Rav Hirsch On Shemini

Few points from the Rabbiner.
1. The commandment of the kosher and non-kosher animals is communicated to Klal Yisroel via Moshe and Aharon.  Why is Aharon involved in communicating this commandment more than most others?  Rav Hirsch explains that this commandment is beginning of the next stage of the formation of Klal Yisroel.  After the building of the mikdash, we are instructed that the point isn’t a physical construction, it is to bring kedusha into the individual.  Moshe is the one charged with transmitting the law to the people and Aharon is the one entrusted with task of being the educator, the one to teach how to carry out the laws.  It is specifically this additional layer of the nation that requires the direction of Aharon to make sure it takes root carefully.

2. Rav Hirsch views the laws of tumah to be physiological.  At the end of his commentary on this week’s parsha, he goes through a detailed explanation about how the rules of tumah reflect a person’s feelings when encountered with something that is tamai.  Of course, this is not like the kabbalists that view tumah as an actual status that affects the object.  This would seem to be supported by the Gemorah in Menachos 24 that discusses if we say שבעא לה טומאה and a tamah object doesn’t accept further tumah.  If tumah is merely psychological why should it not become tameh a second time?