Parshas Tazria discusses several types of impurity associated with the human body, and teaches us how to purify ourselves from them. Rashi notes that this follows the previous Parshah’s discussion concerning which animals are “pure” (kosher) and which are not. Quoting from the Midrash, Rashi explains: “Just as man’s creation was after the creation of all animals, beasts and birds, likewise the Torah states the laws concerning the status of man after the laws regarding animals, beasts and birds.”
Why indeed did G-d create man on the sixth day of creation, after everything else? The Midrash explains: “So that if he is not meritorious, we say to him, ‘A gnat preceded you, a snail preceded you.’”
Man was created last to indicate that, in a certain sense, humankind is inferior to all the animals that preceded us in the order of creation. As explained in Tanya, the inferiority the Midrash refers to is man’s inherent ability to desire what G-d forbids—let alone actually disobey G-d’s commands. Animals and beasts are incapable of defying the G-dly mission and purpose for which G-d created them; only the human being is capable of being drawn to behavior that G-d despises and forbids. In this sense, the innate nature of the human being is lowlier than that of insects, beasts and fowl.
The laws of identifying kosher and non-kosher, pure and impure, represent the spiritual refinement of various aspects of creation through the guidance of the Torah. As a rule, the Torah gradually advances the learner from lighter topics and easier tasks to those that are more difficult to grasp and accomplish.
The final task that the Torah addresses is therefore the refinement of the coarse human body. Creation of man came after the creation of the animals, because man alone has the potential to directly oppose G-d’s will, unlike any other creation. For that very reason, his “laws” and refinement are the most difficult task of all.
—Likkutei Sichos, vol. 7, pp. 74–76
