A Jewish Bestiary: Fabulous Creatures from Hebraic Legend and Lore 9780271092225

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A Jewish Bestiary

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JEWISH Bestiary Fabulous Creatures from Hebraic Legend & Lore

Mark Podwal

The Pennsylvania State University Press | University Park, Pennsylvania

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This book is dedicated to Marta Hallett. Published with the support of: The Angelson Family Foundation Robert Lewis Ruth and David Musher Steve Novick Michael Podwal E. J. Rosenstein Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Podwal, Mark H., 1945– author. Title: A Jewish bestiary : fabulous creatures from Hebraic legend & lore / Mark Podwal. Description: University Park, Pennsylvania : The Pennsylvania State University Press, [2021] | “Originally published in 1984 as A Jewish bestiary: a book of fabulous creatures drawn from Hebraic legend and lore by the Jewish Publication Society of America.” | Includes bibliographical references. Summary: “Explores some of the animals, both real and mythical, found in biblical, talmudic, midrashic, and kabbalistic sources”—Provided by publisher. Identifiers: LCCN 2021021673 | ISBN 9780271091730 (cloth) Subjects: LCSH: Animals in art. | Animals, Mythical, in art. | Animals in the Bible. | Animals in rabbinical literature. | Animals—Religious aspects—Judaism. Classification: LCC NC139.P59 A4 2021 | DDC 704.9/46—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021021673

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Portions of this book were originally published in 1984 as A Jewish Bestiary: A Book of Fabulous Creatures Drawn from Hebraic Legend and Lore by the Jewish Publication Society of America. Copyright © 2021 Mark Podwal All rights reserved Printed in Lithuania Published by The Pennsylvania State University Press, University Park, PA 16802–1003 The Pennsylvania State University Press is a member of the Association of University Presses. It is the policy of The Pennsylvania State University Press to use acid-free paper. Publications on uncoated stock satisfy the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences— Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Material, ansi z39.48–1992.

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Our Rabbis said: Even those things which you may regard as completely superfluous to the creation of the world, such as fleas, gnats, and flies, even they too are included in the creation of the world, and the Holy One, blessed be He, carries out His purpose through everything, even through a snake, a scorpion, a gnat, or a frog. —Genesis Rabbah 10:7

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Contents Preface ix The Ant 2

Nebuchadnezzar as a Beast 40

The Ass 4

The Ostrich 42

The Azazel-Goat 6

The Phoenix 44

The Barnacle Goose 8

The Ram 46

The Bear 10

The Raven 48

Behemoth 12

The Red Heifer 50

The Cock 14

The Re’em 52

The Crab 16

The Salamander 54

The Dove 18

The Scorpion 56

The Fox 20

The Serpent 58

The Frog 22

The Snail 60

The Gazelle 24

The Spider 62

The Gnat 26

The Stork 64

The Golden Calf 28

The Swine 66

The Great Fish 30

The Unicorn 68

The Hare 32

Ziz 70

The Hoopoe 34 Leviathan 36

Selected Bibliography 73

The Lion 38

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Preface The world of the animal kingdom is deeply ingrained in the Jewish consciousness, no doubt prompted by the majestic account of Creation: “God said, ‘Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and birds that fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky. . . . Let the earth bring forth every kind of living creature: cattle, creeping things, and wild beasts of every kind.’” Indeed, a “Jewish bestiary” might very well start with the Hebrew Bible, which abounds in animal references—the serpent of the Garden of Eden, the beasts and birds that join Noah in the ark, Balaam’s talking ass, the red heifer, the lion of Judah, the leopard that lies down with the kid (in Isaiah’s noble prophecy), the awesome creatures of land and sea depicted in the book of Job, the insect that instructs the sluggard, to cite but a few. Seven of the twelve tribes of Israel are represented by animal symbols. God is likened in Scripture to a lion, a leopard, a bear, and an eagle. Israel’s adversaries are often depicted as wild beasts, such as a pride of lions ready to devour their prey. Moreover, there is a rich store of animal tales, in talmudic and midrashic literature, where the creatures in question convey a variety of moral lessons. For example, according to the Midrash Shebot Rabbah 2:2, only after Moses had shown kindness to a lamb did God entrust him with leading God’s human flock, Israel. Jewish legend and folklore also play host to an assortment of fantastic creatures, such as the shamir and

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the tachash, which, like some of the more readily observed denizens of the animal world, were called into being to carry out certain divinely ordained tasks. These are the animals, real and imaginary, that have stirred my artistic impulse. From among the vast assemblage, I have chosen to depict thirty-five creatures, culled from traditional Jewish sources, as set forth in the texts that accompany the individual illustrations. They include birds, fish, cattle, creeping things, and wild beasts—all drawn from the wide and wonderful variety of “living creatures” that exert a special force on the Jewish fancy. Animal representation has long figured in the history of the Jewish book. Indeed, the earliest printed Jewish book containing illustrations, as far as is known, is a collection of medieval animal fables, Meshal Ha-Kadmoni (“The Ancient Parable”). Printed in 1491 by the famous Italian Jewish house of Soncino in Brescia, it contains more than eighty woodcuts (many of animal scenes) copied from the illuminations of Isaac ben Sahula some two centuries before. Altogether, medieval Jewish literature includes several compendia of animal tales, such as the Alphabet of Ben Sira and Mishlei Shu’alim (“Fox Fables”). These works, however, in which creatures, both actual and fabulous, are portrayed systematically (often allegorically), cannot be said to belong to the genre of the bestiary. These Jewish works more

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closely resemble collections of Aesop-like fables than pictorial treatises on beasts and their habits—that is, bestiaries. By the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the bestiary had achieved a popularity in the Christian world second only to that of the Bible. Derived from Egyptian, Greek, Judaic, and Indian sources, the first bestiary was probably composed in Alexandria in the second century. Attributed to a legendary authority, Physiologus (“the naturalist”), the work eventually became known by the same name. The earliest extant illustrated bestiary dates from the ninth century. Medieval bestiaries were almost always accompanied by illustrations, and this combination of text and picture provides the genre with special charm. Copies of bestiary illustrations, reflecting many misconceptions regarding the natural order, were incorporated into countless medieval manuscripts, and their influence may be seen in church frescoes and façades throughout Europe. In addition to being a kind of encyclopedia of the animal kingdom, the bestiary also served as a book of Christian moral and religious instruction. These moralizing bestiaries presented a contrived interpretation of each animal’s redemptive purpose as a symbol of God’s divine order. Virtues such as abstinence and chastity were taught through a portrayal of an animal’s true or imagined behavior. “Ask the beast and it will teach thee, and the birds of heaven and they will tell thee,” says the book of Job (12:7). Yet, at times, these charming books contained troublesome teachings.

In describing the phoenix, which for Christians is a symbol of the Resurrection, a medieval bestiary claims that Christ’s resurrection so angered the Jews that they wanted to stone him. As prejudiced products of their age, some bestiaries were adorned with anti-Semitic iconography reflecting medieval Jewish stereotypes. Jews were portrayed as beasts and beasts as Jews. The Aberdeen Bestiary from England depicts Jews as evil and dangerous, whereas Le Bestiaire from northern France views the Jews as in need of conversion; both date from the early thirteenth century. Among the most popular of the anti-Semitic bestiary creatures was the owl. In bestiaries the owl, which lives in darkness, was the perfect animal to represent the Jews who were said to have rejected the light of Christ. Thus, anthropomorphic images of bestiary owls were on occasion drawn with prominent long hooked beaks intended to resemble the supposed hooked noses of Jews. Pictures of animals appeared frequently in Jewish illuminated manuscripts as well. There were familiar creatures mentioned in the Bible, most notably the lion, and also exotic creatures. Thus, a giraffe would be depicted because it was strange in appearance and rare among European animals, not because it had any symbolic significance. In addition, there was a host of bizarre hybrids, including cat-dragons, human bodies with the faces and beaks of birds, and lion-eagles. Although sometimes the illustrations of the exotic animals were accurate, more often they were not. Camels frequently resembled horses, and it was not unusual for

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the humps to be eliminated. (Many of the beasts were known to the Jewish illustrators only through pictures in bestiaries.) There was an even greater variation in the representation of mythological creatures. A medieval Spanish-Jewish manuscript, for instance, depicts a unicorn—which some authorities associated with the biblical tachash—as giraffe-like, whereas an Italian manuscript renders it with a horse’s body, cloven rear hoofs, and lion’s paws in front. As for the phoenix in Jewish tradition, it derives from the apocryphal book of Enoch, where the bird is described as purple in color with the head of a crocodile, the feet and tail of a lion, and twelve wings (2 Enoch 12:1). In seventeenth-century Amsterdam, the phoenix served as a prominent symbol of the revival of Sephardi Jewry in their newly established community and for the conversos who clung to their Judaism. Depictions of the phoenix in the Amsterdam Sephardi community’s prayer books, official seals, and ketubot (marriage contracts) appeared similar to the Christian portrayal: as a bird on a flaming pyre. In the drawings that follow, I have eschewed such cultural “borrowings,” even if there is historical sanction for the practice. The Torah tells us that Adam’s first task was to name the animals, and whatever Adam called each living thing was then its name (Genesis 2:19–20). Commentaries add that Adam named each animal according to its

nature and essence. What I have sought to create here are bestiary illustrations according to a strictly Jewish context. Creatures whose forms are known in nature are pictured according to an attribute ascribed to them in Jewish legend or in relation to tales in which they appear. Thus, a spider plays on King David’s harp. The “pious” stork is portrayed donning phylacteries. The despised swine is represented merely as a shadow. The fabulous Ziz, the greatest of birds and which few have observed, is here depicted only by one of its feathers, which has fluttered to earth. The collection includes, as any Jewish bestiary must, creatures first encountered in the Scriptures (and which are also the subjects of Jewish legend and lore)—the dove and the raven of Noah’s ark, the sacrificial lamb that substituted for Isaac on the altar, the golden calf, the Azazel-goat, and Jonah’s great fish, among others. Behemoth—whose description in the book of Job indicates a real creature, in all likelihood a hippopotamus—here appears in a mythical guise, as does Leviathan, the other great natural wonder cited in the book of Job. These creatures have illumined the Jewish imagination throughout the centuries. I hope that their renewed incarnation in these pages may perpetuate their ancient enchantment.

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JEWISH Bestiary

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The Ant The book of Proverbs describes the ant as one of four creatures “among the tiniest on earth, yet they are the wisest of the wise” (30:24). An exemplary insect (“go to the ant, thou sluggard” [Proverbs 6:6]), symbol par excellence of diligence and foresight, the ant prepares for the lean months of winter by gathering stores during the summer. Moreover, the ant is proportionately the strongest of all creatures, being able to carry many times its own weight. The Talmud in tractate Berakhot relates that when the giant Og, king of Bashan, uprooted a mountain to throw upon the entire camp of Israel to crush it, God sent ants, whose teeth He had “lengthened,” to bore a hole in the mountain so that it slipped over Og’s head and sank around his neck. When Moses saw this, he took a huge axe and dealt a blow to Og’s ankle, which caused the giant’s death. In his studies of the lives of ants, Rabbi Simeon ben Halafta, known as an askan devarim (one involved in the study of a great many things), once saw an ant that had lost a small grain from the load it was carrying. Other ants came along and smelled the grain, yet none touched it until the rightful owner returned and retrieved it. Whereupon Rabbi Simeon inferred, “How honest are these tiny creatures who desist from taking anything that belongs to others.” According to legend, King Solomon and forty thousand of his soldiers once strayed

into the valley of the ants. Now Solomon, among his other accomplishments, could converse with all the creatures of the earth, each in its own language. Thus he overheard one ant exhorting its fellows to withdraw, in order to avoid being trampled by the royal army. Solomon ordered his men to halt and summoned the ant that had spoken. The Queen Ant came forth, and Solomon asked her, “Is there anyone greater than I in all the world?” But she refused to answer unless the king agreed to place her on his hand, hold her up, and speak to her face to face. Solomon acceded and repeated his question, “Is there anyone greater than I in all the world?” “Yes!” replied the Queen Ant. “Who?” asked King Solomon. “I am,” said the ant. “How is that possible?” Solomon raged. The Queen Ant retorted, “Were I not greater than you, you would not have complied with my demand.” Solomon threw her to the ground, shouting, “Don’t you know who I am? I am Solomon, King of Israel, son of King David!” Whereupon the Queen Ant admonished King Solomon to humility by reminding him that a tiny creature had preceded man in the order of creation. The proud and mighty king, we may presume, was properly chastised.

