The hyrax, practicing caecotrophy

A solid candidate for the Biblical shafan is the hyrax.

This is based on linguistic evidence (comparison to Arabic tafan and what the al-wabr was in the time and place of Saadia Gaon), zooarchaeological evidence (what areas rabbit, hares, and hyraxes were found in ancient times), and analysis of pesukim in which the shafan is mentioned.

The difficulty is that the shafan is not a ruminant, while the Torah states it is a maaleh geira. There are several answers to this, such as:

1. It makes constant chewing motions such that ancient peoples believed it was a ruminant (and dibra Torah kilshon benei adam).

2. It has a multi-chambered stomach, which could cause it to be classified in the class of maaleh geira. (Or cause ancient people to believe it was a ruminant...)

3. Rabbi Natan Slifkin has video in which it seems to practice merycism, that is, the bringing up food in the throat back to the mouth for rechewing (that is, while not scientific rumination, it is literally maaleh its geira).

4. Here I offer a fourth reason it might be considered maaleh geira. Some animals, such as rabbits, practice caecotrophy, and this is the justification for considering the rabbit and hare to be maaleh geira (and thus the shafan and / or arnevet). To define the term:

• "Caecotrophy" is a kind of coprophagy. "Caecotrophy" specifically refers to the ingestion of caecal feces for nutritional purposes. "Coprophagy" refers to the ingestion of feces for any reason, including mental illness.

Meanwhile, as some in Mexico object:

"The hyrax cannot be the shafan or the arnebet, because even the proponents of identifying the hyrax as the shafan acknowledge that there is no evidence that the hyrax practices rumination, caecotrophy, or even merycism; thus, the hyrax is not "maaleh gerah"."

However, it turns out that every hyrax eats hyrax feces at one point in its life, when it is still a baby, for what might easily be considered nutritional purposes. It does not engage in auto-caecotrophy (eating its own feces), but it eats the feces of other hyraxes. That is, as this Wired article notes:

2. They have multi-chambered stomachs. Although they are not ruminants, hyraxes have three-chambered stomachs filled with symbiotic bacteria that help break down the plants they eat. Baby hyraxes are not born with the bacteria they will need to digest plant matter, so to obtain it they eat the poop of adult hyraxes.

Whether this is technically considered caecotrophy rather than caecophagy, I can see people debating. But it is surely noteworthy that it engages in this behavior, giving us a reason #4.

Review of the Enigma of the Biblical Shafan, pt iii: Llama as shafan

This is the third post in a series reviewed Dr. Isaac Betech's book, The Enigma of the Biblical Shafan.

So far, I haven't been impressed. See my first post, about how the book covers the klal regarding fins and scales, and my second post, about how the book covers evidence of merycism in hyraxes. In both cases, the book deliberately conceals information from the reader, and in the case of hyraxes, uses carefully chosen (and thus dishonest) language to cover up the existence of evidence. In each case, the information which has been concealed would have weakened the position put forth in the book.

In this post, I begin considering the arguments set forth in the chapter Why The Llama Cannot Be The Biblical Shafan.

The gemara in Eruvin 13b states:

מפני מה זכו בית הלל לקבוע הלכה כמותן? מפני שנוחין ועלובין היו, ושונין דבריהן ודברי בית שמאי. ולא עוד, אלא שמקדימין דברי בית שמאי לדבריהן.

"Why did Bet Hillel merit that the halacha was encoded like them? Because they were kindly and modest, and taught their words and the words of Bet Shammai. And not only that, but they preceded the words of Bet Shammai to their own words."

Such that even if the purpose of the book is to argue that the rabbit is the Biblical shafan and the llama is not, it is proper to provide readers with a fair presentation of the pro-llama position. We shall investigate whether the book does this, or if the book (deliberately) omits information which would undermine its anti-llama agenda.

1)
First, if we look at Rabbi Slifkin's discussion of the llama, on page 71 of The Camel, The Hare, and The Hyrax, we find the following footnote:

When we compare with the footnotes on page 133 in Dr. Betech's book, we find something rather surprising and bizarre.

That is, he writes:

Some have published [374][375] even recently [376] the claim that the Biblical "shafan" is the llama (Lama glama, family Camelidae), the "arnebet" is the Bactrian camel and the "gamal" is the Arabian camel.

In his footnotes, he gives:

[374] Rabbi Meyer Lubin, 1973, Identification of the Gamel, Shafan and Arnevet, "Intercom", (published in May 1973 by the Association of Orthodox Jewish scientists)
[375] North Henden Adath Yisroel Synagogue Sedra Sheet - Shabbos Re'eh - 03/09/05 - Issue 48
[376] Rabbi Pinchus Presworsky, Animals of the Torah, SYS Marketing, USA, 5770, pages 34-36.

This is a different list. Since Dr. Betech has read The Camel, The Hare, and The Hyrax, he knows about these other sources. Why would he omit Rabbi Dr. Tendler's article in the Torah UMadda Journal? Why would he omit Rabbi Dr. Yosef HaLevi Zeliger? And to remove Rabbi Tendler's (a rosh yeshiva of RIETS and professor and chairman of a department of biology) article in a journal and put in a random parsha sheet (by a Mr. David Levi) seems quite strange.

