Commentaire sur Le Lévitique 11:40

והנשא את נבלתה HE ALSO THAT BEARETH THE CARRION OF IT [SHALL BE UNCLEAN] — The uncleanness resulting from bearing the carrion is more stringent than the uncleanness resulting from contact with it; for he who bears it thereby renders his garments unclean, whilst as for him who touches it his garments do not thereby become unclean, since it does not state regarding him in the preceding verse: “he shall wash his garments” (cf. Rashi on v. 25).

AND HE THAT EATETH OF THE CARCASS OF IT SHALL WASH HIS CLOTHES, AND BE UNCLEAN UNTIL THE EVEN. In line with the plain meaning of Scripture, the verse speaks here of one who eats in the way that people usually eat, namely, that he touches and carries what he eats, and therefore becomes impure by contact and by carrying. It was necessary to mention this case so that it should not occur to anyone that because of eating, his degree of impurity should be greater [than that resulting merely from contact and carrying]. It mentioned this law in regard to an animal fit for food [as mentioned in the preceding Verse 39], because a person can [easily] err with regard to it, thinking that it was slaughtered properly [and he will therefore eat it], but such errors do not normally occur with regard to forbidden animals, and the way of the Torah is to speak of what usually happens. But according to its [Rabbinic] interpretation,²⁷¹Niddah 42 b. the verse comes to prescribe the [minimum] size required to become impure through carrying or touching, namely an amount that can be called “eating,” which is the size of an olive and Scripture also mentioned this law in regard to carrion of an animal fit for food, whilst the same law applies to an animal not permitted as food, because He finished here the law of impurities.²⁷²And therefore He mentioned it in regard to the carrion of an animal fit for food, and from it we apply the rule to the carrion of an animal unfit for food. This is in accordance with similar explanations mentioned above. According to the opinion of the interpretation of the Torath Kohanim,²⁷³Torath Kohanim, Shemini 4:2; 10:1-4. all impurities [conveyed] by carrion [of animals fit for food and those which are unfit animals] are included here, and the section above²⁷⁴Above, Verses 26-27. refers to limbs of animals. I have already mentioned this.²⁷⁵Ibid., in Verse 24.

והאכל מנבלתה, anyone eating of its carcass, etc. According to Torat Kohanim the only reason this verse was written is to inform us that the size of an animal which confers ritual impurity on someone carrying or touching its carcass is the same as that of someone eating of it, i.e. the size of an olive. The verse does not intend to convey the meaning that a reader who did not read any of the aforegoing would have derived from it, namely the prohibition of eating from such a carcass and that swallowing it confers impurity. The reason that we cannot understand the verse in that way is that we already have a clear verse in Leviticus 22,8: "he must not eat it on pain of becoming impure through it." The word בה in that verse is an exclusion and means that only the carcass of a pure bird which died of natural causes confers such impurity as soon as one swallows it but not the swallowing of parts of a mammal which dies of natural causes rather than ritual slaughter. Dead birds do not confer impurity through contact; therefore the Torah had to tell us that if the bird was a pure bird it does confer impurity as soon as it reaches one's esophagus and if a priest ate from that bird he is disqualified from performing his duties unless he purifies himself. Why did the Torah not spell out such a regulation but depended on our deriving it through exegesis? Perhaps the Torah intended to teach us numerous halachot from a single verse, something that would have been difficult if the verse had only stated that the carrion of a clean bird is capable of conferring impurity by one's swallowing it. We are taught in Chulin 71, for instance, that if the meat of a dead swarming thing has deteriorated to the extent that a dog would reject it as unfit to eat, it no longer confers impurity. This halachah is derived by Tossaphot in Bechorot 23. We have a verse in Kings II 9,10 where Izzevel, wife of king Achav, is described as being eaten by the dogs, not being buried. We note that consumption of meat by dogs is described by the term אוכל the same term used for humans consuming food. Seeing that it is the intention of our verse to establish a linkage between eating and impurity, it is only logical that other halachot of that nature may be derived from this verse.