Parshas Shemini: The Eight Impure Creeping Animals

And one can ask, why does the Torah not include the snake among the impure creeping animals, being that it is the head of all impurity of creeping animals? Maybe because the impurity of the snake is in its soul and not its body and when it dies, the body is left empty like the dust of the earth, because the impurity does not attach to the body because it has nothing.

Rabbi Abahu said in the name of Rabbi Jonathan: Rabbi Akiva had a close student who could come up with 49 logical arguments how to render a carcass of a creeping animal impure by Torah law and 49 logical arguments render it pure. And so Rabbi Chiya taught that Rabbi Meir had a student named Sumchus who could come up with 49 logical arguments to render the creeping animal pure.

Rav Yehuda says that Rav says: They place on the Sanhedrin only one who knows how to render a carcass of a creeping animal pure by Torah law. The judges on the Sanhedrin must be so skilled at logical reasoning that they could even produce a convincing argument that creeping animals, which the Torah states explicitly are ritually impure, are actually pure. Rav said: I will discuss the halakha of the creeping animal and render it pure, i.e., I am able to demonstrate how it is possible to construct such a proof: If a snake, which kills other creatures whose carcasses are impure and thereby increases impurity in the world, is itself nevertheless pure, as it is not included in the list of impure creeping animals, then concerning a creeping animal that does not kill and does not increase impurity, isn’t it logical that it should be pure? This argument is rejected: But it is not so; the logic of the halakha of a creeping animal is just as it is concerning the halakha with regard to an ordinary thorn, which can injure people or animals and can even kill and thereby increase impurity, but is nevertheless pure. It is therefore apparent that this consideration is not relevant to the halakhot of impurity.

"To render impure." The reasoning for this is that they only place on the Sanhedrin one who can learn a merit for a person who appears to be guilty. And this is what is hinted to here: something that is for sure impure, such as the creeping animal, one must be able to find in a merit to purify it.

(1) [If] one traps or wounds [any of] the eight Sheratsim [creeping animals] mentioned in the Torah, he is liable. [If] one wounds any other Shekatsim U'Remasim [small animals such as reptiles, insects or rodents which move by scurrying, creeping or slithering] he is exempt. [If] one traps [the latter] for [some] use he is liable; [if] for no use he is exempt. [If] one [traps] wild animals or birds that are in his domain [under his control] he is exempt; [if] one wounds them he is liable.

(12) "And the Lord God made for the human and for his woman clothing of skin (ohr), and dressed them" (Gen 3:21). In the treatise of Rabbi Meir it was found to say "clothing of light (ohr)"

(3) What was the dress of the first man? A skin of nail, and a cloud of glory covered him. When he ate of the fruits of the tree, the nail-skin was stripped off him, and the cloud of glory departed from him