Bereishit 1:20
Overview – The Rogatchover raises an inconsistency
that the Talmud asks, about whether birds were created from water or from land.
He then proposes a novel answer, based on the Rambam’s assertion that there are
creatures that are both water and air based animals.
וַיֹּאמֶר אֱלֹהִים--יִשְׁרְצוּ הַמַּיִם, שֶׁרֶץ נֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה; וְעוֹף יְעוֹפֵף עַל-הָאָרֶץ, עַל-פְּנֵי רְקִיעַ הַשָּׁמָיִם
“Let the waters
produce swarms of living creatures and birds that fly. And let fowl fly
above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.”
The Rogatchover:
שהוא דג וגם עון 6, כמבואר בםה״מב ובהל׳ מא״ם פ״ב ג, י״ל ת ה ר״?
כאן ד. ואכמ״ד.
The Background:
In verse 20 it says “Let the waters produce swarms of
living creatures and birds that fly.”
The Talmud in Chullin 27b asks, in verse 20 it states that
birds were created from water, yet in chapter 2 verse 19 the Torah says:
וַיִּצֶר יְהוָה אֱלֹהִים מִן-הָאֲדָמָה, כָּל-חַיַּת הַשָּׂדֶה ואֵת כָּל-עוֹף הַשָּׁמַיִם, וַיָּבֵא אֶל-הָאָדָם, לִרְאוֹת מַה-יִּקְרָא-לוֹ; וְכֹל אֲשֶׁר יִקְרָא-לוֹ הָאָדָם נֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה, הוּא שְׁמוֹ.
“God had formed out of the ground every beast of the
field and every bird of the sky”
The implication here is that birds were formed from the
earth. Which was it, were birds formed from the waters or from the earth? The
Talmud answers that in fact birds were created from mud which is a mixture of
earth and water. Thus, the Torah attributes birds as being land-formed
creatures as well as being sea-formed creatures.
Chullin 27b:
ועוד שאלו כתוב
אחד אומר ויאמר אלהים ישרצו המים שרץ נפש חיה
ועוף יעופף אלמא ממיא איברו וכתיב (בראשית ב) ויצר ה' אלהים מן
האדמה כל חית השדה ואת כל עוף השמים אלמא מארעא איברו אמר לו מן הרקק
“He put to him further this question: One verse says. And
God said: Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath
life, and let birds fly above the earth, from which it would appear that birds
were created out of the water; but another verse says. And the Lord God formed
out of the ground every beast of the field and every bird of the air, from
which it would appear that they were created out of the earth? He replied: They
were created out of the mud.”
The Innovation:
There is a dispute amongst the Rishonim whether one can
receive numerous sets of lashes (malkot) for the same act. For example,
the prohibition of wearing wool and linen together (shaatnez) is stated
twice. If one transgresses this injunction do they receive two sets of lashes
or only one set for the one act?
The Rambam holds that one can never receive numerous sets of
lashes for a doubled prohibitory clause. He states this with some force in Sefer
Hamitzvot- mitzvah lo saaseh (negative prohibition) #179:
וכבר נתבאר ביטול
דבר זה, ושאין לוקין שתי מלקיות על לאו אחד בשום פנים, כמו שביארו בגמרא חולין.
“This idea has no merit, as our Sages have explained in
tractate Chullin that one can never receive two sets of lashes for a
single prohibition.”
Several other Rishonim argue with the Rambam, most vocal
among them the Ramban (in Sefer Hamitzvot loc. cit.). They argue that one can
receive numerous sets of lashes for the same act.
This argument is brought to fore in the Talmud. In Makkot
16b the Talmud discusses one who eats a creature called the putisa. The putisa
is a sheretz. A sheretz is a type of creature that we would
conventionally term an insect. The sheretz has special laws concerning
one who touches it and the resultant ritual impurity (tumah) that they
receive. As well the Torah forbids eating any sheretz. The Torah first
states the prohibition generally (twice in fact), and then enumerates a
specific injunction against eating a land, sea, and air sheretz.
The law as stated in Makkot is that this person receives
four sets of lashes for eating this crawling creature. Rashi and most other Rishonim
learn that the reason one receives four sets of lashes is because the Torah says
twice a general prohibition regarding eating a creature, and twice states a
prohibition to eat a land based creature (which according to them is what the putisa
is classified as). Thus for each clause one receives lashes ending in four
measures of punishment for the four infractions.
