Leviticus 11: Eat This, Not That

God calls Moses and Aaron over to discuss what everyone should be eating.

"So from now on, you can only eat certain animals. The ones you can't eat are 'unclean.'

You don't want to eat this anyway...

"First of all, you know that there are animals with different kinds of hooves and animals that chew a cud and that don't chew a cud. If an animal with a split hoof chews a cud, you can eat it. If there's an animal that doesn't have a split hoof that chews a cud, or has a split hoof and doesn't chew a cud, you can't eat it. So no eating camels, no rock badgers (though actually they do not chew a cud), no rabbits, no pigs. Don't eat them. Heck, don't even touch their dead bodies. They're unclean."

"How about fish?" asks Moses.

"Anything with fins and scales. If it doesn't have fins and scales, don't eat it. No clams, no scallops, no calamari, no lobster, no shrimp..."

"Ohhh," says Moses, "I tried to tell you about that bad shrimp I ate and..."

"Yes, yes, you told me" says God. "That's why I included it. Anyway, birds. Everyone likes a roast chicken or duck now and then, right? You can eat those, but no eagles, vultures, falcons or kites or hawks, ravens, ostriches, seagulls, owls, herons, or bats."

"Bats aren't birds," says Aaron.

"Shut up," says God. "Once in a while in a famine, it may come down to eating bugs. You can eat bugs as long as they have jointed feet so they can hop. So locusts and grasshoppers. Otherwise, no bugs."

"Oh, I wonder if my staff still works for conjuring locusts..." Aaron mused.

"No, I took the batteries out," says God. "No touching or eating unclean animals, ok? If you touch them, you're unclean until evening. If you carry one of them, you have to wash your clothes. Don't eat anything with paws (so that covers the rock badgers). Don't touch mice or lizards. If anything you own touches a mouse or lizard, wash it. If a mouse or lizard falls in one of your dishes or in your stove or oven, break it. These things are just swarming with germs."

"Gross," says Moses.

"Even the animals that you can eat," says God, "if they die naturally, they become unclean and if you touch them or carry them or eat them, you're unclean too. Oh! And snakes and millipedes and swarming bugs and stuff. Don't eat those."

"Oh like I was planning on millipedes for dinner anyway," says Aaron.