However, having read through these sources, I can see why he does this. Rabbi Lubin argued specifically for arnevet as Bactrian camel, gamal as Arabian camel, and shafan as llama. The random parsha sheet just cites Rabbi Lubin, and thus puts forth the exact same claim. Rabbi Presworsky also puts forth the exact same claim.

However, Rabbi Dr. Tendler has a slightly different claim. He asserts that the gamal is the camel (both Bactrian and Arabian), the arnevet is the vicuna, and the shafan is the llama. (As we saw above in Rabbi Slifkin's book, Rabbi Dr. Zeliger identifies them as mini-camels, unknown to us, so it is not entirely relevant to a chapter on llama as shafan.)

If the reader knew of Rabbi Tendler's position, then he would have a ready answer to Dr. Betech's objection #1.

To summarize Dr. Betech's objection #1:

If the arnevet is the Bactrian camel and the gamal is Arabian camel, then they are different minim. Yet Bava Kamma 55a discusses the Bactrian camel and the Arabian camel and asserts that, despite minor physical differences, they are the same min and thus are not kilayim! And extend this to the shafan as llama, another camelid.

To this objection, the reader will answer:

According to Rabbi Dr. Tendler, the Bactrian and Arabian camel are indeed the same min, the gamal. And scientifically, they belong to the genus Camelus. However, there are other genuses in the Camelidae family, which scientists have distinguished enough to declare them to be in separate genuses. The arnevet is the vicuna, and the shafan is still the llama!

I think Rabbi Dr. Levinger's opinion was not brought not only because it is not a llama, but also because it would undermine Dr. Betech's reason #6, but that is for another post.

2)

If we look at Rabbi Slifkin's discussion of the Arabian and Bactrian camel regarding the aforementioned gemara in Bava Kamma 55a, we see that he provides pictures. From page 66 of The Camel, The Hare, and The Hyrax:

And Rabbi Slifkin also explains, in the text, that the Arabian camel has one hump and the Bactrian camel has two. So too, in the parsha sheet, Dr. Betech cited in his footnote, we see them summarize Rabbi Lubin as follows:

We don’t have space here to go into detail, but he deduces that the Gomol is the one humped camel (Dromedary) found in Egypt and Israel, Arneves is the two humped (Bactrian) camel found further to the east in Central Asia (where Avrohom originated from), and Shofon is the Llama, found only in South America (unknown by our civilisation until the sixteenth century).

And so too, Rabbi Pinchus Presworsky, in the cited pages, calls them the one-hump camel and the two-hump camel:

and

Yet surprisingly (?) Dr. Betech does not provide pictures of the Arabian and Bactrian camel in this chapter at all!

It is true that on page 179, at the end of a different chapter, Dr. Betech includes pictures of the Family Camelidae:

But this just states Camel, and does not show a number of humps.

Meanwhile, in his chapter on Why The Llama Cannot Be The Biblical Shafan, no picture of Bactrian camel and Arabian camel exists. This is strange because most other times in the book, when an animal is mentioned -- a hyrax, a llama, a kangaroo -- an image is provided.

OK, so no picture is provided. Surely the text would make the distinction, right? Let us look again at the first page of Dr. Betech's chapter, to find reference to one hump or two humps:



Nope. Just, on the first page, that the arnebet is the Bactrian camel and the gamal is the Arabian camel. And then, spanning from the first to the second page:

The Talmud in Baba Kama 55a concludes that the Persian (probably the Bactrian camel) and the Arabian camel, in spite of minor physical differences, are the same "min". [Then cites the gemara and Rashi.] So it is difficult to accept that the Talmud would consider the "arnebet" to be the Bactrian camel, and the "gamal" the Arabian camel."

What are these "minor physical differences"? By this, he surely means to encompass the one-hump vs. two hump distinction, but how come he did not make this explicit. The poor typical reader has no clue that this is the distinction!

Why is this relevant? Wait for point #3, and then I will explain.

3)
Further, why not translate the gemara and Rashi to English? The gemara said that the distinction between the גמלא פרסא and the גמלא טעייא was that one was אלים קועיה and the other was קטין קועיה, and Rashi explains that אלים קועיה means that צוארו עב, it has a thick neck.

Yet all Dr. Betech does is vaguely refer to it as "minor physical differences".

To present the gemara:

אמר ר"ל כאן שנה רבי תרנגול טווס ופסיוני כלאים זה בזה פשיטא אמר רב חביבא משום דרבו בהדי הדדי מהו דתימא מין חד הוא קמ"ל:

אמר שמואל אווז ואווז הבר כלאים זה בזה מתקיף לה רבא בר רב חנן מאי טעמא אילימא משום דהאי אריך קועיה והאי זוטר קועיה אלא מעתה גמלא פרסא וגמלא טייעא דהאי אלים קועיה והאי קטין קועיה הכי נמי דהוו כלאים זה בזה

Or, in English:

SO ALSO BEASTS AND BIRDS ARE LIKE THEM etc. Resh Lakish said: Rabbi taught here¹⁹  that a cock, a peacock and a pheasant are heterogeneous with one another.²⁰  Is this not obvious?²¹  — R. Habiba said: Since they can breed from one another it might have been thought that they constitute a homogeneous species; we are therefore told [by this that this is not the case]. Samuel said:²²  The [domestic] goose and the wild goose are heterogeneous with each other. Raba son of R. Hanan demurred [saying:] What is the reason? Shall we say because one has a long neck and the other has a short neck? If so, why should a Persian camel and an Arabian camel similarly not be considered heterogeneous with each other, since one has a thick neck and the other a slender neck? 