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‫נמלה‬ Podwal, Bestiary_PRINT.indd 3

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The Ass The ass, or donkey, is a useful domesticated beast created for the purpose of “carrying burdens,” as the Talmud notes, and it is also regarded as the most stupid of creatures. Because of this, it is the frequent subject of popular proverbs, such as “The donkey freezes even in the summer month of Tammuz.” To be called an ass is considered a great insult. The Talmud says, “If our forefathers were as angels, we are but men; if they were as men, we are but asses” (Shabbat 112b). Donkeys are not ruminants, nor do they have cloven hooves. Thus the Zohar teaches that the donkey is avi avot hatumah, the ultimate source of impurity. The Maharal of Prague notes that the Hebrew word for “donkey,” chamor, shares the same root as the word for “material,” chomer. The donkey, he explains, is a symbol of materialism and crassness. Before Jacob died he called together all his sons, whose offspring became the twelve tribes of Israel, and blessed each. Jacob compared his son Issachar to a crouching, toiling donkey willingly bearing a burden (Genesis 49:14). Yet it is unclear from the text whom Issachar serves and of what his burden consists. The Talmud remarks that Issachar’s blessing refers to the religious scholarship of his tribe, that Issachar “bore the yoke of Torah,” devoting himself exclusively to study. Rashi, the outstanding Biblical commentator of the Middle Ages, defines Issachar’s burden likewise.

Undoubtedly, the most famous ass is the biblical mount that carried the sorcerer Balaam. Balaam was summoned by Balak, king of Moab, to ride forth into the desert and curse the Israelites, whose victories en route to the Promised Land were proving alarming. Balaam’s pronouncements were considered especially potent, for as Balak said to him, “I know that he whom you bless is blessed indeed, and he whom you curse is cursed” (Numbers 22:6). On the way to his malevolent mission, Balaam was confronted thrice by an angel with a sword in his hand. Only the ass saw the angel, and three times it swerved from the road, refusing to continue even though Balaam beat it. Granted the power of speech, the ass then reproached Balaam for the ill treatment. “Then the Lord uncovered Balaam’s eyes” (22:31), and he too saw the angel. And instead of a curse, he pronounced several blessings upon Israel, including one that opens the daily morning prayers. Balaam’s ass, according to the Mishnah (Pirkei Avot 5:6), was another of the ten wonders created at the close of the sixth day of creation at dusk. It was said to have been the dam of the ass ridden by Abraham when he traveled to sacrifice Isaac and was declared to be the same ass that later bore Moses’s wife and sons to Egypt. One day, this very same ass will also serve the Messiah, who according to the prophet Zechariah is to come “riding on an ass” (9:9).

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‫אתון‬ Podwal, Bestiary_PRINT.indd 5

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The Azazel-Goat In accordance with the biblical injunction, every year on the Day of Atonement two male goats, selected as if twins, would be brought to the Temple in Jerusalem for the special ministrations of the High Priest. The fate of each would be decided by the casting of lots. On one lot would be written “For the Lord,” on the other “For Azazel” (Leviticus 16:8). The goat chosen for the Lord would be slaughtered as a sin offering. The Azazel-goat would have a crimson thread twisted around its horns, and the High Priest would press his hands upon the head of the goat, confessing over it the iniquities of the people. Laden with the sins of Israel, the goat would be led into the wilderness. Azazel? The word appears nowhere else in Scripture. According to Rashi, it was a steep cliff from which the goat would be hurled, a cliff so high and rugged that before the goat fell halfway it would be smashed to pieces. Ibn Ezra and Nachmanides say that Azazel was a goat-demon who haunted the desert. In yet another version of the rite, Azazel is Satan himself, and the goat is a propitiation to forestall the Evil One’s interference with the atonement of sins on the holiest of days. The Talmud recounts that when the scapegoat reached Azazel, a thread of crimson wool tied to the Temple entrance would turn white, a sign that the sins of the people

had been forgiven (Yoma 39b), reminiscent of the verse in Isaiah: “Though your sins be like crimson, they can turn snow-white” (1:18). During the forty years preceding the destruction of the Second Temple, the thread remained crimson. It was said that the Temple was destroyed because so great were the sins of Israel that all the letters of the Torah had been transgressed. In The Guide for the Perplexed, Maimonides explains that the ritual was intended as a symbolic spectacle: “There is no doubt that sins cannot be carried like a burden, and taken off the shoulder of one being to be laid on that of another being. But these ceremonies are of a symbolic character, and serve to impress men with a certain idea, and to induce them to repent; as if to say, we have freed ourselves of our previous deeds, have cast them behind our backs, and removed them from us as far as possible” (3:46). The sages say the goat was the animal of choice for public sin offerings because it recalled how after Jacob’s sons threw their brother Joseph into the pit, they slaughtered a goat and soaked Joseph’s coat in its blood to make it appear that a wild beast had devoured him. According to a midrash, the brothers’ descendants are to regularly evoke the memory of this heinous act by sacrificing goats as national sin offerings.

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The Barnacle Goose A curious notion prevailed in the Middle Ages that this bird—a European goose that breeds in the far north and is related to, but larger than, the brant—was generated from the barnacle, a crustacean growing on a flexible stem and adhering to loose timber and the bottom of ships. In Jewish literature, the Ittur of Isaac ben Abba Mari of Marseilles, written about 1170, seems to be the earliest mention of this creature. Reference to the legend is also found in the Zohar, which says that Rabbi Abba saw a tree from whose branches geese grew. The barnacle goose was said to grow on trees near the sea, hanging by its beak until it fell off. Any that fell into the water floated and were believed to be safe, but those that fell on land died. Jewish lore includes a version in which the barnacle goose is purported to have its bill forever affixed to the tree from which it grew, just like the Adne Sadeh, a humanoid whose life is maintained by a cord that connects his navel to the earth. Gerald of Wales, a twelfth-century cleric, in his History and Topography of Ireland, relates how a marvelous goose is spontaneously generated from barnacles. Gerald takes the occasion to reprimand a hypothetical Jew: “Pause, unhappy Jew! Pause even if it be late. . . . Blush, wretch, blush!”

Barnacle geese, he argues, are all the proof required for the doctrine of the Virgin Birth, pregnancy occurring without any assistance of a man, and yet Jews are of “obstinate will,” because they will not believe. Medieval Jewish scholars in France and Germany debated as to whether the barnacle goose, given its origin, was to be considered a bird, a plant, or even a fish. Rabbi Isaac ben Joseph of Corbell, in his Sefer Mitzvot Katan, written in 1277, was the first to forbid the barnacle goose as food. He states that, according to their origin, these were neither fish nor fowl but rather were shellfish. The anonymous compiler of the legal compendium Kol Bo, citing the views of such authorities as Rabbi Isaac and Rabbi Yechiel ben Joseph of Paris, concludes that it is a bird, but an unclean one and hence forbidden as food. On the other hand, Rabbeinu Tam, grandson of Rashi, allowed it to be eaten, as did Rabbi Samuel Ha-Hasid of Speier and his son Rabbi Judah Ha-Hasid of Regensburg (provided that, in common with other species of permitted fowl, including regular geese, it was slaughtered after the Jewish fashion). Of course, one first had to find the tree that, instead of fruit, bears the barnacle goose.

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‫ברנטיאוש‬ Podwal, Bestiary_PRINT.indd 9

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The Bear Bears love honey and will feast on honey every chance they get. The bear searching for honey in the treetops was likened to a Jew in quest of the Torah, for consuming honey was often interpreted to connote consuming Torah’s wisdom. The book of Ezekiel says, “Eat this scroll I am giving you and fill your stomach with it. So I ate it, and it tasted as sweet as honey in my mouth” (3:3). Ever since the Middle Ages, it has been a Jewish custom on a young child’s first day of school to spread honey over a board or a paper with the Hebrew alphabet written on it and let the child lick the letters, so as to associate sweetness with study. David boasted to King Saul that he would slay Goliath as he had once killed a bear threatening his flock (1 Samuel 17:34–36). Hosea prophesied that because Israel forsook God and followed idolatry, God would mete out vengeance as does the most terrible beast inhabiting their forests, a bear bereft of her children (13:8). In Daniel’s vision, the bear became a symbol of the Persian Empire (7:5). The rabbis observed that the Persians themselves ate and drank large quantities like the bear, were fat like the bear, were hairy like the bear, and were restless like the bear (Talmud, Avodah Zarah 2b). The second book of Kings (2:23–24) relates that when the prophet Elisha, using the name of the Lord, cursed the children from Bethel who had taunted him, two

bears came out of the forest to devour fortytwo of the children. The Talmud presents a disagreement between Rav and Shmuel about the seemingly miraculous punishment of the children. One said, “This is a miracle.” And one said, “This is a miracle within a miracle” (Sotah 47a). The one who said miracle said so because there was a forest but no bears. The one who said a miracle within a miracle said so because there was neither a forest nor bears. According to the latter opinion, it was not just the emergence of the bears from the forest that was miraculous but also the appearance, ex nihilo, of the forest itself. Neither had existed before. It is said in the Talmud that when the first-century scholar and wonder-worker Rabbi Hanina ben Dosa was informed that his goats were eating from and ruining adjacent fields, he replied, “If they indeed do damage, may bears devour them, but if not, may they at evening time bring home a bear on their horns” (Taanit 25a). That evening, each goat carried home a bear on its horns. The bear’s name in Hebrew, dov, meaning “grumbler,” seems to be taken from its grumbling or growling, especially when hungry or enraged. Although the Bible uses the bear as a metaphor both for the wicked and for God’s wrath unleashed against sinful Israel, Proverbs teaches that it is better to “meet a bereaved bear robbed of her cubs than to encounter a fool with his nonsense.”

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‫דב‬ Podwal, Bestiary_PRINT.indd 11

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Behemoth Behemoth is a creature of such gigantic stature and strength that only the Holy One can restrain it. Fashioned by God from clay on the sixth day of creation, Jewish legend asserts it was created solely to be served at the end of days as one of the delicacies at the messianic banquet. The pseudepigraphic authors depicted Behemoth as Leviathan’s consort, whereas the rabbinic sources retain its original conception as a land monster. Some say that at the end of time the righteous will witness a spectacular battle between Behemoth and Leviathan, in which each will slay the other in preparation for the final feast. Others say that God will slaughter the two. Despite its power, Behemoth is apparently passive and indolent. Yet in the month of Tammuz at the time of the summer solstice, when its strength is at its peak, Behemoth rises on its hind legs and lets out a fearful echoing roar, so loud that all the animals in the world hear it. Terrified, the wild beasts become less ferocious and restrain themselves from preying on herds and flocks for the entire year. According to the book of Job, Behemoth stiffens his tail to stand up like a cedar tree, a tree known for its size and its hard wood, and his “bones are like tubes of bronze, his

limbs like iron rods. He is the first of God’s works. Only his Maker can draw the sword against him” (40:17–19). Behemoth is a vegetarian eating grass like cattle, though in a few legends he eats animals too. Each day Behemoth gorges on fodder produced by a thousand mountains. The summer heat makes him so thirsty that all the water that flows through the bed of the Jordan over six months barely suffices for a single gulp. Therefore it was necessary to give him a water source entirely for his own use, a stream called Yubal that flows forth from Paradise into the wilderness of Dendain. Because of his insatiable appetite, Behemoth had to be prevented from multiplying, otherwise the world could not continue to exist. It is for this reason that God created only one such beast. In Leviticus Rabbah, Rabbi Yohanan and Resh Lakish confirm, “It is a single beast” (22:10). As a rule, Behemoth would translate as the plural noun “beasts.” However, Biblical Hebrew can use the plural form of a word to express many different meanings about a singular entity. As Behemoth is used to describe a singular being, the interpretation is that of a monstrous beast. Metaphorically, the name has come to be used for an enormously large or extremely powerful entity.

