On the unclean animals of the Bible

I was feeling unclean as the Bible speaks of the unclean. Why was the Bible so concerned with the unclean, and made a list of unclean and forbidden animals? […] And why was the unclean forbidden?

They say everything, in the Bible, they say everything — but if I understand what they say, they themselves will call me mad.

I was finding out that the unclean animal of the Bible is forbidden because the unclean is the root — for there are created things that never decorated themselves, and preserved themselves exactly as they were the moment they were created, and only they continued to be the still wholly complete root. And because they are the root one cannot eat them, the fruit of good and of evil — eating the living matter would banish me from a paradise of adornments, and leave me to wander forever with a shepherd’s staff in the desert.

To build a possible soul — a soul whose head does not devour its own tail — the law commands us to keep only to what is disguisedly alive. And the law commands that, whoever eats of the unclean, must do so unawares.

(Translation by Idra Novey, 2012.)