Komentarz do Kapłańska 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.

אשר תאכל נבלה, even a minor will become ritually defiled. [because the Torah addresses itself to כל נפש, “every living person.” Ed.]

וכל נפש אשר יאכל נבלה וטרפה באזרח ובגר, “any person native or proselyte, that will eat a dead carcass (natural death) or a beast that had been torn and died as a result,” Ibn Ezra writes that in view of the Torah having written about animals not fit as sacrifices on the altar, it also mentions two other categories of animals that are in a state of being unfit for the altar, though under different circumstances those animals would have qualified as sacrificial offerings.

The carcass of a pure bird. Explanation: [This law concerns the carcass of a pure bird] because it is written (below 22:8), “He must not eat to defile himself with it,” i.e., [the verse there is speaking of a bird] that causes defilement only by eating it, and perforce it is not speaking of the carcass of an impure animal that [also] causes defilement through touching and carrying. The verse here writes “that will eat,” to teach that [it is speaking of something that] causes defilement through eating but not through touching and carrying. And this applies only to the carcass of a pure bird, because [the carcass of] an animal causes defilement through touching and carrying. [See Re’m )

וכל נפש, “and any person,” i.e. even minors.

When it is swallowed. To exclude before a person swallowed, when it is still in his mouth; [in that case] one is [still] pure. And to exclude after one had swallowed it and it is still in his innards and not digested, and he immersed after swallowing it, that he is pure.

אשר תאכל נבלה וטרפה, “that eats either dead animals that have died by natural causes or by having been fatally wounded;” this was repeated as seeing these kinds of animals are not acceptable on the altar I might have thought that they are permitted as an ordinary part of our diet. Seeing that this was the point where the Torah enlarged on a number of forbidden foods it was appropriate not to neglect mention of these last two categories.

Whatever has within its category [the possibility of being] improperly slaughtered. I.e., it was previously kosher and now it became improperly slaughtered. Excluding... i.e., there was never a time when it was kosher.