In Judaism, the eight sheratzim (Hebrew שמונה שרצים), typically translated as the "eight creeping things", are animals described in Leviticus 11:29–30, which have special laws in regard to ritual impurity and Shabbat.
Laws
While alive, the eight sheratzim do not convey impurity. However, when one of them has died and is touched or shifted by a human being, it conveys impurity to that person. If he were a priest (Kohen) of Aaron's lineage who touched the animal's corpse, he is forbidden to eat of the hallowed things until he first immerses his body in a mikveh and has waited until the sun has set.[1] During the time when the laws of ritual purity were performed by the Jewish nation, earthenware vessels into which one of the eight, dead creeping things had fallen, including within an earthenware oven, become unclean and unfit for sacred foods, and, therefore, would be broken and the food discarded (Leviticus 11:33).
In other applications of Jewish law, a person who either catches or inflicts a wound upon one of the eight creeping things on the Sabbath day becomes culpable by that act, but is held unaccountable and exempt if he had inflicted a wound upon any of the other harmful vermin and creeping things.[2]
The defilement associated with a 'creeping thing' has naught to do [with other things], except with eight [creeping things]. The creeping things in the Torah and, [particularly], what applies to them after their deaths, refer specifically to the ḥoled, and ʿaḫbar, and ṣav, and ʾanaqah, and koaḥ, and leṭaʾah, and ḥomeṭ, and tinšamet, but as for the remaining detestable things and those things that crawl which have died, even if they were of those things on the ground, such as frogs, and snakes, and scorpions, or of similar things, or of those things found at sea, even that which is called by one of these names, such as ʿaḫbar of the sea, they remain clean from any suspected defilement.[3]
The
Identification
| Hebrew Word | Saadia Gaon (Judeo-Arabic) |
Rashi (Old French) |
Septuagint (Greek) |
|---|---|---|---|
| החֹלד (ha-ḥoled) |
אלכ'לד Mole (Spalax ehrenbergi)[4] |
mustele Weasel (Mustela spp.)[5] |
γαλἡ (gale) Weasel[6][7] |
| העכבּר (ha-ʿaḫbar) |
אלפאר Mouse (Mus musculus)[4][8] |
xxx | μυς (mys) Mouse[6] |
| הצב (ha-ṣav) |
אלצ'ב Spiny-tailed lizard (Uromastyx aegyptius)[4] |
froit Toad (Bufo spp.)[5][9] |
κροκόδειλος (krokódeilos) Big lizard[6][10] |
| האנקה (ha-anaqah) |
אלורל Monitor lizard (Varanus spp.)[4] |
heriçon Hedgehog (Erinaceus concolor)[5] |
μυγάλη (mygáli) Shrew (Crocidura spp.)[6] |
| הכח (ha-koaḥ) |
אלחרד'ון Agama lizard (Agama spp.)[4] |
xxx | χαμαιλέων (chamailéon) Chameleon[6] |
| הלטאה (ha-leṭa’ah) |
אלעצ'איה[11] Fringe-toed lizard (Acanthodactylus spp.) (Lacerta spp.)[4] |
laiserde Lizard (Lacerta spp.)[5] |
καλαβώτης (kalavótis) Newt[6] |
| החמט (ha-ḥomeṭ) |
אלחרבא[12] Chameleon lizard (Chamaeleo spp.)[4] |
limace Slug (Limax spp.)[5] |
σαύρα (sávra) Lizard[6] |
| התנשמת (ha-tinšameṯ) |
אלסמברץ[13] Gecko lizard (Hemidactylus turcicus)[4] |
talpe Mole (Talpa spp.)[5] |
ασπάλαξ (aspálax) Mole[6] |
References
- ↑ Leviticus 22:4-7
- ↑ Danby, H., ed. (1977), The Mishnah, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 112–113, ISBN 0-19-815402-X, s.v. Shabbat 14:1
- ↑ Meiri, Menahem (2017). Novellae of Meiri (חדושי המאירי) (in Hebrew). Vol. 6. Zichron Yaakov: The Institute for Publication of Books and Study of Manuscripts, Torah Educational Center. p. 417 (Hullin 126a). OCLC 745169045.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Zohar Amar, Shmona Shratzim, Mekhon Moshe: Kiryat-Ono 2016, pp. 13, 66 ISBN 978-965-90818-9-9
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 Sefer Targum La'az (Translation of Foreign Words), Israel Gukovitzki, London 1992, p. 140. According to Amar, thought to be Mustela subpalmata or Mustela nivalis, species that were once endemic to Israel.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Zohar Amar, Shmona Shratzim, Mekhon Moshe: Kiryat-Ono 2016, p. 12 ISBN 978-965-90818-9-9.
- ↑ In Greek, the word gale is a general term including the weasel, ferret, and the stoat.
- ↑ By saying, "after its kind," it would include rats (Rattus), voles (Microtus), hamsters, gerbils, jerboas, etc.
- ↑ As for "frogs" and "toads," according to Maimonides (Mishnah commentary, Introduction to Seder Taharot), both reptiles are generically called in Hebrew צפרדע, but in Arabic dhafadaʿ, and neither one of them can convey uncleanness by touching, even after death. See Maimonides, Mishnah Taharot 5:1, where it is proven that a dead frog is not the same as one of the dead creeping things.
- ↑ Krokódeilos, not to be mistaken with the animal that is called by this name today, or crocodile. For in ancient Greek, any big lizard was called "krokódeilos."
- ↑ Or what is also spelt in Arabic: العظاية.
- ↑ Rabbi Yosef Qafih and Zohar Amar correct the Judeo-Arabic text to read "אלחרבא" (Arabic: حرباء) = Chameleon lizard. Qafih explains in his commentary on the Responsa and Halachic Decisions of Rabbi Abraham ben David of Posquières, responsum # 91 (note 2), p. 149, that what the inquirer incorrectly mentioned under the Old French name of limace (slug), based on Rashi's translation of חמט in Leviticus 11:30, the original meaning of the word is none other that chameleon lizard.
- ↑ Rabbi Saadia Gaon's reference here is to the lizard that is called in Arabic: سام أبرص .