Commentary for Leviticus 17:15

אשר תאכל נבלה וטרפה [AND EVERY SOUL] THAT EATETH CARRION, OR THAT WHICH WAS TORN … [HE SHALL BOTH WASH HIS GARMENTS AND LAVE HIMSELF IN WATER] — Scripture is here speaking of the carrion of a clean bird which causes uncleanness only during the time it passes through the gullet (lit., it is being swallowed in the gullet) and what Scripture teaches you here is that it makes one unclean by eating of it [but it does not defile one by touching it]. The טרפה mentioned here (though being superfluous since a טרפה which died) is of course also a נבלה and thus causes uncleanness just as any other נבלה is mentioned only for the sake of the correct interpretation of the word נבלה. For thus we learn (in Sifra): One might think that the carrion of an unclean bird causes uncleanness in the moment it passes through the gullet! Scripture therefore adds the word טרפה to intimate that this law of נבלה applies only to that class of birds among which טרפה is possible, thus excluding unclean birds for in their class a רפה‎ט can never occur (Sifra, Acharei Mot, Chapter 12 7; Zevachim 69b).

וכל נפש אשר תאכל נבלה וטרפה, after the Torah wrote about the prohibition of eating blood, something which if permitted would draw us closer to the circle of demons, it speaks about the prohibition of eating meat from diseased animals or animals which have died of causes other than ritual slaughter. A nation that concentrates on attracting the holy spirit to itself would do something counterproductive if consuming such carcasses which are the home base of spiritually negative influences. We know that this is so from the Torah’s prohibition of trying to derive spiritual inspiration from the dead or parts of them. (compare Deuteronomy 18,11 where consulting ghosts or other death-related matters is specifically outlawed, and we are ordered not to tolerate people who practice such cults in our land.)

וכל נפש אשר תאכל גבלה, and every person eating an animal which died of natural causes, etc. The reason the paragraph commences with the letter ו before כל is to remind us that all the rules which apply to the eight different categories of Israelites and proselytes we listed in the last paragraph (verse 10) apply here also. The Torah here mentioned two categories, i.e. אזרח וגר, natural-born Jew and proselyte, to tell us that these are respective "headings" for the various categories of natural-born Jews and proselytes.