The hyrax as ruminant

In parashat Re'eh, we read of the non-kosher animals which are non-kosher even though they are ruminants. In Devarim 14:7:

7. But you shall not eat of those that chew the cud, or of those that have the split hooves: the cloven one, the camel, the hyrax, and the hare, for they chew the cud, but do not have split hooves; they are unclean for you.

ז. אַךְ אֶת זֶה לֹא תֹאכְלוּ מִמַּעֲלֵי הַגֵּרָה וּמִמַּפְרִיסֵי הַפַּרְסָה הַשְּׁסוּעָה אֶת הַגָּמָל וְאֶת הָאַרְנֶבֶת וְאֶת הַשָּׁפָן כִּי מַעֲלֵה גֵרָה הֵמָּה וּפַרְסָה לֹא הִפְרִיסוּ טְמֵאִים הֵם לָכֶם:

There are difficulties with the identifications of many Biblical animals, and looking at the identities provided by various Geonim and Rishonim indeed yields a lot of machlokes. The shafan is one such example. In seems that some meforshim who lived in Spain identified it as a rabbit. But Rav Saadia Gaon, who lived in closer proximity to Eretz Yisrael, and Rabbi Maryonis {=Rabbenu Yonah Ibn Janach} identified it as the hyrax. The behavior of the hyrax matches closely with descriptions of the shafan as found in Tehillim and Mishlei, while the behavior of the rabbit is not as consistent. And in the Ekhili dialect of Arabic, the hyrax is called thufun, a cognate of shafan. That is a lot of good evidence in favor of this identification.

The difficulty, though, is that the hyrax does not actually chew its cud, as far as we know. If so, what are we to make of the pasuk?

Recall that Aristotle thought that the hare was a true ruminant. He was wrong, but this demonstrates ancient belief. Presumably he (or some other ancient zoologist) saw the mouth motions of the hare (continuous chewing motions) and thought that they ruminated. The same is true for the hyrax, even though Aristotle did not specifically discuss it. There is an observed behavior of hyraxes which appears like rumination.



(Note that this might actually be merycism, which involves regurgitation, and which certain opponents of the hyrax identification have said that the hyrax does not practice. But at the very least, we can see how ancient zoologists might have thought that the hyrax was a ruminant.)

If so, there are at least three explanations of the verse, assuming we adopt hyrax as the translation of shafan:

1. The Torah is not Divine, but reflects only mankind's flawed knowledge of nature. Moshe Rabbenu did not know that the hyrax did not ruminate, and so he encoded an error in the Torah. I include this because it is intellectually honest to do so, and to stress that we cannot exclude an interpretation which has this rather strong support just because we will end up reaching a conclusion we do not like. This option cuts off many of the objections to hyrax-shafan opponents.
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2. The Torah is Divine, but it is not a science book. It is willing to accept, and work within, the mistaken assumptions of the time. This is dibra Torah kilshon benei Adam, according to some Rishonim. Maybe. Or maybe this is an extension of their conception of dibra Torah. Therefore, it is willing to call a shafan a maaleh geira even though it is not actually a ruminant.
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3. Maaleh geira is a noun phrase, not a verb phrase. As Ibn Ezra writes elsewhere, there is no real present tense verb in Hebrew. Rather, the noun is co-opted for this task. Hu Shomer can mean "he is watching", or it can mean "he is a watchman". Ki Maaleh Geirah Heimah can mean "for bringing up the cud they are" or "for ruminants are they". By ruminants, one would include whatever in antiquity people considered a ruminant, even if they were wrong about the actual act of rumination. A tomato is called a vegetable because it is not so sweet in the fruit sense, and we would put it in a vegetable salad. Speaking from the perspective of a botanist, it is a fruit. A whale would be considered a dag or daga, according to the classification in ancient times of dag as a sea-creature. The Torah is saying that it is a ruminant (a noun), where the definition is that of the speech of contemporaries. This is different from a claim that it ruminates (a verb).

Now, need there be a single consistent definition for maaleh geirah? After all, it is one expression applying in the pasuk to the gamal, arneves, and shafan. I don't see this as a requirement. There need not be a consistent, single, definition of maaleh geirah, just so long as each can be described as a maaleh geirah. For instance, the gamal practices true rumination. If the rabbit and hare are to be considered maaleh geirah because they practice cecotrophy (poop-eating), then this can be said to comprise a multiple definition.

But, it turns out that we can adopt a single definition. Considering the three possibilities above:

(1) That it actually ruminates. But, the Torah was wrong about it.
(2) That ancient people, contemporary with Matan Torah all the way down to Rav Saadia Gaon, and perhaps even much later, thought, correctly or incorrectly, that it ruminates.
(3) The same as (2), more or less. It was called a maaleh geirah by ancient people.

Now, there is a midrash which possibly demonstrates that Chazal actually thought it possessed a single physical sign of Kashrut:

ויקרא רבה (וילנא) פרשה יג ה' ד"ה א"ר שמואל

את השפן זו מדי, רבנן ור' יהודה ברבי סימון, רבנן אמרי מה השפן הזה יש בו סימני טומאה וסימני טהרה, כך היתה מלכות מדי מעמדת צדיק ורשע, אמר רבי יהודה ברבי סימון דריוש האחרון בנה של אסתר היה טהור מאמו וטמא מאביו.

It has the signs of tumah and it has the signs of taharah. Great. That is what the pasuk itself says. But perhaps this can be taken to refer to physical signs. We know the sign of tumah. What of the sign of taharah?

Well, besides trying to reinterpret that midrash and the meaning of simanim, we could say that it still refers to the hyrax, and that Chazal were among the ancient people, just like Aristotle, who had incorrect zoological knowledge about hares and hyraxes. Just the other day, we saw that Chazal thought that cats and foxes deliberately inject venom into their victims via claws. And we don't then say that we must not know the chatul. Chazal believed in spontaneous generation. We don't say that we must not know what Chazal really meant when they spoke of worms and lice. Chazal spoke of snakes as having a gestational period of seven years, and a man's spine turning into a snake. We don't say that Chazal must have been talking about different creatures called adam and nachash! This works with options (1, 2, 3) above. (Note: See also here, which is the partial prompt for this post. See also a chapter from Rabbi Natan Slifkin's old book, which discusses hyraxes as shafan. And you can purchase his newly republished (and modified) book, The Camel, the Hare, and the Hyrex here. See also Rabbi Slifkin's post for today, Hyrax Day.)

There could also be other definitions of maaleh geirah which the Torah deems sufficient to classify it as a maaleh geirah. Thus, for example, in the Living Torah, Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan writes:

hyrax
  Hyrax syriacus or Procavia capens syriaca. Shafan in Hebrew; chiorogryllios in Greek, (Septuagint); tafan in Arabic. The hyrax is a small mammal, around 20 inches long, living in the Negev mountains. It has short feet, covered with elastic, a flexible tail-less body, and pads. It nests in the clefts of rocks (Psalms 104:18), and lives in small groups (Proverbs 30:26). Since it has a maw like a ruminant, it is considered to 'bring up its cud.'Saadia similarly translates it into the Arabic wabr, denoting the hyrax or rock badger (cf. Malbim). Other sources translate it as a coney or jerboa.

I am not sure if by 'maw' like a ruminant he means jaw or stomach. The hyrax has both features like a ruminant. And once the Torah deems it sufficiently like a ruminant, it would say that it is maaleh geirah. Indeed, then, the midrash in Vayikra Rabba can be taken literally and as correct, that the simanim of maaleh geirah are in it.

This is just by way of illustration, that there are people who know their stuff who translate shafan as hyrax, and who have ways of explaining the pasuk.