In Baba
(alt. Bava) Kamma 92b, a text in the Babylonian Talmud, we read the following:
Rabba bar Mari explains each of the sources.
It is written in the Torah, as it is written: “And so Esau went to Ishmael”
(Genesis 28:9). It is repeated in the Prophets, as it is written: “And there
were gathered vain fellows to Yiftah, and they went out with him” (Judges
11:3). And it is triplicated in the Writings, as it is written: All
fowl will live with its kind, and men with those like him (Book of Ben Sira
13:17). We learned it in a mishna (Kelim 12:2): All
that is attached to that which is ritually impure is ritually
impure; all that is attached to that which is ritually pure is ritually
pure. And we learned it in a baraita: Rabbi Eliezer says: Not for
naught did the starling go to the raven but because it is its kind,
as it too is a non-kosher bird. (source)
What is interesting about this text is that the book of Sirach, part of
the Apocrypha is among the “Writings,” one of the three divisions of the Old
Testament (the other two being the Law and the Prophets).