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‫בהמות‬ Podwal, Bestiary_PRINT.indd 13

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The Cock The Talmud bids us to pronounce the following blessing upon hearing the cock crow each morning: “Praised be Thou, O God, Lord of the world, that gavest understanding to the cock to distinguish between day and night” (Berakhot 60b). According to the Zohar, when God visits Paradise each midnight to confer with the souls of the pious, all the trees blossom in adoration and their song awakens the cock. The latter, in turn, begins to praise God, at the same time calling upon people to praise the Lord. The Talmud (Bava Kamma 82b) notes that in Jerusalem, while the Temple stood, the breeding of cocks was forbidden because they scratch the ground and pick up unclean objects and are thus likely to spread uncleanness. The Mishnah records that Jews are forbidden to sell white cocks to pagans since the latter use them as sacrifices for idolatrous worship (Avodah Zara 6). However, a Jew is allowed to sell them if he can make the cock unfit for idol worship. For instance, before handing over the cock to the idolater, he can cut off one of the cock’s toes. During the Middle Ages, superstitions concerning the cock were fairly common. It was believed that the crowing of the cock drives away demons, and the image of a cock on amulets is a potent device against the evil

eye. According to the Talmud, “One who seeks to know that the demons exist should place fine ashes around his bed, and in the morning the demon’s footprints appear in the shape of a cock’s” (Berakhot 6a). It was thought that the scratching of the cock with his claws signifies that visitors are coming. To procure rain, one must kill a white cock, tear it apart, and extract its entrails, filling them with white pepper, honey, milk, myrrh, frankincense, crocus, and old wine and hold them up to the sun, all the while reciting an incantation. A midrash says that no one except the cock hears the sobs of the dying at the sight of the Angel of Death. A Hebrew synonym for “rooster” is gever, meaning “man.” This relates to the custom of kapparot (atonement), performed on the eve of the Day of Atonement. To carry out the ritual, one swings a fowl (a cock for a male, a hen for a female) over the head while praying that the fowl, when slaughtered, will serve as a substitute for the individual: “This cock (hen) goes to its death that I may enter into a long and happy life and into peace.” The Talmud teaches, “Had the Torah not been given to us, we would have learned modesty from cats, honest toil from ants, chastity from doves, and gallantry from cocks” (Eruvin 100b).

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‫תרנגול‬ Podwal, Bestiary_PRINT.indd 15

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The Crab The word for the (decidedly nonkosher) crab in Hebrew is sartan, which means “holder” or “binder.” The Talmud tells us that humans are like the crab, which first retreats to nooks and corners but eventually becomes brave as a lion. According to astrology, someone born in the Hebrew month of Tammuz, under the zodiac sign of the crab, has the hard shell of a crab but is soft and sensitive on the inside. The crab never walks straight to its destination. It goes in a crooked zigzag path, sideways and backward at the same time. The book of Proverbs advises that one should avoid the path of the crooked and follow the path of the straight who fear God (e.g., 2:12–15; 3:5–6). Although the crab is a weak creature, its pinch is excruciatingly painful. It is the crab’s pinch that characterizes the extraordinary pain the Jewish people endured in Tammuz, a month in which there are no festivals (and a fast day). The Zohar relates that the days of Tammuz are dangerous, and the wicked reign at that time. Legend says that the first of Tammuz was the day that Adam and Eve were expelled from Eden. A midrash adds that the first of Tammuz was the day Moses struck a rock in anger trying to get water out of it, instead of speaking to it as God had ordered. As punishment for not speaking to the rock, the Holy One forbade Moses to enter the Promised Land.

Tradition holds that five tragic events took place on the seventeenth of Tammuz: the tablets of the Ten Commandments were broken; the priests in the First Temple, during the seige of Jerusalem, had to discontinue the daily tamid sacrifice due to the lack of lambs; the Romans breached Jerusalem’s walls prior to its destruction; a Torah scroll was burned by the Roman general Apostomos; and the Romans erected an idol in the Holy of Holies. To memorialize these events, the seventeenth of Tammuz is observed as a minor fast day and marks the beginning of a three-week period of mourning that lasts through Tisha B’Av, the major fast day that commemorates the destruction of both Temples. According to kashrut ( Jewish dietary laws), fish must have both fins and scales to be permissible as food (to be kosher). No shellfish, therefore, are kosher. Although traditional Judaism considers the kashrut laws to seem arbitrary to human reason, commentators have suggested numerous rationales, including concern for hygiene, avoidance of birds of prey, and differentiating between the “normal” and the “abnormal.” Among the “abnormal” are creatures whose locomotion is not characteristic of their habitat—such as the crab, an animal that lives in the sea but walks like a land animal.

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‫סרטן‬ Podwal, Bestiary_PRINT.indd 17

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The Dove The sages ask why Israel is compared with a dove. It is because the dove, meekest and gentlest of the birds, is also the most persecuted. Unable to fight with its beak or claws, it has only its wings to protect itself. A pursued dove never ceases its flight; when one wing is fatigued, it continues on with the other. So it is with the people of Israel. Though persecuted and deprived of half its strength, Israel cannot be completely destroyed but continues to live. The throne of Solomon was second only to the Temple in its splendor. At the throne’s summit there reposed a dove with its claws set on a hawk, symbolizing a time to come when all the enemies of Israel would be delivered into Israel’s hands. Each year on the eve of Tisha B’Av (the fast day marking the destruction of both the First and the Second Temples), a white dove resting in a recess of the Western Wall joins the people of Israel in their mourning. The sound of its weeping cleaves the heavens all night and all the next day until sunset. All the other days of the year, the dove remains silent. In contrast with the raven, symbol of evil and egotism (the first creature to leave the

ark, but not to return), the dove epitomizes fidelity. Sent forth from the ark by Noah, the dove returned with an olive branch in its bill. Some say that the dove found the branch on a tree on the Mount of Olives, indicating that the Flood did not reach the Holy Land. Others say that even the Holy Land was flooded and that the olive branch came from Paradise, whose gates opened to receive the dove. In Song of Songs, the lover calls his darling a “faultless dove.” In addition, Song of Songs alludes to the dove as the harbinger of spring in Israel: “For now the winter is past, the rains are over and gone. The blossoms have already appeared in the land, the time of pruning has come; the song of the turtledove is heard in the land” (2:11–12). The Talmud compares the spirit of God hovering over the waters to a dove that hovers over her young. The Vilna Gaon, in his commentary to Jonah, states that the dove is a symbol of the human soul. In Jewish folklore, among the charms against barrenness, a woman is instructed to take the fat of a dove and smear it on her private parts for three days, and she will become pregnant.

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‫יונה‬ Podwal, Bestiary_PRINT.indd 19

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The Fox In the Mishnah the treacherous fox is often contrasted with the kingly lion: “Be rather the tail among lions than the head of foxes” (Pirkei Avot 4:15). In the book of Ezekiel (13:4) false prophets are compared to foxes. The tail of a fox suspended between the eyes of a horse gave the equine protection from the evil eye. A fox’s tooth was carried either to promote or to prevent sleep, depending on whether the tooth was taken from a live fox or a dead one. The fox is perhaps the favorite animal of Jewish folklore. In Genesis Rabbah, the fox himself is depicted as a teller of fables. Rabbi Meir is said to have compiled three hundred fox fables, but only three survived three generations after the sage’s death. There are numerous tales regarding the fox’s unscrupulous nature, many concerning its inordinate appetite. For instance, a fox overeats in an orchard and grows so large that it must fast in order to get out again. A fox sits as a mediator between two animals quarreling over a piece of cheese and eats it all. In many tales the fox manages to outsmart the larger and wilder animals. Playing sick, a fox tells a lion that the cure the physicians have prescribed is binding. The lion ties the fox up, the fox declares his pain is gone, and the lion frees him. Later, when the

lion is taken sick, he asks the fox to tie him up. The fox obliges, stones the lion’s head, kills him, and, of course, eats him. The Alphabet of Ben Sira tells of a fox outwitting the Angel of Death. Charged with throwing one of each species into the sea, the Angel of Death came across a fox weeping alongside a river. Death asked the fox why he was crying, and the fox answered that his brother had been thrown into the water and had drowned. Looking into the water, the Angel of Death saw a fox, just like the one on the shore. Believing that a fox had already been killed, Death allowed the fox to go. And so the Angel of Death had been tricked, for it was only the fox’s reflection in the water that Death had seen. Arriving at the ruins of the Temple, Rabbi Akiva and his colleagues saw a fox running where the Holy of Holies had been. As the rabbis wept, Rabbi Akiva laughed. Asked how he could laugh, Rabbi Akiva retold the two interlinked prophecies of Uriah, who foresaw the day when Jerusalem would be ruined, and Zachariah, who saw the day it would be rebuilt. Rabbi Akiva said that until he saw the first prophecy fulfilled, he was not sure the second would be. Now that he had seen the first prophecy fulfilled, he knew the second would also come true.

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‫שועל‬ Podwal, Bestiary_PRINT.indd 21

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The Frog While the frog is generally underestimated due to its appearance, Jewish tradition often praises this small creature. A midrash says that when the second plague struck Egypt, the deafening croaking of frogs drove the Egyptians out of their minds. The Talmud tells of a discussion between Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Eleazar ben Azariah regarding the Torah’s use of the singular word “frog” in recounting the second plague. Rabbi Akiva said, “There was one frog that filled the whole of Egypt by breeding.” Yet Rabbi Eleazar ben Azariah said, “One frog croaked for the others, and they came at its call” (Sanhedrin 67b). Rashi’s interpretation is that a single enormous frog emerged from the Nile and it covered all of Egypt. But when the Egyptians repeatedly hit the frog, it multiplied spontaneously, rather than dying of its wounds, “streaming forth swarms upon swarms of frogs.” According to Jewish legend, God chose a frog to chastise King David. For when King David completed the book of Psalms, he asked God, “Is there any creation in Your world that says songs and praises more than I?” That very hour, a frog answered, “David! Don’t be arrogant, for I say songs and praises more than you do. Not only that, but three thousand parables are said about every sonnet I recite.”

Legend has it that Rabbi Hanina learned from his father, then on his deathbed, that he would lose both his parents on the same day. Moreover, his father instructed him to go to the market immediately after the mourning period ended that Passover eve and buy the first item he saw. After completing the days of mourning for his parents, Rabbi Hanina set out for the marketplace, where he was offered an extremely overpriced silver dish. To honor his father, he bought the dish. Upon opening it at the seder, he found another dish inside holding a frog. Hanina fed the frog, which grew to an enormous size. First he had to build a cabinet to house it, and when it got even larger, an entire room. The frog recognized the imposition it was causing and offered Hanina whatever he wished. Hanina asked to be taught the entire Torah, and the frog agreed. It wrote the Torah on pieces of paper, which Hanina swallowed. In so doing, he learned not only the whole Torah but also all seventy languages together with the languages of the animals. Like Solomon, in asking only for knowledge, Hanina also acquired wealth and power. Furthermore, the frog gave Hanina and his wife precious stones and herbs with medicinal powers. Ultimately, the frog revealed its true identity as a son of Adam and Lilith, born with the ability to shapeshift at will.

