If any unclean animal touches your oven or cooking range, the place where you cook, is that usable any longer?

Answer From The Annual Reading Schedule - Week 24 Notes For Leviticus: No (Leviticus 11:35). Although their ovens back then were made differently, and were broken down differently, it still says what it says. An oven or cooking range you own that had an unclean animal carcass touch it previously must be disposed of in some fashion. You can't just keep using it. Similarly, I would advise you not use the same dishes or pots either because anything unclean animals were on are unclean, and we want to be Set-Apart people to the best of our ability. In a situation like being in prison, or an institution where you have no freedom however, this is out of your control. What can you do? You can't really do anything about it except be cautious of your selections and what you touch. That is probably the toughest situation to be in – a prison or other similar situation. However, if we are not in prison but we merely live with others (usually a family situation) who eat unclean, we can get separate portable electric cooking devices and our own private set of pots and pans, and we can eat clean separate from the rest of the household. If you live in such a situation, I would advise you separate yourself from the meals in the house and get your own things that nobody else uses. Also, I'm not sure what "cooking range" referred to back then, but at a camp site I would definitely not use some grate that someone cooked their bacon on or whatever.

Now some have pointed out that their ovens and such being referred to back then were made of earth or soil and such and therefore that's why the command to break them down was given – because they literally could be broken similar to how pottery can be broken. Some would suggest perhaps since our ovens today are mostly made of metals that we can scour them in some fashion and that would satisfy the method of cleansing for metals, which does not apply similarly to earthen vessels or things made from earth or soil. Is this correct? Should this verse be understood only within the context of earthen ovens or cooking ranges? I cannot say 100% for certain – but that is a possibility. However, I am not 100% certain the command or ruling would be different if the ovens and cooking ranges back then were made like our ovens and cooking ranges today out of metal. Since I am not 100% certain about that, I do still advise when possible to break down and/or dispose of ovens and cooking ranges under our ownership which have become unclean by unclean carcasses of unclean animals. As I said above, "it still says what it says"; so I am cautious and would not say, "because our ovens are made differently, do not break it down or dispose of it". I am not certain that view is correct, and I'd rather be cautious to ensure I am obeying the commands, so I do not use ovens or cooking ranges that could have become unclean.

In addition, I am not confident that self-cleaning cycles of ovens meet the Biblical requirement on how to properly scour and cleanse metals. I also am not sure a flame alone is sufficient. I question the temperature and/or extremity of flame and/or heat required to properly, biblically, fully and completely, scour metals in order for them to be cleansed. Not knowing enough about how metals were scoured back then and how to reproduce that to a sufficient degree today, I am hesitant to think I know enough to properly scour metals at all today. I would need more research and training before I could possibly feel confident in advising, recommending, or saying I approve of a certain method to cleanse metals; or that a specific method sufficiently meets the Biblical standard required. In the end of this discussion, my conclusion is that the safest method to ensure we are obeying this command is to not use any cooking devices that have touched unclean animal dead carcasses or been used to cook non-kosher certified meals.

The verses discussing cleansing metal are from Numbers 31:15-24 and are in the context of probably cleansing things during a time of war, possibly related to uncleanness from dead bodies although I'm not 100% certain. However, those are the only verses I can recall at the time of writing this where we see an example of metals being cleansed to give us an idea of how they might be. We also see another verse discussing scouring in Leviticus 6:28, but that verse doesn't specifically say something about uncleanness so I'm not sure what to say regarding that verse.