It is somewhat strange that the Bactrian camel and the Arabian camel, which differ in the number of humps, are distinguished by an Amora as merely long vs. short neck. Rabbi Slifkin makes this point about this gemara explicitly in The Camel, The Hare, and The Hyrax, on page 66, right above his Bactrian and Arabian camel pictures, saying:

It seems that the “Persian camel” is the Bactrian camel—Bactria is a province of the ancient Persian Empire. Its neck is indeed far thicker than that of the dromedary, although it is curious that the Talmud did not mention the even more striking difference of the number of humps. Another possibility is that the “Persian camel” is a variety of dromedary.

so Dr. Betech surely knows that this objection can be made.

Thus, a reader, or a llama as shafan proponent, might have readily responded to Dr. Betech's objection #1 with:

Wait! Who says that the Talmud is equating the Bactrian and Arabian camel? Given that it only speaks of neck-thickness, which is indeed a minor physical difference, it would not conflate two camelid species with a different number of humps. And therefore the gamal can have one hump, the arneves can have two humps, and the shafan can be the llama, with zero humps.

However, because Dr. Betech has conveniently left out all this information, the poor reader is unable to respond with anything.

4)
Just a parting observation: I wonder whether, even if the gemara is indeed speaking of Arabian and Bactrian camels, whether their not being kilayim zeh bazeh means that they could not have been described by the Torah using three different names. Maybe yes, maybe no, but it is something that needs proving. Especially since Rabbi Tendler interpreted a gemara (Chullin 59b) that all these three were called by the term gamal. I would need to ruminate on this for a while.

Bli neder, further posts can consider other of Dr. Betech's six objections to the llama as shafan. Objections #2, #3, #4, and #5 can be rejected with a single blow, whether rejection can come from Rishonim who thought the shafan was a rabbit; I think Dr. Betech has stated, after publication of his book, that these should not be used to prove the validity of an identification; he left it unclear whether he admits that they may be used to prove the invalidity of an identification. And #6 can be rejected based what the book has about rabbits, in footnote 237 on page 99 and the main body text spanning from page 100 to page 101. However, I will have to expand on this (bli neder) in a further post.

Review of the Enigma of the Biblical Shafan, pt ii: What else did Dr. Betech conceal from his readers?

In the first post in this series, by examining Dr. Betech presentation of a klal regarding fins and scales, I showed that while seeming to present a comprehensive discussion of the issue, in fact the discussion was one-sided. It omitted a critical portion of Tosafot that might provide nuance, omitted a Rishon who argued with one of the central points, and banished the contrary Acharonim almost to a brief mention in a footnote.

While he may or may not intend this, the presentation is similarly one-sided through the rest of the book. As one example, as someone recently observed to me (slight editing):

Dr. Betech's book cites hundreds and hundreds of obscure sources that have very little to do with the subject matter. But he doesn't cite Rabbi Slifkin's book even once!

We might not expect Dr. Betech to, given that he was active in the ban. But, for example, does he mention the video evidence, from Rabbi Slifkin, of a hyrax making chewing motions when it had not received recent food? He does not.

In fact, while he knows full well that there is this possible video evidence, in two places in his book, he does not mention it and very carefully words it so as to not technically lie, but still mislead his readers.

One page 118, in the chapter Why The Hyrax Cannot Be The Biblical Shafan, he writes (emphasis in the original):

"The hyrax cannot be the shafan or the arnebet, because even the proponents of identifying the hyrax as the shafan acknowledge that there is no evidence that the hyrax practices rumination, caecotrophy, or even merycism; thus, the hyrax is not "maaleh gerah"."

Who are these unnamed "proponents" who "acknowledged" this?

Is there no evidence? So, this video, is not evidence of possible merycism? The hyrax did not eat recently, and it is performing chewing motions.


 

And Rabbi Slifkin has another video, in which you can actually see motion in the hyrax's throat while it is doing this chewing:


Dr. Betech's answer may be:
a) The answer is that it is evidence of possible merycism, not certain. We cannot know for certain unless we also X-ray the hyrax while it is engaged in this.
b) What Dr. Betech actually said in a comment on my blog, in response to this video evidence:

Sorry for my short answer, I am still abroad lecturing day and night...

Do you have any scientific source supporting your suggestion that the hyrax practices merycism?

As it emerged, he did not consider this video evidence to be a "scientific source", and thus it may be discounted. As he wrote me in a somewhat later response:

You suggested that the hyrax practices merycism, so I asked for a scientific source.
If for you a video it is enough evidence, fine, but please do not expect this to be enough in any scientific forum.

This is what he meant when he misleadingly wrote in his book:

even the proponents of identifying the hyrax as the shafan acknowledge that there is no evidence that the hyrax practices rumination, caecotrophy, or even merycism

Later, on page 162, he once again pulls the wool over the reader's eyes. He writes:

"Practices ectental mastication, however the hyrax does not practice rumination, caecotrophy, or every merycism."

