Cohn, Jacob. The Royal Table - VWC: Faculty/Staff Web

PART TWO
CHAPTER I.
CONCERNING WHAT IS CLEAN
The question of what may be eaten and what should be
avoided is twice discussed in the Bible, and at each point
a list of animals and fowl is given. 1
It is to be noted thaj;
in the case of animals the clean ones are enumerated, while
in the case of birds it is the forbidden ones which are listed.
Since the habit of the Torah is to speak as briefly as pos-
sible, the list given must in each case be the shorter one,
and indeed the rabbis have inferred that most animals are
unclean, while most birds are edible. The clean animals
are the ox, the sheep, the goat, the hart, the gazelle,
the roebuck, the wild goat, the pygarg, the antelope,
and the mountain-sheep. The marks which differentiate
these animals from the unclean ones are given explicitly:
the clean animals have cloven hoofs and chew the cud. An
animal which has no upper teeth, and whose hoofs are
cloven, is clean, inasmuch as its dental deficiency insures
its chewing the cud.2 It has been established that every
animal whose hoofs are cloven chews the cud, with the
exception of the hog. 3 The signs which are peculiar to
clean cattle are likewise peculiar to clean beasts. How-
ever, as all the fat of a beast is edible, while certain types
of fat are prohibited in cattle, it becomes necessary to
* Lev. XI and Deut. XIV.
a Huflin 59a.
1 Ibid.
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