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‫צפרדע‬ Podwal, Bestiary_PRINT.indd 23

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The Gazelle Scripture frequently recognizes the gazelle for its speed, gentleness, and beauty. The maiden in Song of Songs passionately implores her beloved, “Hurry, my dear one, and be swift like a gazelle” (2:9). The first book of Chronicles says that the men of Gad who stood by David “were as swift as gazelles upon the mountains” (12:8). The Mishnah instructs one to “be strong as a leopard, and swift as an eagle, and fleet as a gazelle, and brave as a lion to do the will of your Father in heaven” (Pirkei Avot 5:20). When Jacob bestowed blessings upon his sons, Naftali was blessed to be like ayalah sheluchah, “the swift gazelle who delivers beautiful sayings.” According to Nachmanides, it was an ancient custom among kings to communicate using gazelles. A gazelle born in a northern kingdom would be raised in a southern kingdom. When the king of the southern kingdom wanted to send a message to his counterpart, he would attach a written message to the horns of such a gazelle and let it loose to return hurriedly to its birthplace. This practice is mentioned in the Jerusalem Talmud, Tractate Shvi’it. The thirteenth-century Torah commentary Chizkuni notes that gazelles were sent after a war to swiftly bring good news about the victory.

The Zohar says that the gazelle is unique in that when it runs, its head keeps turning back to watch the place it has left. “Likewise, Master of the Universe,” implores Israel, “if we make you turn away from us, fly likewise as the gazelle, its head turning back to observe the place it has left.” Jewish lore has it that the gazelle is under God’s special protection. It is said that gazelles give birth to their young high upon the pinnacles of rocks, to which God sends an eagle to rescue the offspring before they fall to certain death in the valley below. Ayelet hashachar, “gazelle of the dawn,” is a poetic phrase for the planet Venus (“morning star”) or even daybreak itself. An explanation for the name: just as a gazelle jumps swiftly and unexpectedly, so do the first rays of light shine forth suddenly without warning, whereas the onset of evening darkness is gradual. The Talmud says “gazelle of the dawn” is so named because the morning light first appears like two horns on the horizon. Jewish dietary law permits the gazelle to be eaten. According to the first book of Kings (4:22–28), the gazelle was one of the regular delicacies on King Solomon’s sumptuous table.

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‫צבי‬ Podwal, Bestiary_PRINT.indd 25

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The Gnat The rabbis tell us that many a species was created solely for the sake of a single member of its kind, to which some special historical mission was assigned. For example, the lowly gnat was called into being to cause the death of Titus, the Roman general who destroyed Jerusalem. According to the Talmud, while Jerusalem was still in flames, Titus loaded the holy vessels of the destroyed Temple aboard a ship for transport to Rome so he could parade the spoils of his victory. On the sea a violent gale sprang up, threatening to sink the ship. Titus cried out, “The God of the Jews may have dominion over the waters, but if He is really mighty let Him come up on dry land and fight with me.” Whereupon a heavenly voice proclaimed, “Sinner and son of a sinner! There is a tiny creature in the world called a gnat. Go up on dry land and wage war with that!” (Gittin 56b). The storm subsided, and the ship proceeded on its way. When Titus landed at Ostia, a gnat flew into his nose and entered his brain. The insect remained inside Titus’s head for seven years, buzzing incessantly. The suffering was intolerable. One day, as Titus was passing a blacksmith’s shop, the gnat heard the clanging of the hammer and ceased its activity. Believing that a remedy had been

found, Titus ordered a blacksmith to hammer before him each day. If the blacksmith was a non-Jew, he would be given four coins; if a Jew, he would be told that it was compensation enough to see the suffering of his enemy. However, the remedy worked for only thirty days because the gnat grew accustomed to the hammering and resumed its buzzing. The gnat grew in size each day, feeding on Titus’s brain until it finally caused his death. Physicians who opened his skull found a two-pound creature resembling a sparrow with a beak of brass and claws of iron, and they placed it in a bowl. Titus’s remains were cremated. In accordance with his dying command, his ashes were carried to distant places and scattered over the seven seas so that the God of the Jews would not be able to find him and bring him to trial for the destruction of the Temple. Yet another midrash says that Titus asked physicians to open his head in order to relieve the pain but asked them not to harm the insect so that all might see how God was punishing him. When they removed the insect, it was like a dove. It gradually diminished in size until it became an ordinary insect, which then flew away as insects do. And at that point Titus died.

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‫יתוש‬ Podwal, Bestiary_PRINT.indd 27

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The Golden Calf Before ascending Mount Sinai to receive the Torah, Moses informed the Israelites that he would return after forty days. When the people saw that his descent had been delayed, they grew apprehensive. A legend relates that Satan caused the Israelites to see a bier passing across the skies on which lay a figure resembling Moses, thus confirming their fear that Moses had died. Thereupon the Israelites demanded that Aaron make them a god, one like the Egyptians’, before which they could dance and which would guide them on their journey through the desert. Threatened with death if he failed to comply, Aaron instructed the men to bring their wives’ jewelry, anticipating that the women would refuse. This indeed proved to be the case, but the men donated their own ornaments, which Aaron threw into a fire. Out of the flames a molten golden calf emerged, which skipped about as if alive. The people danced around it in worship. According to Rabbi Judah, Satan himself had entered into the calf to lead Israel astray. When Moses returned from the mountain, he saw the calf and the dancing, and in great anger he smashed the tablets of the Ten Commandments. He burned the calf, ground it to powder, and scattered the dust upon the water, making the people drink from it. Everyone who had kissed the calf immediately turned to gold. The supremacy over the Angel of Death that the Jews had received for accepting the Torah was taken

away. And, it is said, there is not a sorrow that Israel has suffered that is not in great part retribution for the sin of worshipping the Golden Calf. The commentators disagree as to the nature of the people’s demand for an idol. Rashi regards the Golden Calf as pure idolatry. Abraham Ibn Ezra explains, “God forbid that Aaron should commit idolatry! Also Israel did not request idolatry. They wished the divine presence manifested in a corporeal manner.” According to Yehudah Halevi, “Some individuals were prompted to request a tangible object of worship in the manner of the other nations without rejecting God, who had taken them out of Egypt, merely asking that it should be placed before them to gaze upon when relating to God.” Shadal (Rabbi Samuel David Luzzatto) notes that when God informs Moses of the transgression of the people, God states, “They [the people of Israel] have been quick to turn aside from the way that I enjoined upon them.” God does not say that they have turned away. Nachmanides asserts that all the people wanted was a symbolic substitute for Moses, not for God, and the Golden Calf had been created as a “guide” to lead them on their journey. That is what the verse in Exodus says, after all—that the Israelites proposed a Golden Calf to replace not God but Moses, for “this Moses is the man who brought us up out of Egypt, and we know not what has become of him” (32:1).

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‫עגל הזהב‬ Podwal, Bestiary_PRINT.indd 29

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The Great Fish The great fish associated with Jonah, like the gnat, was created to fulfill a special destiny—in this instance, to harbor Jonah in his distress at sea. This fish had so huge a mouth and throat that Jonah found it as easy to pass into its belly as he would have found it to enter the portals of a very large synagogue. When the great fish swallowed the prophet, the Zohar says, Jonah actually died of fright but was revived. The fish was also said to have perished, but three days later it was restored to life and returned Jonah to shore. A further legend relates that when Jonah entered its belly, the fish exclaimed that its charge had been fulfilled and that it must therefore present itself before the sea monster Leviathan to be consumed. But when Jonah saw Leviathan, he exclaimed, “I have been brought here to know your hiding place, for I am to slaughter you in the world to come and serve you for a meal to the pious of the earth.” Observing the sign of the covenant on Jonah’s flesh, the frightened sea monster swam away. Both Jonah and the great fish were saved. The grateful fish revealed to Jonah all the mysterious, wondrous places of the sea. The prophet was taken to see the river from which all oceans flow and the place where the Children of Israel crossed the Red Sea. The eyes of the fish served Jonah

as windows; suspended in the fish’s entrails was a pearl that shone brightly, enabling Jonah to see all the things in the sea down to the very bottom. Jonah remained inside the belly of the great fish for three days and three nights. When Jonah was shown the foundation stone set in the abyss below the Temple, he implored God’s forgiveness and pleaded that he be allowed to go to Nineveh to preach to its people about their wicked ways. Since all prayers offered up from beneath the Temple of the Lord are answered, the great fish spewed the prophet out upon dry land. Jonah proceeded at once to Nineveh to carry out the mission the Lord had commanded. These miracles were all witnessed by the sailors who had cast Jonah into the sea. In awe of what they had seen, they tossed their idols into the waters and sailed back to Jaffa. They then went up to Jerusalem to be circumcised and to live out their days as pious converts. A different account says that while in the belly of the great fish, Jonah would not pray. So God then put him into another fish where he would be less comfortable. Miserably cramped, the claustrophobic Jonah finally found it fit to pray, acknowledging the futility of his efforts to escape from God.

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‫דג גדול‬ Podwal, Bestiary_PRINT.indd 31

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The Hare Jewish iconography often depicts the Jewish people as a hare, a symbol of prey— always the hunted, never the hunter. The sixteenth-century German scholar Rabbi Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi viewed the hare as a representation of the Jewish diaspora. In Jewish folklore, the hare personifies human timidity. The fourteenth-century Sarajevo Haggadah shows a dog chasing a hare along with the biblical verse “And they oppressed us” (Deuteronomy 26:6). The sixteenth-century Augsburg Haggadah includes two hare-hunting scenes. The first portrays hares running from a hunter and his dogs toward a net in which the hares certainly will be caught. However, a second illustration shows the hares managing to escape. As the hare uses its agility and wits to flee its pursuers, the image serves as an allegory for how the Jewish people, with God’s help, outwit and defeat their oppressors. Another explanation for the prevalence of hare hunts in haggadot is that the hunting scene illustrates a mnemonic for the order of blessings recited at the Passover seder when Passover eve coincides with the conclusion of the Sabbath. The Hebrew acronym for the five blessings, YKNHZ, sounds similar to the German phrase jag den Has, “hunt the hare.” The seventeenth-century wooden synagogue of Chodorów was painted with an image of two hares in the claws of a

double-headed eagle surrounded by the constellations of the zodiac. The painting is surrounded by a verse from Deuteronomy: “As an eagle that stirs up its nest and hovers over its young, that spreads its wings to catch them and carries them aloft” (32:11). The verse gives the impression that the eagle, whether divine or imperial, is rescuing the hares from danger. Professor Marc Michael Epstein suggests that since the hares are clenched by their necks, typical of how eagles take hold of their prey, the painting depicts Jewish persecution by an imperial power, and that the biblical verse is meant to conceal the painting’s true meaning: the eagle of Imperial Rome will be pulled down from its perch “among the stars” (Obadiah1: 4). The enigmatic symbol known as “The Three Hares” shows three hares chasing one another in a circle with each ear shared by two hares, so that only three ears are shown. The depiction appears in a 1309 Jewish manuscript, seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Ukrainian wooden synagogues, and Eastern European Jewish tombstones. By no means solely a Jewish motif, the original significance for this curious graphic riddle remains unknown. A Jewish interpretation is that on gravestones, when the names of the deceased are those of the forefathers, it represents visually the funeral prayer “bound in the bundle of life with the souls of the three patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”

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‫ארנבת‬ Podwal, Bestiary_PRINT.indd 33

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The Hoopoe The hoopoe’s most striking feature, its crest of black-tipped feathers, is the subject of many legends. According to Jewish folklore, King Solomon bestowed a golden crown upon every hoopoe in gratitude to the flock of hoopoes that shielded him with their wings from the burning desert sun. Proud of their crowns, hoopoes would gaze at their reflection in every river, stream, and puddle of water. Noticing the hoopoe’s vanity, a bird catcher placed a small mirror on the ground. When a hoopoe came to admire itself, it would be killed and the golden crown sold. So many were killed for their golden crowns, which could neither be removed nor concealed, that the few remaining hoopoes begged Solomon to take back his fatal gift. And so Solomon replaced the golden crown with a crest of feathers, thus saving the hoopoes from extinction. In the Talmud , the hoopoe is called “the wild cock” because of its feathery crest (Gittin 68b). Another name for the hoopoe is “stone breaker,” based on a Talmudic legend that says it can cut through rocks with its long sharp beak. Moreover, the legend adds that when its beak breaks, the hoopoe can continue chiseling with its folded crest, hence still another name, dukhifat, which in Aramaic means “two beaks.” Jewish tradition relates that the hoopoe’s offensive odor helps guard its hidden

treasures, among which is the shamir, the miraculous worm that could cut through stones. It is said that God created the shamir for the purpose of splitting the stones used in the building of the Temple. (Tools made of iron were prohibited in the Temple’s construction, since iron is used to forge weapons of war.) Midrash Tehillim recounts that when Solomon learned of the shamir and its sworn guardian, the hoopoe, he sent a trusted servant to find the worm. On locating the hoopoe’s nest with its young, the servant covered the nest with glass, thus compelling the bird to fetch the shamir to split the glass. Frightened by the sudden appearance of the servant, the hoopoe dropped the shamir, which the servant immediately snatched and took to Solomon. Having broken its oath, the hoopoe strangled itself. The use of human and animal body parts in magic was a very common practice in medieval Europe, though exceedingly rare among Jews. Nevertheless, a Jewish magical formula to arouse love says, “If a man will hang the tongue of the hoopoe at the right of his heart, he will vanquish every opponent, even the king himself, and if a woman will hang its left eye on her neck, her husband will love her, no matter how ugly she may be, and will never love another.”