And then, in footnote 469 on that same page, the coup de grâce:

"I couldn't find in the published literature available to me, any scientific source for redigestion practiced by the hyrax."

Note the three evasions that Dr. Betech uses here:

1. "I couldn't find"
2. "in the published literature"
3. "any scientific source"

In long running, annoying threads, Dr. Betech used just this evasive and dishonest tactic #1, saying that he couldn't find something (reference to zoologists who observed hyraxes regurgitate small quantities of food for remastication) in Rabbi Slifkin's books:

I am sorry but I could not find the names of the zoologists that have observed that hyraxes do in fact regurgitate small quantities of food for remastication.

As it turned out, he knew precisely all along what Rabbi Slifkin was referring to but disagreed with the relevance or categorizations. This might be a "good" debating tactic or a way to antagonize your opponents, but in a book written for a neutral audience, saying "I could not find" to obscure information is a fancy way of lying -- (a) using carefully crafted words to hide his intent, and (b) deliberately concealing information that the reader would quite likely find relevant.

When Dr. Betech says "any scientific source" and "published literature" he is excluding the video evidence since it was not published in a scientific journal by a zoologist. As he noted in the comment on my blog.

And he is surreptitiously excluding various items mentioned in Rabbi Slifkin's book, The Camel, The Hare, And The Hyrax, pages 97-101. For instance, Dr. Betech excludes the eighteenth-century explorer James Bruce, and zoologist Dr. Hubert Hendrichs, who claim to have seen hyraxes ruminate. And he excluding "personal communication" to Rabbi Slifkin (since it is not "in the published [scientific] literature"?) from Dr. Hendrik Hoek and Dr. Christine Janis, with observation of chewing motions, which might (depending on interpretation) be evidence towards merycism.

A fair and honest presentation would mention the video evidence and why he chooses to exclude it; it would mention Bruce, Hendrichs, and others, and explain why he does not deem it to be good evidence. Instead, he deliberately conceals the existence of this evidence from the reader. It is a dishonest book.

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.

HaKsav VeHakkabalah on the Aquatic Skink

Consider the following pasuk, in parashat Shemini (Vaykira 11:12)

יב  כֹּל אֲשֶׁר אֵין-לוֹ סְנַפִּיר וְקַשְׂקֶשֶׂת, בַּמָּיִם--שֶׁקֶץ הוּא, לָכֶם.

12 Whatsoever hath no fins nor scales in the waters, that is a detestable thing unto you.

Chazal lay down a general rule, in Chullin 65b (and in a Mishna in Niddah 51b), that whatever has scales has fins, but not everything that has fins has scales.

This rule was challenged when the scincus marinus, that is, the aquatic skink, was discovered in the Spanish Sea. It was reported that this was a fish which had scales but no fins. In fact it was a lizard, and a land animal. But the Acharonim who heard this misreport had to rule on its kashrus status, as well as defend Chazal's statement, which until then was widely assumed (based on the second suggestion of Tosafot on the daf, see there) to be a halacha leMoshe miSinai.

haKsav vehaKabbalah

Here is the commentary and explanation of HaKsav veHakabbalah, written by Rabbi Ya'akov Zvi Mecklenburg (1785-1865). For a summary of his general approach, I will cite On the Main Line -- "His work is normally grouped with 19th century Jewish exegete Malbim, although similar in kind (eg, for its devotion to uniting the rabbinic interpretation with the pshat on grammatical and critical, rather than homiletical grounds) R. Mecklenburg's found more use for contemporary quasi-non-traditional sources than Malbim (although this factoid should not be blown out of proportion). For example, Ha-qetav We-ha-qabbalah cites Julius Fürst and the Biurists, while Malbim will not cite contemporary maskilim and only occasionally cites someone like Philo (in his commentary) or Shadal (in Ya'ir Or, on Hebrew synonyms)." 

See also this Hebrew Wikipedia article.

The text of his commentary on this pasuk follows:



"Fins and scales: From our Rabbis (Chullin 65b): Whatever has scales has fins. And if you find a cut of fish which has scales, you need not seek after a fin. And Scriptures only needed to write the sign of the scales, and this that the All-Merciful wrote 'fins', is in order to 'make the teaching great and glorious'. End quote.

And it is possible that this klal (general rule) that our Sages set out, that whatever has scales has fine, is not absolute, to say that there is nothing in existence at all, a species of fish which has scales with no fins. For we know the reverse to be true, that in the Spanish Sea there is found a fish called the scincus marinus which has scales but no fins. Rather, their statement 'whatever has...' is not something absolute, as they said (in the beginning of perek בכל מערבין) 'we do not learn from klals, even where it says 'except'', and so the statement 'whatever has [scales]...', that is to say yhat the majority which have scales have fins.

And I have found like my words in the Kreisi [from Rav Yonasan Eibeshitz, in Yoreh Deah] siman 83 seif katan 3, that he writes that in all particulars of the nature of creations, there are things which deviate from the nature, as the naturalists testified about the nature of living creatures. And our rabbis spoke about the majority, that the majority which have scales have fins, such that a species which is found to have scales and does not have fins does not contradict the words of our Sages.

