Clean and Unclean Animals
Deuteronomy and Leviticus state that any animal which chews the cud and has a cloven hoof is ritually clean, but animals that only chew the cud or only have cloven hooves are not. The texts identify four animals in particular as being unclean for this reason; the hare, hyrax, camel, and pig — although the camel ruminates and has two toes, and the hare and hyrax are coprophages rather than ruminants.
The Torah lists winged creatures which may not be consumed, mainly birds of prey, fish-eating water-birds, and bats. Leviticus and Deuteronomy state that anything residing in "the waters" (seas and rivers) is ritually clean only if it has both fins and scales.
Leviticus states that every creeping thing that crawls the earth is unclean (Hebrew: sheqets). However, a bug born inside a fruit may be eaten if it has never crawled on the ground. All "flying creeping things" are also considered ritually unclean, according to both Leviticus and Deuteronomy. Leviticus lists four exceptions, including locusts.
Read more about this topic: Kosher Foods
Famous quotes containing the words clean and, clean, unclean and/or animals:
“A soul that makes virtue its companion is like an over-flowing well, for it is clean and pellucid, sweet and wholesome, open to all, rich, blameless and indestructible.”
—Epictetus (c. 50–120)
“When we traded the buffalo for a mare,
we had no milk to drink,
and we still had droppings to clean up.”
—Punjabi proverb, trans. by Gurinder Singh Mann.
“What is this? A new teaching -with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.”
—Bible: New Testament, Mark 1:27.
Of Jesus after he had exorcized an unclean spirit.
“Why do precisely these objects which we behold make a world? Why has man just these species of animals for his neighbors; as if nothing but a mouse could have filled this crevice?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)