The Torah portion is Shmini. During this 3rd triennial year, we will be reading Leviticus 11:1 - 47.

It deals entirely with the laws that we know of as kashrut, although they are not called that in the Torah. The Torah subsumes them as a  sub-category of the system of tum'ah (ritual impurity), and includes a paragraph about how ritual impurity transfers from stored foodstuffs!

Strange, isn't it? Descriptive generalities for the mammals and  seafood, but specificity for the birds.

Perhaps this is a sign that (Click on Read More to finish)

these lists of laws actually WERE  developed/delivered in a desert environment. Far from any sea or  ocean, and not settled enough to regularly come into contact with  food animals (other than those they had brought with them into the  desert), nevertheless they would have been exposed to birds, which  are much less limited in their habitat/range.

Aside from the realism this lends the Torah's account, it may also  teach us the difference between living a settled life versus a  nomadic one. Think of the things you take for granted to which you  
have access any time you want, and compare your life with the  detailed specificity needed were to be homeless, storage-less, living  only at each moment.

Such a thought experiment should lead us to live our lives with the  presumption of gratitude for all that we have, including even the  dependibility of normalcy!

Shabbat Shalom.

R' David Bockman