The Rambam however is forced to learn this law in a very
different style since he holds that one does not receive multiple sets of
lashes for a doubled prohibitory injunction.
Instead, he holds that the reason one receives four measures
is because this creature called the putisa is a land, sea and air creature
all at once since it lives in all three environments. Therefore one receives
three sets of lashes for the three different prohibitions of eating a land, sea
and air creature. (The fourth set is for the infraction of eating a non-kosher
fish.)
The first source of the Rambam’s position on the putisa
is in Sefer Hamitzvot- mitzvah lo saaseh (negative prohibition) #179:
מצות ל׳׳ת קעט
״כי
הנה יתכן שיהיה דג ושיהיה שרץ המים, וכמו כן יהיה עוף
ויהיה שרץ המיס, וכמו
כן יהיה עוף ושרץ העוף. מהו פוטיתא, שהוא עוף שרץ
העוף ושרץ הארץ ושרץ
המים, ולפיכך׳ חייבין עליה ארבע מלקיות״.
“This is the putisa, which is a bird, a sheretz
ha'of (an air creature), a sheretz ha'aretz (an
earthbound creature), and a sheretz hamayim (a water
creature), and one therefore receives four sets of lashes for
eating one.”
The second source is in Hilkhot Maachalot Assurot Chapter 2
Halakha 23:
הרי שהיתה הבריה משרץ
העוף ומשרץ המים ומשרץ הארץ כגון שהיו לה כנפים והיא מהלכת על הארץ כשאר שרצים והיתה
רבה במים ואכלה לוקה שלש מלקיות
“The following laws apply if a particular creature is
[included in the categories of] a flying crawling animal, an aquatic crawling
animal, and a crawling animal of the earth, e.g., it has wings, it walks on the
earth like other earthbound crawling animals, and it reproduces in the water.
If one eats it, he is liable for three sets of lashes.”
[It should be noted that the Raaved argues with this most
emphatically loc. cit.:
כתב הראב"ד ז"ל
המאסף הזה אסף דברים שאינם בעולם שלא שמענו מימינו נמלה גדלה במים ולא שרץ העוף גדל
במים
“The compiler gathered ideas here that simply don’t exist in this world and
that we have never heard of- that there should be a land creature living in the
sea or an air creature living in the sea!?”]
Enter the Rogatchover who threads all this together and
resolves the apparent biblical contradiction with ease as follows:
According to the Rambam there is a creature that is a sea
and air animal we can say that our verse (1:20) is only talking about air
creatures that are also sea creatures. Therefore the verse states:
וַיֹּאמֶר אֱלֹהִים--יִשְׁרְצוּ הַמַּיִם, שֶׁרֶץ נֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה; וְעוֹף יְעוֹפֵף עַל-הָאָרֶץ, עַל-פְּנֵי רְקִיעַ הַשָּׁמָיִם
“Let the waters produce swarms of living creatures
and birds that fly. And let fowl fly above the earth in the open
firmament of heaven.”
The waters are producing the birds here because the verse is
speaking about the amphibious birds that also dwell in the water. Interestingly
this would explain the anomalous terminology used in this verse for life,
namely, שֶׁרֶץ נֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה. The term sheretz is employed here, a strange choice of
words and not one used elsewhere for describing life. According to the
Rogatchover it is in fact, a most precise choice of linguistic style. This is
because the verse is speaking about a sheretz that lives in the water as
well as the air.
Whereas the verse in 2:19,
וַיִּצֶר יְהוָה אֱלֹהִים מִן-הָאֲדָמָה, כָּל-חַיַּת הַשָּׂדֶה ואֵת כָּל-עוֹף הַשָּׁמַיִם, וַיָּבֵא אֶל-הָאָדָם, לִרְאוֹת מַה-יִּקְרָא-לוֹ; וְכֹל אֲשֶׁר יִקְרָא-לוֹ הָאָדָם נֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה, הוּא שְׁמוֹ.
“God had formed out of the ground every beast of the
field and every bird of the sky”
which attributes birds as being formed from the earth and
having nothing to do with water is referring to all regular birds.
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