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‫דוכיפת‬ Podwal, Bestiary_PRINT.indd 35

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Leviathan Leviathan, vividly described in the book of Job, rules over all the creatures of the sea. “His bared teeth strike terror. His protective scales are his pride. . . . He makes the depths seethe like a cauldron; he makes the sea boil like an ointment-pot” (41:6–7, 23). The word Leviathan is derived from the Hebrew root lwy, “coil/twist,” which envisages a serpentine creature. For three hours each day, according to Rabbi Judah, the Holy One plays with this massive sea serpent as a pet. In kabbalistic literature Leviathan is identified with evil, which is destined to disappear in messianic times. The enormousness of Leviathan is attested to in the Talmud by Rabbi Yohanan: “Once we went in a ship and saw a fish that put its head out of the water. He had horns upon which was written: ‘I am one of the meanest creatures that inhabit the sea, I am three hundred miles in length, and yet I enter this day into the jaws of Leviathan’” (Bava Batra 74a). The rabbis claim that had the sea not covered Leviathan, no one would have been able to bear its awful stench. Pirke de-Rabbi Eliezer says that the great fish that swallowed Jonah narrowly avoided being eaten by Leviathan, which usually eats a whale daily. According to the Talmud, the Leviathan, despite its enormous strength, fears a small worm called “kilbit,” which clings to the fins of giant fish and kills them.

Legend has it that God originally created two Leviathans, but when it seemed their offspring would destroy the entire world, God slew the female, salting her flesh for the messianic banquet. It is said that the fins of Leviathan radiate a brilliant light and that its eyes, in the words of Job, “glow like the rising sun” (41:18), illuminating the oceans. The “garments of skin” (Genesis 3:21) fashioned by God for Adam and Eve, also known as “garments of light,” were made from the skin of the slain Leviathan. The Talmud describes Leviathan as twisting and encompassing the entire world. The Zohar teaches, “Its tail is placed in its mouth.” In other words, this wondrous creature has neither beginning nor end. Like the Ziz and Behemoth, Leviathan is destined to be the food of the pious in the world to come at the messianic banquet. And its skin is to be stretched as a canopy from the walls of Jerusalem to cover the tent where the banquet will transpire, and to illuminate the world. At the end of the weeklong festival of Sukkot, one takes leave of the sukkah and prays, “May it be Your will, Lord our God and God of our forefathers, that as I have fulfilled and dwelled in this sukkah, so may I merit in the coming year to dwell in the sukkah of the skin of Leviathan. Next year in Jerusalem!”

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‫לויתן‬ Podwal, Bestiary_PRINT.indd 37

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The Lion The very first law in the Shulchan Arukh, the code of Jewish law meant to guide the Jewish people through every facet of their lives, commands, “Arise like a lion to serve your Creator in the morning” (1:1). Crowned “king of beasts” by the Talmud (Chagigah 13b), the lion is the emblem of authority, strength, bravery, and majesty. The Hebrew Bible contains more than a hundred references to this royal beast, many metaphorical. Comparisons include the tribe of Judah, King David, Israel, the Temple, and even God. “Like as a lion . . . so will the Lord of Hosts come down to fight on Mount Zion,” says the prophet Isaiah (31:4). The lion is also the fifth sign of the zodiac (Leo), corresponding to the fifth Hebrew month, Av. Yalkut Shimoni, a thirteenth-century midrashic anthology, states that the lion (Nebuchadnezzar, referred to in the book of Jeremiah as a lion) came in the month of the lion (Av) and destroyed the lion (the Temple). It is said in the Talmud that the Roman emperor summoned Rabbi Joshua ben Hananiah to the royal palace and said to him, “Your God is likened unto a lion in your Scriptures. But it is known that a strong man can kill a lion. So how mighty can your God be?” (Chullin 59b). Rabbi Joshua responded

that the Scriptures refer not to an ordinary lion but to a lion of the forest of Ilai. The emperor demanded to see the lion in question, and so Rabbi Joshua began to pray— and the lion came out of its den. When the lion was four hundred miles away, he began to roar. Frightened by the terrible sound, all the pregnant women in Rome miscarried, and the walls of Rome crumbled. When the lion was three hundred miles away, he roared again. All the teeth of the citizens of Rome fell out, and the emperor tumbled off his throne. The emperor then hurried to the house of Rabbi Joshua and said, “I asked you to pray that I may see the lion of the forest of Ilai. Now I beg you to pray that I never see him. Make him return to his forest” (Chullin 59b). Once more Rabbi Joshua began to pray. The lion of the forest of Ilai returned to his lair—whence, it is hoped, he will never emerge again. In discussing special blessings instituted by the Sages to be recited upon seeing extraordinary sights, the Gemara says that one who passes a lion’s den recites, “Blessed be He Who performed miracles for our ancestors in this place” (Talmud, Berakhot 54a), in remembrance of the Daniels’ miraculous emergence unscathed from a lions’ den.

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‫אריה‬ Podwal, Bestiary_PRINT.indd 39

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Nebuchadnezzar as a Beast Nebuchadnezzar, the King of Babylon who destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple of Solomon, so terrorized the people that during his lifetime no one dared to laugh. According to the Alphabet of Ben Sira, Nebuchadnezzar was a son or descendant of the Queen of Sheba by her marriage with King Solomon. His name, sometimes with the epithet “the wicked one,” appears more than ninety times in the Hebrew Bible. Nebuchadnezzar’s favorite pet was said to be a lion with a snake coiled around its neck, and the king was reputed to dine on live animals, particularly rabbits. Under his orders, the Jews exiled to Babylon were not permitted to rest for even a moment lest they use the opportunity to pray to God for mercy. On their way into exile, the princes of Judah were enchained. When Nebuchadnezzar saw that they carried no loads, he ordered that Torah scrolls be torn up into pieces and made into sacks, which were filled with sand. The sacks were loaded on the backs of the princes being borne off to Babylon. At the sight of this humiliation, all of Israel wept. In his ultimate arrogance, Nebuchadnezzar declared himself a god, and for that he was punished as was no one before him. God changed him into a beast; the lower part of his body resembled a lion, and like an ox he foraged for grass. In this animal

form Nebuchadnezzar went on the rampage. At the end of forty days, his reason returned, as did his human shape, and for the next forty days he bitterly lamented his sins. Then God took mercy on him, and the seven years of punishment that had been decreed against him were reduced to seven months. After returning to the throne, Nebuchadnezzar did penance for the rest of his days and subsisted solely on vegetables. According to the account in Leviticus Rabbah, Nebuchadnezzar did indeed spend seven years among the animals, during which time his son Amel-Marduk ruled “unjustly and lewdly” as king. Upon his return, Nebuchadnezzar imprisoned his son for life. Therefore, after Nebuchadnezzar had died and the nobles of the realm came to the son to swear loyalty to him as their king, Amel-Marduk did not dare to listen to them until they showed him his father’s corpse so that he could convince himself that the latter was really dead. Others say that Amel-Marduk himself exhumed the body of his father because the people believed that Nebuchadnezzar was again missing but still alive—and, moreover, that Nebuchadnezzar would cruelly punish them if on his return he learned that they had crowned another king. Therefore Nebuchadnezzar’s body was dragged through the city, so the people might see it.

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‫נבוכדנאצר‬ Podwal, Bestiary_PRINT.indd 41

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The Ostrich The ostrich, winged but unable to fly, so resembles a camel’s bodily structure and habits that there are some who believe it originated as a cross between a bird and a camel. Isaiah alludes to it living in desert ruins (13:21), and Micah cites its mournful cry (1:8). The ostrich’s ability to swallow any object is described in the Talmud. It is said that Noah methodically fed each species its appropriate food and even prepared glass for the ostrich. The ostrich’s voraciousness is attested to in an account of an ostrich devouring Rav Huna’s pair of phylacteries. The Talmud also tells of an ostrich that swallowed gold pieces the size of an olive and ejected them fully polished. Leviticus lists the ostrich as an abomination and among the birds that shall not be eaten (11:16). The Hatam Sofer notes, “Because the ostrich is a bird that eats stones and iron and its flesh is as hard as copper, it cannot be eaten in any way” (siman 70). Rabbinic literature includes references to the ostrich being bred as an ornamental bird. On account of its disproportionately small head the ostrich is considered a stupid bird. The book of Job states, “God has deprived her [the ostrich] of wisdom, gave her no share of understanding, else she would soar on high, scoffing at the horse

and the rider” (39:13). Nevertheless, its speed is so great that enemies are unable to overtake it. According to the Talmud, he who dreams about mounting an ostrich will be revered. Dreaming of chasing an ostrich and not reaching it means that the dreamer will pursue wealth without obtaining it. The Talmud says the ostrich has the biggest eggs of any bird other than the Ziz, and it is said that vessels were made from its eggshells. It was the custom to suspend the shell of an ostrich egg in every synagogue in Safed as well as over the tombs of the patriarchs in Hebron. Rabbi Jacob Emden, writing in the eighteenth century, explained the practice as follows: “The Jews . . . suspend ostrich eggs in their synagogues so as to intensify their devotion and to avoid being distracted. For the ostrich hatches its young by staring intensely at the egg. This demonstrates how powerful sustained observation and concentration are. And indeed, they befit prayer.” The first Jewish source to mention the ostrich’s power of sight was the thirteenth-century French rabbi Gershom ben Shlomo in his book Sha’ar Hashamayim (“The Gate of Heaven”), a compendium on nature and medicine. Among the many others to tell of the ostrich’s gift of vision was the famed kabbalist Rabbi Isaac Luria (“HaARI”).

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‫בת יענה‬ Podwal, Bestiary_PRINT.indd 43

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The Phoenix It is written in the book of Job, “Then I thought I shall die with my nest and shall multiply my days as the chol” (29:18). Some interpret the Hebrew word chol to mean “sand,” a metaphor for a countless quantity. Others say it means the long living “palm tree.” However, the verse’s mutually exclusive notions of death and life inclined many to translate chol as the phoenix, a mythological bird. Rashi cites a midrash on Job 29:18 about the phoenix: “It is a bird whose name is chol, and death has no power over it, because it did not taste the forbidden fruit from the Tree of Knowledge. At the end of a thousand years, it renews itself and returns to its youth.” According to the Talmud, Noah’s oldest son Shem offers a different explanation for the bird’s immortality. Shem recounts in detail the feeding of the various animals in the ark. The phoenix, unlike the rest of the animals, did not ask for food. Noah questioned the phoenix, “Don’t you need food?” The phoenix answered, “I saw you were busy, so I said to myself I will not trouble you with feeding me, too.” Hearing this, Noah exclaimed, “May it be the will of God that you never die!” (Sanhedrin 108b). Genesis Rabbah records a debate between the School of Rabbi Yannai and that of Rabbi Judah ben Simeon concerning the manner of the phoenix’s millennial regeneration. Rabbi Yannai believes that at

the end of a thousand years fire comes out of its nest and burns it up, yet a small piece the size of an egg is left, and it grows new limbs and lives again. Rabbi Judah ben Simeon says, “It lives a thousand years, at the end of which its body decays and its wings drop off, yet a small piece the size of an egg is left, whereupon it grows new limbs and lives again” (19:5). Over the centuries, the image of the burning phoenix predominated, with the bird reemerging from its ashes rather than from decayed flesh. A pseudepigraphic text, the Third Apocalypse of Baruch, tells of Jeremiah’s scribe Baruch ben Neriah’s mystical vision of the great and wonderful things in the heavens. In the third heaven, Baruch sees a phoenix, a massive bird that eats only manna and has a wingspan of twenty-four thousand feet. Day after day, the phoenix spreads its wings to absorb the sun’s fire-shaped rays from scorching all life on earth. On its wings large gold letters say, “Neither earth nor heaven bring me forth, but the wings of fire bring me forth” (6:9). When Baruch hears the screeching noise made by the phoenix, an angel explains that this cry awakens the earthly roosters from slumber, which with their trumpet-like crowing then awakens humankind. At dusk, the sun’s rays wane and the phoenix contracts its wings, exhausted from having restrained for a whole day the sun’s burning heat and fire.

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‫עוף החול‬ Podwal, Bestiary_PRINT.indd 45

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The Ram Abraham, we read in the Bible, was commanded by God to offer up his beloved son Isaac as a sacrifice. Obedient to the divine command, the patriarch took Isaac to Mount Moriah, site of the future Temple, and bound him upon an altar. However, at the crucial moment, an angel of the Lord intervened, and a ram, providentially appearing on the scene, served as the offering in Isaac’s stead. Jewish legend relates that the ram, looking to fulfill its destiny, had been running toward Abraham when Satan attempted to seize it; in the process its horns became entangled in a thicket. According to legend, “The Holy One, blessed be He, showed Abraham the ram tearing himself free from one thicket and becoming entangled in another. Said the Holy One, blessed be He, to Abraham: ‘Thus are your children destined to be caught in iniquities and entangled in misfortunes, but in the end they will be redeemed by the horns of a ram.’” Another interpretation: Just as the ram extricated itself from one thicket only to be caught in another, so Abraham’s children would pass from kingdom to kingdom. Delivered from Babylonia, they would be enslaved by Media; rescued from Media, they would be enslaved by

Greece; freed from Greece, they would serve Rome. Yet in the end they would be redeemed by the sound of a ram’s horn. The ram was indeed a special creature. According to legend, it was created during the twilight of the first Sabbath eve and from that time on resided in Paradise, awaiting its moment to take Isaac’s place on the altar. All the parts of its carcass were put to extraordinary use. The ashes of the portion burnt on the altar formed the foundation of the inner altar of the Temple. On this altar the sacrifice of atonement was brought once a year on Yom Kippur, the anniversary of the binding of Isaac. From the ram’s sinews David made ten strings for his harp. From the wool Elijah fashioned his coat. As for the two horns, the left one was sounded after the revelation on Mount Sinai. The other will be used to proclaim the arrival of the Messiah. According to the book of Exodus, the pomegranates on the garment of the High Priest were made from wool, against which the striking of small golden bells produced a tinkling sound (28:34). Hence the saying: “The ram alive produces only one sound; dead, seven sounds.”

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‫איל‬ Podwal, Bestiary_PRINT.indd 47

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The Raven One year after the rains of the Great Flood subsided, Noah asked the raven to go forth from the ark and to return with a report on the condition of the waters. According to legend, the raven refused and hid under the wings of the eagle. When Noah found him, the raven pleaded that another bird be sent. The raven then accused Noah of coveting the raven’s mate for himself; this was why Noah chose him for what surely was a suicide mission. An enraged Noah cried out, “May God curse the mouth that has spoken such evil against me!” All the animals in the ark said, “Amen!” and the raven’s heretofore dulcet voice became the harsh caw that we hear to this day. Similarly, the raven had only himself to blame for his awkward hop. Envious of the dove’s graceful walk, the raven tried to copy it. Instead, he broke all his bones. When he tried to resume his original gait, he could no longer remember it. Of the raven, the proverb says, “He who seeks more than he has will be left with less.” As it happened, the raven finally did leave the ark, but he never returned. According to the Pirke de-Rabbi Eliezer, as the waters receded, the raven remained behind to feed on the carnage left by the Flood. As punishment, the raven’s feathers, originally pure white, turned pitch black. Rashi explains that ravens neglect their young because the latter are born with white feathers and so their parents fail to recognize their offspring.

The book of Psalms says that God gives “the raven’s brood what they cry for” (147:9) until their feathers turn black and are identifiable to their parents. According to Pirke de-Rabbi Eliezer, Adam and Eve mourned over Abel, not knowing what to do with his body since this was their first encounter with a corpse. A raven whose companion had died said, “I will teach Adam this is what to do.” He set down his friend and dug in the earth before their eyes and buried him. Adam said, “Like the raven, this is what we will do” (21:10). Whereas Jewish folklore depicts the raven as an omen of evil, the first book of Kings (17:1–7) recounts how twice a day ravens fed the prophet Elijah when he hid from Queen Jezebel and King Ahab. In the Talmud, the Gemara asks who the ravens were that brought food to Elijah. Rav Ada bar Minyumi said that perhaps they were two men named Orev (Raven), having found in the Scriptures that Orev can be a person’s name. The scholars replied that it is improbable that both men who brought food to Elijah had the unusual name Orev. The scholars then asked whether these were perhaps two men who came from a place named Orev. The Gemara rejects that suggestion: if so, Orevites (Orevi’im) should have been written in the verse. Since they are called orevim, they were indeed ravens (Chullin 5a).

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‫עורב‬ Podwal, Bestiary_PRINT.indd 49

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The Red Heifer Shabbat Parah recalls the purification ceremony of the “red heifer” performed in ancient times. The red heifer was a cow whose ashes were used in a ritual to purify those who have been defiled by contact with a human corpse. The Torah prescribes (Numbers 19:1–22) that the cow for the ritual had to be red, like the color of blood. If two of the heifer’s hairs next to each other or three far apart were not red, it was disqualified. Any physical blemish would disqualify it, as it would all sacrificial animals. Moreover, any work done with the heifer, or even placing a yoke on it without actually doing any work, also disqualified it. If the red heifer was pregnant, or if a male had mated with it, it was disqualified. The Talmud specifies that the red heifer had to be at least three or four years old; younger than three is a calf. As a result, the red heifer was rare and costly, and several tales in the Talmud tell of the exorbitant price it commanded. After being ritually slaughtered, the red heifer was burned outside the camp—and, in the days of the Temple, on the Mount of Olives. Cedar wood, hyssop, and wool dyed scarlet were added to the fire, and the ashes were placed in a vessel containing spring water. The ash-water was sprinkled on the ritually unclean on the third and seventh days after defilement. The priest who performed the rites became unclean until evening and had to wash himself and his clothes in running water.

Jewish tradition says that there were nine red heifers slaughtered from the time of Moses to the destruction of the Second Temple; each yielded enough ash to be stored for the future. As late as the amoraic period (200–500 CE), those who had become ritually unclean through contact with the dead still used the ashes to cleanse themselves. Maimonides says that the Messiah will prepare the tenth and last red heifer. Kohelet Rabbah relates that even King Solomon, the wisest of men, was baffled by the paradox that the ashes of the red heifer “purified the defiled and defiled the pure” (7:23). It is said that when a pagan once asked Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai about the sprinkling of the holy water of the heifer’s ashes, saying it looks like “sorcery,” Yohanan’s answer seemed to his pupils to be trivial. But the master then told his students his answer was just to put off his questioner and that the ritual is considered a prime example of a chok, a biblical commandment that must be observed even though there is no apparent logic. Nonetheless, numerous commentaries attempt to find a rationale for the ritual. An early midrashic tradition views the red heifer as an atoning rite for the sin of the Golden Calf. The midrash tells us that God revealed the logic of the red heifer to Moses and that Moses kept this knowledge secret.

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‫פרה אדומה‬ Podwal, Bestiary_PRINT.indd 51

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The Re’em Mentioned nine times in the Bible, the re’em (plural: re’emim) is described as roaming wild, unable to be domesticated, and having large strong horns. According to Jewish folklore, only one male and one female re’em can exist at once, since the world cannot support more than two. It is said that the re’emim live at the opposite ends of the earth, one in the east and the other in the west. For seventy years, until the day they mate, they never see each other. After mating just once, the female kills the male with a single bite. Every pregnancy results in the death of the mother and the birth of twins— one male and one female. The twins then roam away, one to the east and the other to the west. The Talmud, in discussing whether the Flood reached Israel, poses the question of how the re’emim survived if they were unable to take refuge there. Resh Lakish contends that the re’em was not in the ark but was tied to the ark by its horns and pulled in its wake. Rabbi Yohanan suggests that only the tip of its nose was in the ark so it could breathe above the water. Another sage claims the Flood happened just as the twin re’emim were born so they were small enough to enter. That explanation is unlikely, according to Rabbah bar Bar Hana, who said, “I myself saw a young re’em one day old, and it was the size of Mount Tabor. Its neck was three miles long, and its head half a mile long. When it dropped dung, it

dammed the river” (Talmud, Bava Batra 73b). The Vilna Gaon interprets Rabbah bar Bar Hana’s account as an allegory to describe a conceited young Torah scholar who metaphorically had the re’em’s horns for intellectual battles and whose arrogance was like Mount Tabor. That mountain pined to be Sinai, the site where the Torah was to be given. A midrash recounts that when King David was a young shepherd, he encountered a sleeping re’em. Mistaking the re’em for a mountain, David began to climb it. Suddenly the creature awoke and lifted David on its immense horns up to the heavens. Terrified, David vowed that if God saved his life, he would build God a Temple as high as the re’em itself. God heard David and sent a lion, the king of beasts, before whom the re’em would have to bow. As the re’em prostrated itself on the ground, David came down from its horns, but in escaping one danger he faced another—the scary lion. So God sent a gazelle for the lion to chase. Hence, David’s Psalm: “Save me from a lion’s mouth, rescue me from the horns of a re’em” (22:21). It is said that in the days of Rabbi Hiyya bar Abba, a re’em’s whelp came to Israel and uprooted every single tree. A fast was proclaimed, and Rabbi Hiyya prayed, whereupon the re’em’s whelp went down to the desert.

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‫ראם‬ Podwal, Bestiary_PRINT.indd 53

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The Salamander Exodus Rabbah (15:28) recounts that on Mount Sinai, God’s finger showed Moses four things that puzzled him, among them the salamander. The salamander, according to Jewish folklore, is a creature fashioned from a fire of myrtle wood that burns seven days and seven nights. The medieval commentator Rashi contends that the fire must burn for seven years, while Nathan ben Yehiel, in the Talmudic dictionary Arukh, claims seventy years. Rabbi Akiva teaches, “You have creatures that grow in fire and You have creatures that grow in the air; if those in the fire would ascend to the air they would immediately die, and if those in the air would descend to the fire they would immediately die. How great are Your works, O Lord!” Opposing the belief that salamanders are created via magical, rather than natural, means, the preeminent nineteenth-century scholar Hatam Sofer explains that while sorcerers do not really create salamanders, they are adept at extracting them from their natural habitat in volcanoes. The Gemara teaches that the salamander’s miraculous property is its ability to offer natural protection against fire (Talmud, Chagigah 27a). It is said that a salamander can extinguish a flame merely by passing

through it; a fire so quenched is impossible to rekindle. If one smears a hand or any other part of the body with the blood of a salamander, the limb is safeguarded against fire. The Zohar speaks of protective garments made of salamander skin. The wicked people who lived at the time of the Great Flood boasted that if the world were to be destroyed by fire, the punishment of Gehinnom (Hell), they would save themselves with the blood of a salamander. But God destroyed the world by water, with rain falling from above, and scalding waters, hot as fire, gushing up from below. When King Ahaz, who is counted among the worst of sinners, was about to sacrifice his son Hezekiah to the fires of the idol of Moloch, the child’s mother painted her son with the blood of a salamander. As a result, the flames did not harm him. Hezekiah grew up to be king and to be considered among the most pious of Israel. According to the Talmud, “The fires of Hell do not burn Torah scholars, and this is learned a fortiori. Consider the salamander, which is created from fire and its blood protects from fire. How much more so is a Torah scholar protected, for his entire body is fire, as it is written, ‘Does My word not burn like fire? declares the Lord,” (Chagigah 27a).

