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answer  Something I wrote at Parsha Shemini last year
share|improve this answer  In order to understand why the pig
has become synonymous with all that is not Kosher we must
consider the history of Neolithic domestication of swine. The
diseases that came from this particular animal, actually shaped
the human immune system, because of all the animals humans were
learning to domesticate, only the pig was able to share germs
with our species, and this swapping of germs, while deadly to
many of our ancestors, also helped to evolve our own immune
system -as well as the pigs’.  The question must arise as to
whether the pig’s ability to infect us with disease was the
reason that pigs were considered unclean in the Kosher dietary
laws recorded in the Tenakh or Old Testament. Because so much of
the Jewish law dictating what was and wa