain cases in which contracting pollution advances positive social goods, such as building a family and burying the dead. People who contract permissible forms of pollution simply have to refrain from contact with the tabernacle and holy things and, in some severe cases, remain outside the camp until they become pure.^[14]

Sometimes Ritual Pollution is Prohibited

On the other hand, there are instances in which ritual pollution is prohibited. A priest, for example, may not become polluted from contact with the dead except in the case of an immediate family member (and the high priest not even then) (Leviticus 21:1–4, 11).

Prohibition, or the lack thereof, is thus not a feature of pollution itself. Biblical law simply has different ways of dealing with various types of pollution in different contexts.

Conclusion: Meat, Disgust, and Holiness

Why the particular animals designated as polluting were conceived as such is difficult to establish. However, most of the species prohibited by the Torah’s legislation, with the notable exception of the pig, do not seem to have been generally eaten in the ancient land of Israel, either before or after the appearance of the Israelite people.^[15] This suggests that, to a large extent at least, these laws were codifying existing dietary practices. Few human societies avail themselves of all available sources of animal protein, and the flesh of animals not considered proper meat—for whatever reason—tends to be regarded with disgust. This, in turn, gives rise to the view that it contaminates the body.

The complex legislation of Leviticus 11 effectively codifies disgust, adjuring the Israelites to treat certain species in ways that are consonant with an attitude of distaste. The term שקץ, “abhorrence,” though it functions as a technical term in distinguishing between two categories of contamination, was doubtless selected because it expresses the sense of disgust and rejection at the core of the idea of pollution. Much later, after the Second Temple was destroyed and most laws of purity were abandoned, the laws of Leviticus 11 became independent of purity issues and connected to other laws concerning permitted and prohibited foods^[16] into a larger, but different, system of kashrut.^[17]

Appendix 1

Comparing the Impure Animals Laws in Exodus and Deuteronomy

Appendix 2

Schematic Description of Leviticus 11

The following outline summarizes the contents of Leviticus 11 in its final form: