Shmini: 5783 - Rabbi Shimon Zonnenfeld with a wonderful sharp insight: the weekly parsha concludes "and among the animals which you shall not eat." Why end on a negative note? At the conclusion of the daily Daf Yomi class of Rabbi…

00:00 Speaker 1 Yochanan, please.

00:03 Speaker 2 This week’s parsha, Parshas Shemini, ends: “To distinguish between the impure and the pure, and between the living creature that may be eaten and the living creature that may not be eaten.” There are two questions about this verse. First, grammatically: in the first part, it says, “between the impure and the pure.” So in the second part, it should say, “between the living creature that may not be eaten and the living creature that may be eaten,” following the same order as the first part. Second, we have a rule that we end on a positive note. The parsha ends with “and the living creature that may not be eaten.” Why not end with something positive? That would also resolve the grammatical question. But there is a Mishnah in Tractate Yoma about a pregnant woman who smells food. If, on Yom Kippur, the fetus causes its mother to crave food and she is in danger, they whisper in her ear that today is Yom Kippur. If that satisfies her, good. If not, they feed her. Even though it is Yom Kippur, they feed her because her life is in danger. And the Gemara tells of someone who later went astray: while he was in his mother’s womb, they whispered to her that it was Yom Kippur, but she did not accept it and ate on Yom Kippur. That affected him, and that is why he went astray. So they explain that this is the meaning of the verse, and it answers both questions: “To distinguish between the impure and the pure, and between the chayah.” Chayah means a woman giving birth. “Between the chayah who may not eat”—sorry, “between the chayah who may eat.” In other words, she does not accept the reminder and does eat on Yom Kippur. “And between the chayah who may not eat”—meaning that she accepts it and does not eat. That resolves both questions.

02:01 Speaker 1 Because she is pure.

02:03 Speaker 2 Yes. So it also ends on a positive note, and it does not follow the same order as the first part of the verse.

02:09 Speaker 1 That’s right.