And so wrote the Rav, the author of the Teshuvot Knesset Yechezkel [from R' Yechezkel Katzenelenfogin, author of this sefer and Av Beit Din and Rosh Yeshiva in the Three Communities, Hamburg, Altona, and and Wandsbek] in his novellae to Niddah page 51, which is printed in the novellae of the Rashba on Niddah) that that which they said 'all that have scales', the intent is 'most'. And the practical difference when it comes to law is a piece of fish, that we go after the majority, and the fish in the Spanish Sea which has no fins, certainly is not kosher, for we require both of them, fins and scales (as Tosafot writes in Niddah 51b, d"h ולכתוב) that it is similar to the signs of a beheima in the matter of rumination and having split hooves, see there his words.

And it is further possible, in my opinion, that that which our Sages said יגדיל תורה ויאדיר, in order to 'make the teaching great and glorious', their intention in this, since the Torah regularly fences in a matter in a short manner, which is, by their general rules and not on their specifics, and upon the present and regular always and not on something which is uncommon. And according to this approach, it did not need to give a sign for the kosher status of fish except for scales alone, since the vast majority which have scales have fins as well; and even though the tiniest minority of them have scales and no fins, still, since the Torah in every place utilizes short speech, about the general and that which is to be found, it should not have worried about this tiny minority which was irregular, such that it should not have specified the sign of the fine. However, here, the Torah goes out of its usual pattern and does not wish to choose the shorter speech, but rather chose to elaborate and make it greater with the addition of the word 'fin', so that it should be a sign for us about the species, even though it is entirely uncommon, such that we learn that it is prohibited when it is missing this sign.

And I have seen to the Rav, the Pri Megadim (Yoreh Deah siman 83 seif 7, seif katan 2) that he wrote that this which we say "whatever has scales has fins", this is that there is none found which has scales but no fins, but not that it was speaking about the majority, that we are going after the majority. For this is not the case. And from where do I believe this? From that which it [the gemara] asks, "and let the All-Merciful write scales [only]." And if there were found, a minority of a minority, that had scales but no fins, it would not have asked this. End quote.

And in my opinion, this is not dispositive, for since it is not of the ways of the Torah in every place to speak of the minority of the minority, it would not have been straightforward in the mind of the one asking to say that the Torah added the sign of the fin on a matter which was uncommon.

And the Pri Chadash wrote there: This, that fins are not found in this fish of the Spanish Sea, the stinkus marinus, despite it having scales, this is what we say, that the fins fell from it before it was taken out of the sea, see there.

And this is a very farfetched idea, for the nature of fins is that they are firmly fixed into the flesh of the fish, and they are well connected to each other, and it is not appropriate to say about them that they fell out [J: as one might say regarding scales]; and further, if this was within the realm of possibility, the place they fell out from would be visible and recognizable to the eyes."

Was al-wabr first hyrax, or rabbit?

(See also this post at Rationalist Judaism, within the general topic of hyraxes.)

This post is an elaboration of a point I merely alluded to in an earlier blogpost, about That Wascally Wabr:

There is good evidence that where Saadia Gaon was (Egypt, Eretz Yisrael, etc.), it meant hyrax, which is indigenous to the area and was indeed referred to as al-wabr.

However, the Arabic language spread throughout the world, since the Arabs were conquering and converting the entire world. And in other places, they did not have hyraxes, but they did have other animals, which required an Arabic name. And so, the name wabr could be reused to apply to the similar local species.

Assume for a moment that back in early medieval times, we have attestations of al-wabr as hyrax and al-wabr as rabbit. Why should we think that it is the hyrax meaning which is more original, and not the rabbit meaning?

There are several reasons, but here is one of them, which is most convincing to my mind.

In the development of language, items which are local would logically be named earlier than items which are foreign.

Is this the original jurthik?
This horse is indigenous to England.

For example, pretend that in England, there are horses but no zebras. And in Africa, there are zebras but no horses. Now, pretend further that in the English language, both horses and zebras are called by the same name, "jurthik", and are not referred to as "horse" or "zebras" at all.

To which animal would the name "jurthik" have applied first?

As the English language developed, in England, they would have cause to refer to the horse but not the horse. It makes little sense that the common horse had no name but the foreign zebra had a name ("jurthik"). And so, it makes more sense that first the horse was called by its name ("jurthik") and, as the British empire spread to places such as Africa, shared characteristics of the horse and zebra led to the application of "jurthik" to the zebra species as well.

Or is this the original jurthik?
This zebra is indigenous to Africa.

That appears to be the case with the hyrax and rabbit. The Arabic language developed in areas in which, according to archaezoologists, the hyrax existed but the rabbit did not. And in Spain, where the Arabic language did not first develop, the rabbit existed but the hyrax did not.

If both the hyrax and rabbit are called al-wabr at some point in time X, then what would you guess was called al-wabr first?

I would guess that the hyrax was called al-wabr first, because as an indigenous species to the area in which the Arabic language developed, it would need a name before  the rabbit, a non-indigenous species, would need a name.

This ends the reason, which is convincing all by itself.

