Faith
Is the Leviathan a Fish
Question
Greetings, at the end of the chapter Eilu Tereifot (67b), it is stated:
"It was taught: Rabbi Yose ben Durmaskit says, the Leviathan is a kosher fish, as it is said: The pride of his scales are shields (Job 41:7), under him are sharp potsherds (ibid. 22); 'the pride of his scales' - these are the scales on it, 'under him are sharp potsherds' - these are the fins with which it flies." My friend claims that the Leviathan is a mammal and not a fish. But from the Gemara it is clear otherwise. And when Hashem brought Jonah the prophet a large fish, it says there explicitly that it was the Leviathan, if I remember correctly. My question is: is the Leviathan a mammal or a fish?
Thank you for your response.
Answer
Greetings and blessings,
The Leviathan is, of course, a mammal.
But the "Leviathan" mentioned in the midrashim is not the Leviathan known to us today, but rather a name for a giant creature that was created at the beginning of creation and has since become extinct, as Rashi wrote:
"In words of aggadah, it is the Leviathan and its mate, which He created male and female, and He killed the female and salted her for the righteous in the World to Come, so that if they were to multiply, the world would not endure in front of them" (Genesis 1:22)
The midrash says that this creature is reserved for the righteous in the World to Come:
"Rabba said in the name of Rabbi Yoḥanan: In the future, Hashem will prepare a banquet for the righteous from the flesh of the Leviathan" (Bava Batra 75a), and therefore the sages discussed its kashrut, and proved from the verse that it has scales.
The Chatam Sofer wrote regarding the Leviathan mentioned in the Gemara (Bava Batra 74b):
"Rav Yehuda said in the name of Rav: Whatever Hashem created in His world, He created them male and female; so too the Leviathan, the snake of the straight path, and the Leviathan, the crooked snake, He created them male and female, and were they to mate with one another they would destroy the entire world. What did Hashem do? He castrated the male and killed the female and salted her for the righteous in the future to come" - it emerges that the banquet of the Leviathan will be from the female, and it is possible that the male is forbidden and the female permitted, as Tosafot wrote in Nidda regarding the chicken of the marsh, and it is certainly proper to discuss the male - whether it is a kosher fish.
The verse in Job refers to this giant creature that has become extinct. It may have been a species of dinosaur, according to what is said in the prophet: "Upon Leviathan the serpent of the straight path, and upon Leviathan the crooked serpent" (Isaiah 51:9); from this, perhaps it is possible to say that it belonged to the family of snakes/reptiles.
The Chatam Sofer (on Chullin 67b) asks why it is said that this creature has fins, after it was already mentioned in Job that it has scales (since we received by tradition the principle that anything with scales also has fins, so in Job it was not necessary to write fins as well). The Chatam Sofer answers that this principle was said only regarding fish, whereas the Leviathan under discussion is an animal and not a fish.
From this it follows that the Gemara you cited is dealing with the status of the scales and kashrut of this wondrous creature (which is not a fish) and no longer exists in our world, but will be revealed again in the future.
With blessings,
Daniel Balas