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‫סלמנדרא‬ Podwal, Bestiary_PRINT.indd 55

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The Scorpion The Hebrew word for scorpion is akrav, which is derived from the word akev, meaning “heel.” Thus the scorpion exemplifies a poisonous creature at the heel of man. Yet according to a midrash, in the ark all the animals became tame, so Noah walked on snakes and scorpions without being injured. When the Children of Israel followed Moses into the desert, snakes and scorpions covered the sand. Tradition relates that God rewarded the Israelites for their trust in Him by not allowing the scorpions to do any harm. Sparks from the Ark of the Covenant killed all the snakes and scorpions in its path. According to the Mishnah, among the ten miracles during the time the Temple stood, “Never did a snake or scorpion injure someone in Jerusalem” (Avot 5:5). The first book of Kings recounts that after King Solomon died, his son Rehoboam became king and defied the advice to lighten the yoke of oppression: “My father made your yoke heavy, but I will add to your yoke; my father flogged you with whips, but I will flog you with scorpions” (12:4). In the book of Ezekiel, “scorpion” is employed as a metaphor for stinging words (2:6). The Talmud teaches that the true nature of exile is like Joseph’s pit, full of snakes and scorpions. (Genesis 37:24 says that the pit was “empty, devoid of water”; Rashi teaches that it was dry and yet full of snakes and scorpions.)

The scorpion is the zodiac sign for the Hebrew month of Heshvan. A midrash explains the proximity of Heshvan to the following month, Kislev, during which Hanukkah is celebrated. A sinner who does not repent descends to the lowest levels, like a scorpion crawling on the ground. It is said that when Moses was shown Gehinnom (Hell), sinners were lying on their faces with thousands of scorpions stinging and torturing them. Yet one who repents is shot forth from Gehinnom like an arrow from a bow, the zodiac sign of Kislev. While the Talmud states that of all the languages in the world Greek is the most suited for the translation of the Torah, Genesis Rabbah refers to Greece as a scorpion. Leviticus Rabbah notes of the Greek commanders, governors, and generals: “Just as the scorpion produces eggs sixty at a time, so the Kingdom of Greece would set up its administration in groups of sixty” (13:5). On their shields, Greek soldiers painted the image of a scorpion to frighten their enemies. The Talmud records that Samuel Yarhina’ah once saw a scorpion carried by a frog across a river. Sages note that this was no chance event, for the scorpion was being brought to sting a man whose death had been decreed by the Heavenly Court.

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‫עקרב‬ Podwal, Bestiary_PRINT.indd 57

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The Serpent Of all the animals in Paradise, the serpent was truly the most remarkable. According to legend, only the serpent spoke Hebrew, whereas the rest of the animals conversed in their own special tongues. Resembling human beings in many ways, the serpent stood erect on two feet. His height was equal to that of a camel. Had it not been for the fall of Adam and Eve, one pair of serpents, it was said, would have been able to perform all of humanity’s labors on earth. Furthermore, the serpent would have supplied earth’s inhabitants with gold, silver, and precious stones, for he knew the hiding places of many great treasures. But the happy role ordained for the serpent was not to be. Envious of the joy that the first man shared with his mate, the serpent plotted to bring about Adam’s death so that he could have Eve for himself. When God sat in judgment on the serpent’s actions, God refused to hear the reptile’s defense. God knew that the serpent was a crafty debater and would undoubtedly seek to shift the blame to Satan and his provocations. After the sentence of doom was pronounced upon the serpent, seventy-one angels descended from heaven and chopped off his hands and feet and split his tongue. His suffering was so great that his agonized cries could be heard from one end of the earth to the other. Thenceforth he had to

crawl on his belly. Among his other punishments, it was decreed that the serpent would vanish from the Holy Land when all of Israel walks in the way of the Lord. According to gilgul neshamot, a concept of reincarnation in kabbalistic esoteric mysticism, a sinful soul may migrate after death into the body of a snake, or another beastly creature, and is imprisoned there until the time of the animal’s death. The Zohar relates that the bones of Balaam (the soothsayer who was to curse the people of Israel) turned into poisonous snakes and that even the worms that consumed his body were turned into snakes. The Talmud speaks of a snake arising from the backbone of someone who did not bow during prayer. The book of Numbers recounts that in the wilderness God sent fiery serpents to punish the Children of Israel for their complaining and speaking against Moses (21:6). Once the people showed their repentance, God instructed Moses, “Make a bronze serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live” (21:8). A midrash on Numbers 21:6 interprets the plague of the fiery serpents as punishment for sins of the evil tongue: “Let the serpent that was the first to offend by ‘evil tongue’ inflict punishment on those who were guilty of the same sin and did not profit by the serpent’s example.”

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‫נחש‬ Podwal, Bestiary_PRINT.indd 59

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The Snail “Let them (the wicked) . . . be like a snail that melts away as it moves.” This imagery from the book of Psalms (58:8) stems from the ancient belief that the moist streak left by a snail as it crawls along is subtracted from its bodily substance; the farther it creeps, the smaller it becomes, until it wastes away entirely. A more benign association is with the aromatic spice shekhelet, said to have been derived from the shell of a snail found in the Red Sea, which emits a pleasant odor when burned. Shekhelet was one of the ingredients, according to the book of Exodus (30:34), in the holy incense burned as an offering in the Tabernacle and later in the Temple. This fragrant offering is recalled in the ceremony of havdalah, performed at the conclusion of the Sabbath and festivals, when blessings are recited over a cup of wine, a lit candle, and spices (placed in containers that have been fashioned in a variety of forms). Tekhelet is a blue-violet dye mentioned forty-nine times in the Bible. However, the Bible describes neither its source nor the means of producing it. Jewish tradition tells us that the only source of tekhelet is a sea creature known as the chillazon. The Midrash Tehillim describes the chillazon: “All the time that it grows, its shell grows with it” (23:3), which indicates the chillazon is a crustacean. Understood to be a species of snail, it is said that once every seventy years, a strong current uproots the chillazon, upon

which the creature becomes inanimate and washes up on the shore; otherwise it must be fished out. Tekhelet was used in the garments of the High Priest, the tapestries in the Tabernacle, and the tzitzit (fringes) affixed to the four corners of the tallit (prayer shawl). The fringes remind the Children of Israel to observe God’s commandments. According to kabbalah, tekhelet protected the wearer of the fringe, for the color blue wards off the evil eye. The Talmud notes that Rabbi Meir would say, “What distinguishes tekhelet from all other types of colors? It is because tekhelet is similar in its color to the sea, and the sea is similar to the color of the sky, and the sky is similar to the sapphire stone, and the sapphire stone is similar to [the color of] the Throne of Glory” (Chullin 89a). Remarkably, techelet was colorfast. Maimonides writes, “Its dyeing is well known for its steadfast beauty and does not change” (Mishneh Torah, Tzitzit 2:1). Around thirteen hundred years ago, the knowledge of tekhelet procurement was lost or concealed. Thus a midrash lamented, “And now we have no tekhelet, only white” (Numbers Rabbah 17:5). As such, white fringes are worn until the coming of the Messiah, when Elijah himself will resolve all unanswered questions, including revealing the identity of the chillazon and how to make tekhelet.

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‫שבלול‬ Podwal, Bestiary_PRINT.indd 61

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The Spider Jewish texts depict spiders as both good and evil. The spider, like the ant, is honored in the book of Proverbs as one of the miniscule creatures that are the “wisest of the wise” (30:24). It is written, “You can catch the spider in your hands, yet it is found in royal palaces” (30:28). Yalkut Shimoni says that the spider is the most hated of the creeping creatures. The wicked and their machinations are compared to spiders: “spiders’ poison is on their lips” (Psalm 140:4), and they “weave spider webs” (Isaiah 59:5). The medieval scholar David Kimhi (Radak) comments that just as a spider’s web has no permanence, so too the activities of the wicked will not avail them. The Gemara quotes Rav Assi: “Initially, when the evil inclination begins to entice someone, it is almost imperceptible, like a thin strand of a spider’s web, and after one sins, it is like a wagon’s thick ropes” (Talmud, Sukkah 52a). Jewish law even discusses when to remove spider webs: “It would be good to clear away any spider webs from the house the day before the Sabbath in honor of the Sabbath” (Mishnah Berurah §262). Another set of laws concerns spider webs found on the Sabbath. Moreover, if on the Sabbath one finds a spider, one is not allowed to kill it. Legend tells us that when David was a young shepherd, he observed a spider spinning a web. He thought to himself, “What

is the purpose of such a creature? It spends its lifetime spinning, but its webs can never make a garment. All of its undertakings are filled with vain hopes.” Whereupon a voice from Heaven called out, “David! You mock the Lord’s creatures now, but a time will come when you will see why it (the spider) was created.” Several years passed and the shepherd boy, after slaying the giant Goliath with a slingshot, became the hero of the people and the favorite of King Saul. But as David’s popularity grew, so did the king’s jealousy, and in his fury Saul imagined David was plotting to seize his throne. When David learned of Saul’s intention to kill him, he fled the palace and sought refuge in the wilderness. Hiding in a cave once, David heard Saul and a troop of soldiers approaching. They were about to enter the cave in search of their quarry when the Holy One sent a spider to weave a web across the entrance. When Saul saw the web, he told his men to look elsewhere, reasoning that David could not have entered the cave without breaking the web. After Saul and his soldiers departed, David came out of the cave and kissed the spider that had saved him. He then took up his harp and composed a psalm of praise to the Lord.

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‫עכביש‬ Podwal, Bestiary_PRINT.indd 63

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The Stork The Hebrew word for “stork,” chasidah, is derived from the term chasid, meaning “pious one,” and chesed, meaning “kindness.” According to the Talmud, the bird received its name on account of its compassion and mercy. It brings foods to its companions, and young storks carry older ones that lag during migration upon their backs. Why, then, does the Bible list the stork among the unclean birds? A Hasidic saying supplies the answer; it is because the stork’s compassion is reserved only for its own kind. Maimonides teaches that it is forbidden to eat birds of prey, such as the stork, so as not to adopt their predatory nature. “Even the stork in the sky knows her season. And the turtledove, swallow, and crane keep the time of their coming. But My people pay no heed to the law of the Lord,” laments the prophet Jeremiah (6:19). For while the birds do what God expects of them, time and time again the Jewish people do not. Distinguished for its keen sight, the stork can see any object in all of the Land of Israel from the vast distance of Babylon. Indeed, the stork looks ahead to the redemption of Israel from exile. The Pirke Shirah, the compendium of hymns of praise for the Creator

that all living things recite daily, asks, “What does the stork say?” It repeats the comforting prophecy of Isaiah: “Bid Jerusalem take heart, and proclaim unto her that her time of service is accomplished, that her guilt is paid off ” (Isaiah 40:2). Perhaps the most perplexing of the few stork references in the Bible is Zechariah 5:8–9, a vision the prophet himself does not understand: “And behold a dark disc of lead was lifted, revealing a woman seated inside the basket. That, he said, ‘is Wickedness.’ . . . I looked up again and saw two women soaring with the wind in their wings—they had wings like those of the stork—and carry off the basket between earth and the sky. ‘Where are they taking the basket?’ I asked the angel who talked with me. And he answered, ‘To build a shrine for it in the land of Shinar.’” Among the interpretations is that the stork-winged women are flying an idol to Babylon, a nation epitomizing depravity. As the stork is among the birds the Torah lists as unclean, it is well suited to undertake the banishing of iniquity from the Holy Land. Moreover, since the stork’s Hebrew name means “righteous,” it can be trusted to fulfill its task.