However, we could add a further detail. The somewhat early reference to al-wabr as (probably) rabbit appears not in a text composed where hyraxes lived and where the Arabic language first developed. It occurs in a dictionary of the Hebrew language written by someone living in Spain, where there are rabbits but no hyraxes and where the Arabic language spread. This is precisely where we would expect the secondary meaning to develop.

Did Saadia Gaon have a masorah on shafan as al-wabr?

According to Ibn Ezra, Saadia Gaon sometimes made things up, for the honor of Torah.

To quote Jewish Encyclopedia on Ibn Ezra's allegation:

Nor was Saadia without influence outside Jewish circles. Abraham ibn Ezra, writing on Gen. ii. 11, states, probably on good authority, that Saadia planned his translation of the Bible for Mohammedans as well as for Jews, and that he used Arabic script for this reason; and Ibn Ezra accordingly explains the fact that Saadia translated even those expressions whose meaning was not known through tradition, as being due to a desire that the Mohammedan reader might not think the Bible contains words which are unintelligible. 

I wrote about this Ibn Ezra a few years back (and even mentioned al-wabr), about whether Saadia Gaon dreamed that the Pishon was the Nile. That is, on Bereishit 2:11, which begins shem ha'echad pishon, it Rav Saadia Gaon's Tafsir, it is the Nile River. Al-Nil.

Rashi agrees and gives a derivation, but Ibn Ezra disagrees in a long and harsh comment. And he ends that comment by saying:

 ואין ראיה על פישון שהוא היאור, רק שתרגם החוילה כפי צרכו, כי אין לו קבלה וכן עשה במשפחות ובמדינות. ובחיות ובעופות ובאבנים. אולי בחלום ראה וכבר טעה במקצתם כאשר אפרש במקומו, א"כ לא נשען על חלומותיו אולי עשה כן לכבוד השם בעבור שתרגם התורה בלשון ישמעאל ובכתיבתם, שלא יאמרו כי יש בתורה מלות לא ידענום. 

And there is no proof regarding the Pishon that it is the Nile {which does not share a single source with these, or flow in this manner}. Rather, he {=Rav Saadia Gaon} translated HaChavilah {the country it surrounds} as he needed, for he had no tradition. And so did he do by the families and countries, and the animals, birds, and stones. Perhaps he saw them in a dream. And he already erred in a few of them, as I will explain in each place. If so, we shall not rely upon his dreams; perhaps he did this for the honor of Hashem, for he translated {in the Tafsir} the Torah into the Arabic language, and in their script, so that they should not say that there are words in the Torah which we do not know.

That is, it would be an embarassment before the Muslims to leave a word untranslated, saying in effect that we don't know what the word is. And so Saadia Gaon made things up, or else tried to figure it out based on other pesukim.

This is more than a simple argument between a Rishon and a Gaon, each perhaps with a masorah or perhaps not.

However, there are a number of points to make about this.

1) This is just Ibn Ezra talking, and alleging this. It does not necessarily mean that it is so, that Saadia Gaon did not make use of a masorah. It might mean that Ibn Ezra is trying to justify his arguing with a Gaon.

2) Along the same lines, it is Ibn Ezra saying this. And some 'frummies' are triumphantly citing this Ibn Ezra as halacha leMoshe miSinai, when they would likely not cite other Ibn Ezras in such matters. For one random example, as to what peshat is in the prohibition to shave with a razor.

3) Ibn Ezra also does not mean that in every case, Saadia Gaon operated without a masorah. For example, surely Saadia Gaon knows what a parah is. But Ibn Ezra says:

And he already erred in a few of them, as I will explain in each place

Ibn Ezra does not argue with Saadia Gaon in his commentary in Shemini, about shafan. He is silent, which means that he does not argue. It might still mean that Saadia was operating without a masorah, but Ibn Ezra still thinks he got it right.

4) Given that the hyrax was an animal local to Eretz Yisrael and its vicinity, and was one of the few animals with a distinctive and readily recognizable sign, of apparent rumination while not possessing split hooves, it stands to reason that this would not be one of the animals for which there was no masorah. That is, if the shafan is indeed the hyrax, then it would make sense for there to have been a masorah for it, unlike for random non-kosher animals and birds, for which the masorah was lost.

5) Last but not least, the same folks suggesting that Saadia lacked a masorah are simultaneously suggesting that the Spanish Rishonim may have had a masorah as to the identity of the shafan. Which is more likely, that Saadia had a masorah, or that the Spanish Rishonim had a masorah?

That Wascally Wabr

The meaning of words changes over time and over place.

For example, growing up, I was always confused when Torah translations talked about there being corn in Egpyt. Wasn't corn a plant that was native to America? How then could Yaakov have heard that there was corn in Egypt? Either corn existed in Egypt, or this was a strange translation.

I didn't realize that the English translations originated in England, and that in England it means grain, usually wheat, while in modern America it means maize. Or that it locally is understood to denote the leading crop of a district. At the time, in my teens, I didn't think to look up such a common word in a dictionary, and there was no Google to use to find its etymology in three seconds.

