The problem with Dr. Betech's book: ...

One major problem with Isaac Betech's book, The Enigma of the Biblical Shafan, is its one-sided and highly selective presentation of sources.

This is perhaps best summarized by something he says on page 231: "dot dot dot"

In this section of the book, he is advancing a thesis not directly related to the hyrax. He wants to show that Chazal's statement that "whatever has scales has fins" is an absolute statement that has surprisingly held true through the generations, and that this was halacha leMoshe miSinai, Divine information transmitted directly to Moshe on Har Sinai.

He writes:

From the above, we see an emphatic absolute biological rule stating that the existence of any aquatic creature with scales but no fins is impossible. 

This accurate description of the natural world has held up through millennia of aquatic exploration. And this should not be surprising, for, as clearly stated by Tosafot, the origin of this Rabbinic knowledge was Divine information transmitted to Moshe when he received the Torah on Mount Sinai.

Then he cites Tosafot on Chullin 66b to show that this is so:

כל שיש לו קשקשת יש לו סנפיר. וא"ת מנין היה להם זה לחכמים?  ... יש לומר דהכי קים להו הלמ"מ:

Note the ellipses.

I take issue with ellipses ("dot dot dot") when the elided text changes the meaning. In this case I think it does, as I will next explain. Here is the full Tosafot:

כל שיש לו קשקשת יש לו סנפיר. וא"ת מנין היה להם זה לחכמים וכן לעיל (דף סג:) דתניא שאין במיני דגים טמאים אלא ז' מאות מנין היה להם שהתירו בכך את השאר וליכא למימר מאדם שקרא להם שמות קים להו הכי שמסר לדורות כך שהם טמאין שכן הוא הכיר את כולם דהא לא משמע במקרא שקרא שמות אלא לבהמות ולעופות שאע"פ שידע שמו של הקב"ה כדדרשינן (במ"ר בראשית פי"ז) אני ה' (הוא) שקרא לי אדם הראשון בדגים מיהא לא אשכחן ויש לומר מכל אשר יקרא לו האדם יש לרבות אפי' דגים ואיכא למימר דמאדם קים להו ואם תמצא לומר שלא קרא להם שמות יש לומר דהכי קים להו הלמ"מ:

Tosafot is grappling with where the Mishna in Niddah 51b gets this general rule about fins and scales. I can think of at least four possibilities, and Tosafot offers two of them.

1. Tosafot #1: Divine intervention + human observation + tradition: Interpret the pesukim where Adam is presented with each animal, such that this includes fish. Thus, Hashem showed Adam every fish. He could deduce this general rule, and pass on the knowledge to future generations.
2. Tosafot #2: Divine revelation + tradition: If we cannot interpret the pesukim in Bereishit in this manner, then we will posit that it must be a halacha leMoshe miSinai, even though nothing in the gemara explicitly said so.
3. My own suggestion #1: Human observation: We see these general rules also from gentile scientists contemporary to Chazal. For example, Pliny the Elder deduced the same rule as Chazal had, that דג טמא משריץ דג טהור מטיל ביצים כל המוליד מניק וכל המטיל ביצים מלקט. Chazal could have trusted the contemporary naturalists, or done the research themselves, and applied that rule lehalacha.
4. My own suggestion #2: Interpretation of pesukim, though the gemara did not make this derivation explicit. For instance: for kosher and non-kosher beasts, those with both signs (split hooves, rumination) were declared kosher, and then those with only a single sign were detailed as non-kosher. Now, for kosher fish, both signs (scales and fins) were given as kosher and then, seemingly unnecessarily, there was a statement that if it does not have fins and scales, it is not kosher. These signs then seem to travel together. Deduce that both indeed travel together. But knowledge of the world, that there are fish with fins but no scales, excludes one of those two cases.

Focusing just on Tosafot's two answers, I think one gets a different sense, even though both of his answers involve Divine intervention as well as a chain of tradition. Tosafot were not "clearly stating" this halacha leMoshe miSinai, as Dr. Betech claims. They were guessing at it, because they had no other way of accounting for the derivation of this general rule.

The first explanation of Tosafot complicates matters, and Dr. Betech leaves it out.

But that is OK, because at the bottom of the page, in footnote 684, he writes "See Hebrew Appendix nispach heh for an extensive compilation of sources."

Surely in that Hebrew Appendix, he will have room to give the full text of Tosafot! Right? Right?!

Nope.

On page 288, second source down, he has the same citation of Tosafot, with the same ellipses. And it does not seem to be in order to conserve space. He gives longer citations than this for other sources, bolding and highlighting only the relevant portion. And he includes many, many random sources which happen to cite this Tosafot saying it is halacha leMoshe miSinai, to bolster the idea.

OK, so Dr. Betech omits the portion of Tosafot which dilutes his point. But surely, given that this is an "extensive compilation of sources", he would not leave out the Rambam, who argues with Tosafot and claims that this general rule about fins and scales was derived via observation! You know, as Rabbi Slifkin wrote in his book, The Camel, The Hare, and The Hyrax, page 194-195:

Given that Dr. Betech's book is intended as a response to Rabbi Slifkin's book, we would expect him to know about this Rambam. And so, he would surely quote it, so as not to leave the reader with the false perception that Tosafot is the only game in town.

Just give me a moment to find it in this extensive compilation of sources...

Um... Not in the main body of the text... Maybe in a footnote... Nope.

It is not just Tosafot answer #1, and the Rambam, missing from this Appendix. Dr. Betech's other major point (besides הלמ"מ) is that almost everyone agrees that the rule is absolute, without exception. Now, there are at least three Acharonim who disagree with this idea, and say that there are exceptions to this general rule about fins and scales: R' Yonasan Eibeshitz, R' Yechezkel Katzenelenfogin and R' Ya'akov Zvi Mecklenburg. (See here.)

We hold like Bet Hillel over Bet Shammai because Bet Hillel would always first cite the words of Bet Shammai before giving their own opinion (Eruvin 13b). Surely Dr. Betech will, in his "extensive compilation of sources", give the actual words of these three Acharonim?

Nope.

The extent of his extensive compilation of sources are those which agree with his thesis. We only find out about Rav Yonasan Eibeshitz (the Kreisi)'s disagreement in two ways. (1) Some of those he quotes argue against the Kreisi's position. (2) In a very late footnote, #876, when dismissing the minority who hold otherwise, he tells us who they are -- two of them, the Kreisi and the Ksav veHakkabalah.

By limiting it in this manner, he accomplishes the following:

(1) He grants them far less credence, since they don't deserve space in the actual body of the essay.
(2) We don't get to read their actual words, which include how they interpret the words of the gemara (words which other sources argue precludes their explanation).
(3) We are less likely to bother to look up the reference, since the average reader is lazy.
(4) We might not even read the footnote.
(5) While each of the extensive list of sources gets its own footnote with a biography, the Kreisi and the Ksav veHakkabalah do not. We won't necessarily know that the Kreisi is the prominent halachic authority, Rav Yonasan Eibeshitz.

This approach, of hiding inconvenient sources, is not limited to his discussion of fins and scales. It extends to his main thesis, of excluding the hyrax and admitting the rabbit, as well. However, I will have to leave that for the second post in this series.