Kashrut - Leviticus 11

Kashrut ~ Leviticus 11

YES you can eat:

·         You may eat any animal that has a divided hoof and that chews the cud.

·         Of all the creatures living in the water of the seas and the streams you may eat any that have fins and scales. 

·         You may eat any kind of locust, katydid, cricket or grasshopper.

No you may NOT eat:

·         Camel, Rabbit, Pig, Hyrax

·         Anything in the water that does not have fins or scales.

These are the birds you are to regard as unclean and not eat because they are unclean: the eagle, the vulture, the black vulture, the red kite, any kind of black kite, any kind of raven, the horned owl, the screech owl, the gull, any kind of hawk, the little owl, the cormorant, the great owl,  the white owl, the desert owl, the osprey,  the stork, any kind of heron, the hoopoe and the bat.

·         All flying insects that walk on all fours are to be regarded as unclean by you. 

·         Of the animals that move along the ground, these are unclean for you: the weasel, the rat, any kind of great lizard,  the gecko, the monitor lizard, the wall lizard, the skink and the chameleon. 

·         You are not to eat any creature that moves along the ground, whether it moves on its belly or walks on all fours or on many feet; it is unclean. 

 ^{Clean Vs. Unclean}

By eating the meat of unclean animals, you become unclean. 

By touching the carcass of ANY animal that has died you become unclean until evening.

Picking up or eating from the carcass of a permitted animal that has died, makes you unclean until evening, and you must wash your clothes. 

Picking up a carcass of ANY animal that has died, you have to wash your clothes, and your unclean until evening.  

A dead critter falling on something makes it unclean, put it in water, it will be unclean until evening.

A dead critter falls into a clay pot, everything in it becomes unclean and you must break the pot (container, oven, cooking pot).

A dead critter falls on/in a cistern or spring, the water remains clean. 

A dead critter falls on any seeds that are to be planted, remain clean. 

A dead critter falls on any seeds that have been already watered, they are unclean.

Holy v. Common & Clean v. Unclean

Let me try to explain this one for you.  

The middle ground between both sides, is Common & Clean.  In order to hope to be Holy, one must be Clean.  Once clean, you can go through a sanctification process to become Holy.  But if you are Unclean, then you can not be Holy.  You would first have to go through a Purification process, and then a Sanctification process to become Holy.  

So say a Priest is walking along and an Eagle (this is all hypothetical) dies and falls from the sky and lands on the Priest... He immediately becomes unclean.  Which in turn means he is Common, no longer Holy, and no longer able to perform his Priestly duties.  

Prior to Jesus, these processes of Purification and Sanctification took days and sometimes weeks to perform.  

So, if you can pan out a bit, at the possibilities... a mouse dies and falls into your cooking pot... a crow gets caught in your fires updraft and falls into your fire pit... the possibilities are astronomical on how to become "Unclean" and lose your "Holiness" and the processes to become Holy again... I can now see why the Jews went to great lengths to ensure their food is "Kosher".  Kosher meaning that the preparer of the foods have gone to great lengths to ensure that the food is Clean rather than Unclean.  

A Final Note:

 ^"So the typical Hebrew was on this constantly moving elevator, up and down the holiness scale.  Is it any wonder that Paul and other Torah observant Jews who understood and accepted what Christ did for them were so excited to explain it to their Jewish friends?  No more moving up and down the ladder of holiness.  No more of being in Yehoveh’s presence one day and barred from it the next.  Christ’s sacrifice of atonement put the believer into a permanent state of holiness, never again to be common as a result of his or her behavior." ~from Torahclass.com

I just thought I'd slip that quote in at the end.  I completely understand why the Jewish people have put such a HUGE fence around the Law, they were so scared of the ladder.  It makes sense to me now.  If you build a huge fence around it, there is no way they can break it.  Does this make it right... maybe not.  BUT I understand it now.  

And I am totally thankful that Jesus, you came to make this easier for all of us.  And thank you so very much for your sacrifice, and for loving us as much as you do.  Thank you, thank you, thank you.  

I do believe that I read that the dietary laws are further explained in Deuteronomy.  If they are different I will address that, and leave a footnote here, when I get to that book of the Torah.  

Shalom, and Christ be with you!