Nowadays, I can search for etymology corn and find the etymology of corn:

corn (n.1) 

"grain," Old English corn, from Proto-Germanic *kurnam "small seed" (cf. Old Frisian and Old Saxon korn "grain," Middle Dutch coren, German Korn, Old Norse korn, Gothic kaurn), from PIE root *gre-no- "grain" (cf. Old Church Slavonic zruno "grain," Latin granum "seed," Lithuanian žirnis "pea"). The sense of the Old English word was "grain with the seed still in" (e.g. barleycorn) rather than a particular plant.

Locally understood to denote the leading crop of a district. Restricted to corn on the cob in America (c.1600, originally Indian corn, but the adjective was dropped), usually wheat in England, oats in Scotland and Ireland, while Korn means "rye" in parts of Germany. Maize was introduced to China by 1550, it thrived where rice did not grow well and was a significant factor in the 18th century population boom there. Cornflakesfirst recorded 1907. Corned beef so called for the "corns" or grains of salt with which it is preserved; from verb corn "to salt" (1560s).

I did know that there were differences between American English and British English. For example, boot either means the trunk of an automobile or a shoe. But that is not nearly as confusing as when the word is a cognate, that is, almost the same meaning, with the same surface form, in the two languages.

Here is another example: Rabbit.

Did you know that in British English, and in scientific zoological usage, "rabbit" refers to one group of animals (I'll call them "true rabbits" to keep things clear), while in American English "rabbit" it refers to an entirely different group of animals ("hares")?

That is, from the perspective of scientific taxonomy, looking at the genera (genuses) that make up the family Leporidae,

Members of all genera except Lepus are usually referred to as rabbits, while members of Lepus (which accounts for almost half the species) are usually called hares.

And in British English, this is true. However, in American English, hares are called rabbits. That is because there are no native "true rabbits" in America, only hares. And so the term "rabbit" was applied to the closest species.

I found this out from an online etymological dictionary:

rabbit (n.) 

...

Zoologically speaking, there are no native rabbits in the United States; they are all hares. But the early colonists, for some unknown reason, dropped the word hare out of their vocabulary, and it is rarely heard in American speech to this day. When it appears it is almost always applied to the so-called Belgian hare, which, curiously enough, is not a hare at all, but a true rabbit. [H.L. Mencken]

Note that Americans call rabbits hares and hares rabbits.

It is no wonder that, on occasion, American publications will confuse the terms and speak of rabbits instead of hares, where earlier and later works, employing the precise scientific taxonomic names, make it clear that hares were the subject matter. A certain fellow pointed to sources showing "rabbits" in Eretz Yisrael, based on American sources,

Rabbits were also found in excavations in the Negev [Theron Douglas Price, Anne Birgitte Gebauer. “Last hunters, first farmers: new perspectives on the prehistoric transition to agriculture”. School of American Research (Santa Fe, N.M.) School of American Research Press, 1995 - Technology & Engineering - 354 pages, page 61] and in Israel’s vicinity like Syria [Andrew M. T. Moore. “A Pre Neolithic Farmers' Village on the Euphrates”. Scientific American. 1979;241(8):62-70, page 66]

and refused to accept any correction in this matter, in part on ideological grounds.

This is an example of the meaning of a word changing based on locale. The word "rabbit" also changed across time. From the same etymological dictionary:

rabbit (n.) 

late 14c., "young of the coney," from French dialect (cf. Walloon robète), diminutive of Flemish or Middle Dutch robbe "rabbit," of unknown origin. "A Germanic noun with a French suffix" [Liberman]. The adult was a coney (q.v.) until 18c.

Thus, initially it meant the young of a coney, whereas now it refers to both young and old of the species.

The gemara, as well, makes note of words changing their meaning, and that this can have practical ramifications. Shabbat 36a-b:

For R. Hisda said: The following three things reversed their designations after the destruction of the Temple: [i] trumpet [changed to] shofar, and shofar to trumpet. What is the practical bearing thereof? in respect of the shofar [blown] on New Year. [ii] 'Arabah [willow] [changed to] zafzafah and zafzafah to 'Arabah. What is the practical bearing thereof? — In respect of the lulab [iii] Pathora [changed to] pathorta and pathorta to Pathora. What is the practical bearing thereof? — In respect of buying and selling. Abaye observed: We too can state:Hoblila [changed to] be kasse and be kasse to hoblila. What is the practical bearing thereof? In respect of a needle which is found in the thickness of the beth hakosoth, which if [found] on one side, it [the animal] is fit [for food]; if through both sides, it [the animal] is terefah. R. Ashi said, We too will state: Babylon [changed to] Borsif and Borsif to Babylon.

Another famous example is the tzvi. As Dr. Yehuda Feliks wrote in Nature and Man in the Bible: Chapters in Biblical Ecology, the Biblical and Talmudic tzvi is the gazelle, but later European translators transferred the term to the Biblical ayal, a deer.

Next, we have the shafan. The Biblical term most likely refers to the hyrax, which the Israelites were familiar with. Pesukim in Mishlei and Tehillim describe behavior and habitat for the shafan that matches that of the hyrax. I am not going to rehash all of this here.

Saadia Gaon translates the shafan as wabr in his Tafsir. Thus, where the Torah has:

Rav Saadia Gaon writes:

He wrote the Tafsir between 922 and 928 CE.

