One of the aspects of Judaism that separated it from the other pagan religions is the psychological schism between man and the rest of the natural world.
Whereas pagans saw themselves as one kind of animal among others and tribes could even consider themselves as descended from particular animals, the followers of Jehovah saw themselves as a special creation.
This is likely at the root of the Old Testament horror of the mixing of two different categories of thing.
To the extent of cloth of two fibres and fields of two types of seed being abominations.
Somewhere deep down there was a perception that we were of a piece with the world and not something other.
All the otherwise bizarre taboos then make sense as a kind of cordon sanitaire to keep this threatening realisation at bay.