Adonai spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying to them: Speak to the Israelite people thus: These are the creatures that you may eat from among all the land animals: any animal that has true hoofs, with clefts through the hoofs, and that chews the cud—such you may eat.
Land animals that both chew cud and have cloven hooves and are neither scavengers nor predators;
Sea animals that have both fins and scales, are not bottom-dwellers, and are neither scavengers or predators;
Birds that are neither scavengers nor predators;
Specific insects that have jointed legs - locusts, crickets, and grasshoppers
Camel
Rock Badger
Hare
Swine
Eagle
Vulture
Kite
Falcon
Raven
Ostrich
Nighthawk
Seagull
Hawk
Owl
Pelican
Stork
Hoopoe
Bat
Mole
Mouse
Lizard
Gecko
Chameleon
(ב) ואומר כי כל מה שאסרתו התורה עלינו מן המאכלים – מזונם מגונה. ואין בכל מה שנאסר עלינו מה שיסופק שאין הזק בו, רק החזיר והחלב; ואין הענין כן כי החזיר יותר לח ממה שצריך, ורב הפסולת והמותרות, ורוב מה שמאסתו התורה לרוב לכלוכו ומזונו בדברים הנמאסים. וכבר ידעת הקפדת התורה על ראית הלכלוכים ואפילו בשדות במחנה – כל שכן בתוך המדינה. ואילו היתה מותרת אכילת החזיר היו השווקים עם הבתים יותר מלוכלכים מ׳בית הכסא׳ – כמו שתראה ארצות הצרפתים היום. כבר ידעת אמרם ״פי חזיר כצואה עוברת דמי״.
I maintain that the food which is forbidden by the Law is unwholesome. There is nothing among the forbidden kinds of food whose injurious character is doubted, except pork... The principal reason why the Law forbids swine’s flesh is to be found in the circumstance that its habits and its food are very dirty and loathsome. [If] it were allowed to eat swine’s flesh, the streets and houses would be more dirty than any cesspool...
The reason for certain birds being forbidden as food is on account of their cruel nature. It is also possible that the reason for certain animals being forbidden is similar... It is possible to say on the basis of this difference in their natures that those animals unfit for food harm human beings who eat them.
The reason for the laws of kashrut is not for physical health benefits, as the Ramban (Nachmanides) explains. We see that non-Jews eat non-kosher foods and are healthy. Rather their purpose is for the well-being of the soul, since unkosher animals remove the spirit of purity and holiness, and create a blockage in the intelligence, and bring cruelty.
I invented the word eco-kosher, to say that something is ecologically kosher. I'll give you an example of eco-kosher. The regular kosher way is about the dishes that mustn't be contaminated, etc. If I pick up a cup to have coffee, styrofoam would be the best thing to have. It hasn't been used before and after I drink from it, I'll throw it away and nobody else will use it. From the usual kosher place that's the direction to go...but in comparison to what will happen to the planet by my drinking in a styrofoam [cup], I'd much rather make the other choice...eco-kosher.
Eating is the primary way that human beings interact with the rest of nature. we are composed of the same elements and compounds that make up our food. Indeed, when we eat, we transform a part of nature into energy that we can use for conscious purposes. The system of kashrut causes us to pause and consider that while we are part of nature, we are endowed with a unique potential to make choices in the way we respond to life.
These commandments, like many others in the Torah, have no rational or pragmatic justification. Their purpose is as a test of obedience to the divine will, which is totally beyond human comprehension. For this purpose, the more baffling a commandment is, the better it serves its purpose. Indeed, all of the categories could have been reversed—permissible to eat pig but not beef or lamb, permissible to eat shell fish but not fish with fins and scales—and the same purpose would have been achieved. It is all a means to inculcate the qualities of discipline and obedience.
For I am Adonai your God; make yourselves holy, and be holy; for I am holy; and do not defile yourselves with any manner of swarming thing that moves upon the earth. For I am the Eternal that brought you up out of the land of Egypt, to be your God; be holy, for I am holy. This is the law of the beast, and of the fowl, and of every living creature that moves in the waters, and of every creature that swarms on the earth; to make a division between the tamei and the tahor, and between the living thing that may be eaten and the living thing that may not be eaten.