레위기 11:6의 주석

V’ETH HA’ARNEVETH’ (AND THE HARE). This is a species of which both the male and female are so called in the Sacred Language, [although the word itself is feminine]. A similar case is haya’anah (the ostrich)¹⁷⁵Verse 16. [although the actual word is feminine in form, both male and female are indicated]. In fowls [a word of the same structure is] yonah (a pigeon), the name for the male not being different from that of the female. [On the other hand], there are many [animal species] the names of which are masculine in form, while their females have no specific name, such as gamal (camel), shafan (rock-badger), chazir (swine), ‘dov oreiv’ (a bear lying in wait),¹⁷⁶Lamentations 3:10. The verb-form clearly shows that the word dov is masculine in form. ‘parah v’dov tir’enah’ (the cow and the bear shall feed)¹⁷⁷Isaiah 11:7. The verse clearly indicates that while parah is feminine in form, and dov is masculine in form, it nonetheless refers also to the female, as is shown by the feminine form of the verb tir’enah. A similar case amongst fowls is the word tor (turtle-dove) [which, though masculine in form, denotes also the female]. It is for this reason that Scripture states, ‘shtei’ (two) turtle-doves, or ‘shnei’ (two) young pigeons,¹⁷⁸Above 5:7. thus mentioning [the feminine form] shtei with reference to torim (turtle-doves) which is masculine in form, and [the masculine shnei] with reference to yonah (the young pigeon) [which is feminine in form], in order to inform us that there it does not matter which of them [one brings as an offering, whether male or female]. Do not refute me from the expressions of our Rabbis who say: “cow and chazirah (sow);”¹⁷⁹Bechoroth 28 b. Thus it seems that there is a special term for the female of the swine chazirah, as opposed to the masculine chazir in Verse 7. “a camel born of a gamlah (a she-camel),”¹⁸⁰Ibid., 6 b. Here too, the Rabbis use a special term for the female of the camel. for these are terms they improvised from similar forms in the language in order to make their intent clear. Now the reason why these four animals [the camel, rock-badger, hare, and swine] are forbidden [to be eaten] is that they do not have the two characteristics of purity.

ואת הארנבת, and the rock-badger. The reason the Torah chooses to describe the whole species by its female gender is because when one deals with concepts of impurity one finds on occasion that the female is on top of the male making the male subordinate to the female. Mention of the female of the species first then is for the very same reason that the male is mentioned first most of the time, i.e. to describe the dominant part of the species. There is an interesting comment in the Zohar on פרשת פנחס page 231 according to which the mystical aspect of the יותרת הכבד (Leviticus 3,4 et al) is that the female input results in the male achieving whatever excess it possesses. [Seeing the word כבד, liver, is masculine, one would have expected the Torah to describe the lobe, יותרת as something masculine rather than something feminine. Ed.] We have already pointed out that all the forbidden species originate or have become part of the קליפה, the domain described in Kabbalah as part of the negative side of the emanations, that which is not destined for eternal life.

The hare. This is written in the feminine form because that it what it was called by Adam, the first man. The names used by Adam in the Holy Tongue are based on the activity he recognized in the inner aspect of that creature, and in a species where that activity was stronger in the female it was named after the female.

ואת הארנבת, “and the arnevet”; some commentators say that this animal is one that are not found as male, [as all the other animals that are mentioned are always mentioned as feminine; Ed.] the same would be true of the bird called בת היענה. The objection raised by some scholars that this cannot be so as we know of masculine יעינים found in deserts (Lamentations 4,3) Those are also feminine, in spite of the masculine endings in their names, as are ,דובים עזים, רחלים גמלים, דובים, shegoats, shecamels, etc.; they all have masculine sounding endings, even though the respective animal in question may be a female specimen.