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‫חסידה‬ Podwal, Bestiary_PRINT.indd 65

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The Swine According to the Talmud, “Ten measures of diseases descended into the world, of which the swine took nine” (Kiddushin 49a–b). The many maladies from which the pig suffers are said to stem from its disgusting habits of eating everything and finding its food everywhere. The rabbis held the creature in such abhorrence that the Talmud endeavors to avoid even mentioning its name, often referring to the pig as davar acher, “another thing.” Rabbinic writings equate the ingestion of pork with the submission to foreign domination. The second book of Maccabees records that when Antiochus IV gave the scribe Eleazar and a family of eight Jews the choice of either eating pork or suffering torture and death, all chose death. The boar, called “the swine of the woods” in the book of Psalms (80:13), is described as a beast that crushes its prey, eats its fill, and tramples the rest of the carcass. Fittingly, the boar served as the symbol of the Roman tenth legion, whose soldiers set Jerusalem aflame and destroyed the Second Temple, encamping on its ashes. Under Roman rule, Jewish tradition records, the people of Israel suffered such agony that they could not wipe away all their tears. The tears that remained were etched into their cheeks and left permanent scars. In ancient Jewish writings, the swine thus became symbolic of Rome; both displayed

the same deceitful characteristics. Genesis Rabbah asks, “Why is Rome compared with the swine?” (65:1). The swine, the sages note, is ritually unclean and may not be eaten because, although it has cloven hooves, it does not chew its cud. When the swine is lying down, it puts out its hooves as if to deceive those looking upon it into thinking it is a permitted (kosher) animal. For Jews, Rome remains the byword for perfidy. The swine, most despised of beasts, shares this ignominy. Avot de-Rabbi Nathan relates that during the Roman siege of Jerusalem, a pig’s head was hurled from a catapult at the Temple’s altar. It was then that Jerusalem was conquered. Another legend says that even though the Temple gate was impervious to the presence of three hundred sixty camels loaded with iron axes, the blood of a single pig sprinkled on the gate so defiled it that it opened itself. From the thirteenth to the sixteenth century, Christian iconography adorned European churches with the Judensau (German for “Jews’ sow”), the scatological representation of Jews, identifiable by their “Jewish hats,” sucking at the teats of a sow and eating its excrement. The pejorative term for a Portuguese or Spanish Jew who converted to Christianity during the Inquisition but secretly practiced Judaism is Marrano, which means “pig.”

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‫חזיר‬ Podwal, Bestiary_PRINT.indd 67

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The Unicorn The animal in the Bible called tachash (variously translated as “seal,” “badger,” or “dolphin”), whose hide was used to cover the Tabernacle, in Jewish legend has come to be identified with the unicorn. In Midrash Tanhuma 6, Rabbi Abun says, regarding the tachash, “It was called a unicorn.” The Talmud records that Rabbi Meir used to say, “The tachash that existed in the days of Moses was a species unto itself, and the Sages could not decide if it was a type of wild animal or a type of domestic animal. And it had a single horn on its forehead, and this tachash happened to come to Moses while the Tabernacle was being built, and he made the covering of the Tabernacle from it. And from then on the tachash is no longer found” (Shabbat 28a). Rashi, commenting on that passage, agrees: “This was a species of animal that existed only for a short time.” Accordingly, Jewish tradition rejects any suggestion that a tachash could have been sighted since the time of Moses. Rabbi Yehudah asserts that the tachash’s skin was composed of six colors, and Rabbi Bahya contends that the tachash’s skin was “wonderfully and miraculously illuminated.” The creature is said to have been so enormous that out of one tachash skin a seamless curtain for the Tabernacle could be made, thirty cubits long and four cubits wide (forty-five by six feet). The tachash’s

skin was also used to wrap the Tabernacle’s sacred objects and furnishings for wherever the Children of Israel journeyed in the wilderness, as the Tabernacle went with them. Rabbi Yohanan teaches that in the world to come the tachash’s skin will be fashioned as clothing for the righteous. The Talmud maintains that the tachash must have been kosher, since “only the hide of a kosher animal was deemed suitable for heavenly service” (Shabbat 28a). The thirteenth-century biblical commentator Rabbeinu Bechaya ben Asher explains that this is why in the Tabernacle silk (which comes from a nonkosher silkworm) was not used. On the other hand, Rav Kook, in discussing the uncertain nature of the tachash, speculated that it might be possible for God to command the use of skins of an unclean animal for the Tabernacle to teach about the inclusive wholeness of all creation. In nine passages, the King James Version of the Bible translates the Hebrew word re’em as “unicorn” based on the Greek translation of the Bible, the Septuagint, which translates re’em as monokeros, meaning “one horn.” For example, Psalm 92:10: “But my horn shalt thou exalt like the horn of a unicorn: I shall be anointed with fresh oil.” Whereas rabbis in the Talmud debated the nature of the tachash, there is not a line in the Talmud that makes the re’em one horned.

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‫תחש‬ Podwal, Bestiary_PRINT.indd 69

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Ziz The fabulous Ziz, whose single scriptural mention in the book of Psalms (50:11) gave rise to rich imaginings, is a bird monstrous in size, ruling over all the other birds. Its wings are reputed to be so enormous that when they unfurl, day becomes night. These pinions protect the earth from the storms that blow from the south. The Ziz is a wonderful singer, and it is said that God delights in her birdsong. If God had not in infinite mercy created the Ziz to protect the weak and defenseless among the avian creatures, their more ferocious fellows would have destroyed them long ago. Every year, on the first day of the month of Tishri, the Ziz lets out a horrible shriek while flapping its wings. The falcons, vultures, and other birds of prey tremble and restrain their appetites. The Talmud records a “sighting” of the Ziz. Rabbah bar Bar Hana relates, “It once happened that we traveled on board a ship and noticed a bird standing in the water. The waves covered merely its feet, and its head knocked against the sky. We thought the water couldn’t be very deep at that point, and decided to bathe there. However, a heavenly voice warned: ‘Alight not here!

Seven years ago a carpenter’s axe slipped from his hand at this spot, and it has not yet reached the bottom.’” Rabbi Ashi says, “The bird that Rabbah bar Bar Hana saw was none other than the Ziz” (Bava Batra 73b). The name Ziz is derived from the varied tastes the bird’s flesh is said to have: it tastes like “this,” and it tastes like “that,” in Hebrew zeh va-zeh. Hence, the Ziz is the ultimate delicacy, since its flesh comprises all the known tastes. Even though it is well known that when the Messiah comes, a new Torah will be given, which will dispense with the current dietary regulations, the Ziz is already considered kosher. The Ziz is one of the three courses (the others are Behemoth and Leviathan) destined to delight the palates of the righteous in the world to come. Tradition holds that Moses himself will serve the Ziz at the messianic banquet. Once, it was reported, a Ziz’s egg accidentally fell to earth and shattered. The fluid flooded sixty cities, and the shock crushed three hundred giant cedars in the forests of Lebanon. This one mishap was because the egg was rotten, and the bird carelessly cast it away. Fortunately, such accidents do not happen frequently.

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‫זיז‬ Podwal, Bestiary_PRINT.indd 71

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Selected Bibliography The rendition of biblical verses in this text generally follows the Jewish Publication Society translation of the Scriptures (The Torah, 1962; The Prophets, 1978; The Writings, 1982). Agnon, S. Y., ed. Days of Awe: A Treasury of Jewish Wisdom for Reflection, Repentance, and Renewal on the High Holy Days. New York: Schocken, 1948. Assis, Elie. “Zechariah’s Vision of the Ephah (Zech. 5:5–11).” Vetus Testamentum 60, no. 1 (2010): 15–32. Bickerman, Elias. Four Strange Books of the Bible. New York: Schocken, 1967. Binder, Stephanie E. Tertullian, “On Idolatry” and Mishnah “Avodah Zarah”: Questioning the Parting of Ways Between Christians and Jews. Leiden: Brill, 2012. Cohen, Jeffrey Jerome. Hybridity, Identity, and Monstrosity in Medieval Britain. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006. Douglas, Mary. Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo. Abingdon: Routledge, 2002. Eisenberg, Ronald L. Jewish Traditions: A JPS Guide. Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America, 2004. Encyclopedia Judaica. 16 vols. Jerusalem: Keter, 1971–72. Epstein, Marc Michael. Dreams of Subversion in Medieval Jewish Art and Literature. University Park: Penn State University Press, 1997.

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The Fathers According to Rabbi Nathan. Translated by Judah Goldin. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1955. Feliks, Jehuda. Animal World of the Bible. Tel Aviv: Sinai, 1962. Ginsberg, Louis. Legends of the Jews. 7 vols. Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1909–46. Godbey, Allen M. “The Unicorn in the Old Testament.” American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures 56, no. 3 ( July 1939): 256–96. Huberman, Ida. Living Symbols: Symbols in Jewish Art and Tradition. Jerusalem: Massada, 1988. The Jewish Encyclopedia. 12 vols. New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1901–6. Kaplan, Yosef, and Dan Michman. The Religious Cultures of Dutch Jewry. Leiden: Brill, 2017. Ma’aseh Book. Translated by Moses Gaster. Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1981. Maimonides, Moses. The Guide to the Perplexed. Translated by M. Friedlander. New York: Dover, 1956. Mevorach Seidenberg, David. Kabbalah and Ecology: God’s Image in the More-ThanHuman World. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015. Midrash Rabbah. 5 vols. Translated by H. Freedman and Maurice Simon. London: Soncino, 1939. Nadich, Judah. Jewish Legends of the Second Commonwealth. Philadelphia: The

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Jewish Publication Society of America, 1983. Niehoff, M. R. “The Phoenix in Rabbinic Literature.” Harvard Theological Review 89, no. 3 ( July 1996): 245–65. Noy, Dov. The Jewish Animal Tale. Haifa: Haifa Municipality Ethnological Museum, Folklore Archives, 1976. Patai, Raphael. On Jewish Folklore. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1983. Pirke de-Rabbi Eliezer. Translated by Gerald Friedlander. New York: Sepher-Hermon House, 1939. Raphael, Chaim. The Walls of Jerusalem. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1968. Rosenbaum, Jordan D. “‘Why Do You Refuse to Eat Pork?’ Jews, Food, and Identity in Roman Palestine.” Jewish Quarterly Review 100, no. 1 ( January 2009): 95–110. Rosenberg, David. Dreams of Being Eaten Alive: The Literary Core of the Kabbalah. New York: Harmony, 2000. Segal, Moty. Sefer Hachalomot—The Interpretation of Dreams: Based on Torah,

Talmud, Midrash and Other Sources of the Millennial Jewish Tradition. Buenos Aires: Editorial Moaj, 2018. Slifkin, Nosson. Sacred Monsters: Mysterious and Mythical Creatures of Scripture, Talmud and Midrash. Jerusalem: Gefen, 2012. Sofer, Mosheh. Responsa H.atam Sofer. Jerusalem, 1971. Tobias, Samuel. “Serpent Folklore in Rabbinic Literature.” Jewish Social Studies 27, no. 3 ( July 1965): 168–84. Trachtenberg, Joshua. Jewish Magic and Superstition: A Study in Folk Religion. New York: Behrman, 1939. Vilnay, Zev. Legends of the Galilee, Jordan, and Sinai. Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1978. Yaniv, Bracha. “The Hidden Message of the Hares in the Talons of the Eagle.” AJS Review 36, no. 2 (November 2012): 281–94. The Zohar. 5 vols. Translated by Maurice Simon and Harry Sperling. London: Soncino, 1934.

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