Question: I would like to know why do impure animals and plants exist. If The Lord created them, surely there can be an animal or plant which is not pure but at least it has beauty, or strength, or has any other utility. But about things like spiders or pong pong trees, ugly, dangerous and useless, I am not so sure.
Answer: That is an excellent question, a thinkers question. I’ll start you in the right direction. What is it about cows, sheep, and goats that place them all in the pure category? Well…one thing is that they are vegetarians, that is, they do not hunt other animals for their food.
You are what you eat, and this is a quality that G-d does not want Jews to bring within themselves.
What is wrong with a pig? For one thing he is a non-discriminatory glutton. Why not a catfish? For one thing, a catfish is a scavenger.
Regards, Eliahu Levenson