We live in a time of miracles.
Read this article. It appears that pigs may be the solution to our organ donor crisis (specifically, our lack of sufficient organ donations).
When scientists successfully figure this out, we will be living in a world where hundreds of thousands of lives will be saved. All because of a genetically modified pig.
And that made me wonder something else.
We learn in Midrash that Moshe chose not to hit the sand or the water (by the first two plagues) because he owed them for saving his life. (The sand covered the body of the Egyptian he slew and the water protected him when he was a baby in a basket.) That’s why it was Aaron who brought the first two plagues.
What if the reason we are forbidden to eat certain animals is because one day we will owe them? As Jews, we can’t eat pig because it is not a kosher animal. But if pigs become the key to extending all of our lives when our organs fail, perhaps there would be an added concept of our being grateful to them.
(Of course, this argument won’t hold up if scientists are successfully able to modify and use organs from kosher animals as well. I just like to wonder out loud.)