In contrast, the skin of the creatures discussed below is treated as their flesh. The first one is that of a human. Thus, the skin of a human corpse conveys corpse impurity. Incidentally, the human skin is prohibited for consumption, like its flesh. Actually, a corpse is prohibited for all benefit.
The skin of the domestic pig is soft and is commonly eaten, and is thus treated as flesh, and according to Rabbi Yehudah also the skin of a wild pig. Other skins are: the skin of the hump of a tender camel, the soft skin of the head of a tender calf, the skin of the hooves, the skin of the pudendum, the skin of a fetus, and the skin of the eight reptiles mentioned in the Torah.
If any of these skins were worked into leather, they become ritually pure, except for human skin. Rabbi Yochanan ben Nuri does not consider the skin of the eight reptiles as flesh.
Art: Eugène-Alexis Girardet - Camel Train By An Oasis At Dawn
In truth, a person's skin is pure. However, the Sages declared it impure out of concern that one would take the skins of his father or mother and make it into spread, to stretch it over the frame of a chair or a bed.
ReplyDeleteAlternatively, since people are especially fond of their parents, they could preserve their parents' skins in order to eulogize them, and still might come to make them into spreads unwittingly later on.