Is this Rav Saadia Gaon's al-wabr? :-)

Great, but we don't know what a wabr is. Is the wabr a hyrax? An octopus? Maybe it means llama or pica! Saadia Gaon was writing for an audience, though, so we can try to determine what al wabr meant in his time and his place. There is good evidence that where Saadia Gaon was (Egypt, Eretz Yisrael, etc.), it meant hyrax, which is indigenous to the area and was indeed referred to as al-wabr.

However, the Arabic language spread throughout the world, since the Arabs were conquering and converting the entire world. And in other places, they did not have hyraxes, but they did have other animals, which required an Arabic name. And so, the name wabr could be reused to apply to the similar local species.

Indeed, I've seen wabr translated as 'weasel', 'guinea pig', 'coney', and 'hyrax'.

At some point, at least 85 years later (that it, some time after 1013 CE), and in Spain, a country that did not have hyraxes, Rabbi Yonah Ibn Janach wrote Sefer HaShorashim, in which he explains shafan as al wabr, and then proceeds to define the term in medieval Spanish.

Thus, he writes:

Zohar Amar has translated it as:

"הוא 'אלובר', בעל חיים כמידת חתול שהוא מצוי מעט במזרח, ואולם אצלנו הוא מרובה, ואולם המון העם אינו מכירו באותו השם, אלא בשם 'קנליה' (قنلية), והוא ניב ספרדי"

In English (some help from commenters on this post):

"This is the al-wabr, an animal the size of a cat which is found rarely in the East, yet by us it is plentiful. [Footnote 45: And it is well known in Morroco.] And the hamon am do not recognize it by this name [Josh: of wabr], but rather by the name conilio, which is a foreign [=Spanish] word."

We see here that Ibn Janach, who did not travel to the East, is identifying the Arabic al-wabr as conilio. Since in modern Spanish, conilio means rabbit, it is quite plausible that he meant it to be rabbit. The hyrax is not found in Spain; the rabbit was not found (or at least found plentifully) in the East, and was plentiful in Spain.

He is also saying that this is not what the people in his vicinity would call the creature. It is thus an identification he is making himself, or which some people use.

It thus seems quite likely to me that this is an instance of a word's meaning shifting over time and place. That is, Ibn Janach did not know of the hyrax, but he did know of the rabbit, and that some people called the rabbit by the term al-wabr, and so he assumed that this was the meaning of Saadia Gaon's term.

And so, Ibn Janach reports and passes on the masorah of shafan as al-wabr from the authority or authorities before him, but accidentally shifted the identification of al-wabr to the rabbit. This is similar to the way in which various Rishonim living in Europe identify Chazal's shafan as the rabbit. Indeed, perhaps Ibn Janach is the very vector of the shift.

Berachot 20a: Rabbi Yochanan and Maternal Impression

Cross listed to Daf Yummy.

On Berachot 20a, the following:

R. Johanan was accustomed to go and sit at the gates of the bathing place. He said: When the daughters of Israel come up from bathing they look at me and they have children as handsome as I am.¹²

This corresponds to an ancient belief held by Galen, and also held by Chazal, of maternal impression. What the woman sees of is thinking about when she has intercourse would have an impact on the baby. This accounts, if I recall correctly, for a Roman matron having a black baby.

In that regard, I am reminded of the following joke:

A missionary is sent into deepest darkest depths of Africa to live with a tribe. He spends years with the people, teaching them to read, write and good Christian values. One thing he particularly stresses is the evil of sexual sin. “Thou must not commit adultery or fornication!”

One day the wife of one of the Tribe’s noblemen gives birth to a white baby. The village is shocked and the chief is sent by his people to talk with the missionary.  

You have taught us of the evils of sexual sin, yet here a black woman gives birth to a white child. You are the only white man who has ever set foot in our village. Anyone can see what’s going on here!”

The missionary replies, “No, no, my good man. You are mistaken. What you have here is a natural occurrence - what is called an albino. Look to thy yonder field. See a field of white sheep, and yet amongst them is one black one. Nature does this on occasion.” 

The chief pauses for a moment then says, “Tell you what, you don'’t say anything about the sheep, I won'’t say anything about the white baby.”

This also finds purchase in the Torah, with Yaakov using striped sticks to influence the sheep to have striped offspring, and as interpreted by Chazal.

Even Shadal adopts this ancient science as likely. See here on parshablog. Other interpretations of that pasuk are still possible.

It seems that the following halacha:

See for example Shulhan Arukh, Yoreh Deah 198:48, where R. Moses Isserles states that if a woman coming home from the mikveh enounters a דבר טמא או גוי , if she is pious she will immerse again.

Is based on this theory of maternal impression. Here is the Rama:

And here is the Shach on the side who brings other sources that say that she should not go back and re-immerse if she encounters a horse, because it means that her children will come out quite nicely:

Nowadays, perhaps halacha is not widely practiced because it is so difficult not to encounter someone on the way, or because, as some explain, it is the first thing encountered, which is the mikveh lady.

I think that even besides this, we don't need to concern ourselves with these quasi-kabbalistic concerns which are really rooted in ancient science which was only recently uprooted. This was not encoded as halacha by the gemara, and at this point, we know that this recommendation by specific Rishonim and Acharonim was based on incorrect science.