JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

ganism joined by its navel like a plant to the ground. Legends
about such an organism were current among various nations
(see R. Patai, Adam ve-Adamah, 1 (1942), 216ff.). Mermaids,
the legendary half-human, half-fish beings, also figure in the
halakhah, the unclean “living creatures that are in the waters”
(Lev. 11:10) being interpreted as “including mermaids,” which
however, unlike a human corpse, do not communicate uncleanness
when dead (Sifra, Shemini, Parashah 3). The sages
who quoted these halakhot or statements were influenced by
the leading scientists of the time, such as Aristotle, Galen, and
others, who had confirmed these “facts” and to whom there
undoubtedly applied the principle that “if someone tells you
that there is wisdom among the non-Jews, believe him” (Lam.
R. 2:13). As it deals with all spheres of life and with theoretical
subjects, the halakhah also on occasion incorporated legendary,
fictitious ideas. In the field of “science” the sages were
ready to accept various views current among their contemporaries
(but proved in our day to be without foundation) and
did not hesitate to give expression to them even if they were
contrary to their accepted views.
To this province belong halakhot relating to *mixed species
(kilayim). Despite the assumption inherent in the Bible
that in the six days of creation all organisms were fully formed,
statements of the sages in the aggadah and the halakhah refer
to the production of new species by hybridization and grafting.
The Tosefta and the Jerusalem Talmud of tractate Kilayim
cite many “facts” about the formation of a third species by
grafting two species of flora, some systematically very remote
from each other (see *Biology; it is now evident that no new
species can be produced by grafting). Thus, for example, it is
asserted that, by sowing together the seeds of an apple and a
watermelon a third species, the *melon (called in Greek melopepon,
the apple-melon), is obtained (TJ, Kil. 1:2, 27a), even
as a dangerous creature called arvad is produced by mating a
snake with a species of *lizard (Ḥul. 127a). Another tradition
holds that after Anah the son of Zibeon had produced a *mule,
which is a dangerous animal, by crossing a stallion and a sheass
(םִמֵי, a hemi-onos, i.e., a half-ass; cf. Gen. 36:24), “the Holy
One blessed be He appointed a ḥakhina [a poisonous snake]
which He mated with a ḥardon [a species of lizard] to produce
a ḥavarbar,” a species of noxious animal whose bite proved
fatal to Anah (TJ, Ber. 8:6, 12b). This story is mentioned in a
discussion on whether mixed species originated during the six
days of creation (ibid.; Tosef. Ber. 6:11). On this subject there is
the view of the tanna R. Yose (Pes. 54a) that “two things God
originally planned to create on the eve of the Sabbath [of the
creation] but were not created until the termination of the
Sabbath, and at the termination of the Sabbath the Holy One
blessed be He granted Adam knowledge of a kind like the divine,
whereupon he took two stones, rubbed them together,
and fire issued from them [cf. the tale of Prometheus]; he also
took two [heterogeneous] animals and crossed them, and from
them came forth the mule.” Thus R. Yose held that hybridization
represents a remarkable wisdom granted to man, who
is prone to produce new organisms, “like the divine creator.”
evolution
Another aggadah, which declares that God Himself “changes
His world once every seven years,” mentions various animals,
one of which is replaced by the other (TJ, Shab. 1:3, 3b). The
reference here may be to seven years of God, one of whose
days is a thousand years (see above; although there is a statement
(BK 16b) that “the male hyena (עובצ) becomes a bat after
seven years,” etc.).
Proofs of Evolution
The existence in prehistoric times of gigantic animals, then
extinct, is alluded to in biblical verses referring to the dragon,
the *leviathan, the Rahab, and others. Having perhaps found
traces of the footprints of primeval animals or remains of their
skeletons (footprints of prehistoric reptiles have been discovered
near Jerusalem in recent times), the ancients had their
imaginations stirred to describe these huge animals and explain
the reasons for their extinction.
One of the crucial problems confronting the evolutionists
was the question of the transition from ape to man. In the
literature of the sages there are allusions to a connection between
man and ape. Thus the amoraim Rav and Samuel held
divergent views on the nature of the rib from which woman
was created, the one holding that it was a tail (Ber. 61a). In
the opinion of R. Judah: “[God] made him [i.e., man] a tail
like an animal and then removed it from him for his honor”
(Gen. R. 14:12). Even Adam was not the first man, for “974
generations preceded the creation of the world and they
were swept away in a trice because they were evil” (Mid. Ps.
to 90:13; cf. Shab. 88b). Nor was Adam anatomically perfect,
since he was a hermaphrodite (Gen. R. 8:1); the fingers of his
hands were joined together, and it was only from Noah onward
that people were born with separated fingers (Mid. Avkir
to Gen. 5:29; and similarly in Tanh. to ibid.). In the days of
Enosh there took place a moral degeneration; human beings
changed, and “their faces became like apes” (Gen. R. 23:6; cf.
Sanh. 109b). All these statements are based on a homiletical
interpretation of biblical verses, but underlying them was
probably the view of the tanna or amora which he expressed
in this manner. Finally there is a statement that attests to an
observation and a conclusion drawn from the realm of comparative
anatomy: the amora R. Samuel of Cappadocia concluded
from a common feature in fishes and birds that the latter,
too, were created “out of alluvial mud”: this can be proved
“from the fact that birds have on their legs scales like those
of fishes” (Ḥul. 27b).
At the beginning of the 20th century the naturalist De
Vries (1848–1935) drew attention to the fact that in some flora
and fauna characteristics suddenly appear which, though not
present in their progenitors, are transmitted by heredity to the
progeny. These changes, known as mutations, for the most
part small and fortuitous, are in the view of scholars the basis
of the evolutionary processes. Through the accumulation of
these mutations, organisms were separated during millions of
years of evolution into strains, species, and higher systematic
groups. According to Neo-Darwinism the fortuitous muta-
ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 6 587