In Your Dreams!

by Eliezer Segal

Compared to some other topics in Jewish religious law, the Torah’s criteria for kosher and non-kosher fish seem very straightforward: “Any creature in the water that has fins and scales, those you may eat. But any that do not have fins and scales are an abomination for you.” This distinction effectively excludes all shellfish, mussels and the like. 

And yet the sages managed to complicate the issue by raising questions about the precise classification of “scales”; such as: how they adhere to the fish’s skin or body, and how permanently they have to be attached. In general, Jewish law was permissive with regard to fish whose scales become visible only at an advanced stage of their development, drop off after the fish is removed from the water, or cannot be easily scraped off. Nevertheless, there were still some cases where the pertinent biological details were not entirely obvious; and therefore different communities evolved distinct traditions as to whether or not certain species were kosher.

A disagreement of this sort arose with regard to an aquatic creature known as the “barbuta” or “balbuta.” Though it had visible scales during the active period of its aquatic life, they dropped off when it was extracted from its natural environment. In keeping with the Talmud’s guidelines about such cases, the most eminent authorities in medieval Europe classified the barbuta as a kosher species. 

It is not quite clear which species they were referring to, but a likely candidate would be the turbot, some of whose European strains lack conventional scales. Indeed, the permissibility of turbot became the subject of a longstanding disagreement between the Jewish communities of Amsterdam and the Hague. Furthermore, the high likelihood of confusing the kosher and non-kosher strains have induced some—but not all—authorities to extend the prohibition to otherwise permissible fish merely to avoid confusing them with the non-kosher kinds.

In his compendium of Jewish law the Or Zarua‘, the thirteenth-century scholar Rabbi Isaac ben Moses of Vienna told of a tradition he had received from Rabbi Judah the Pious, the foremost figure in the mystical school of German pietists (Hasidei Ashkenaz) who admonished, “Anyone who eats balbuta will not merit eating from the leviathan,” the sea creature that would otherwise be served to the righteous in the next world. 

In this connection, he told a tale about Rabbi Ephraim of Regensburg who had ruled that the balbuta is kosher—but then reversed his position after experiencing a disturbing dream. In that dream, he was served a plate full of creepy creatures. When he expressed his irritation at the person who served them, the latter retorted that there was no justification for the rabbi’s vexation, seeing as he himself had declared such creatures permitted! At that point, the indignant Rabbi Ephraim woke up and recalled that he had permitted balbuta on that very day. He immediately commenced smashing all the pots and dishes from which they had been eaten.

The fourteenth-century scholar Rabbi Samson ben Zadok, whose Tashbez compendium assembled teachings from the school of Rabbi Meir of Rothenburg, provided a more graphic version of the story, in which the mysterious figure in Rabbi Ephraim’s dream was “an old man with flowing white hair, a distinguished countenance and a long beard” who admonished him: “‘All these things are just as kosher as the creeping things that you ate [not just ‘permitted’] today.’ When he awakened he realized that the prophet Elijah had appeared  to him.” The tale concluded: “May blessings rest upon the head of any person who refrains from eating them.”

But some halakhic authorities were less than impressed by Rabbi Ephraim’s readiness to rescind his initial decision because of a dream. Such was the view of Rabbi Ezekiel Landau and his son Samuel Segal Landau, authors of the influential responsa collection Noda‘ bi-Yhudah. 

An acrimonious controversy had arisen in 18th-century Prague in connection with the sterlet, the species of sturgeon from which caviar is derived. Sterlet possesses scale-like protrusions that attach directly to its body and not to its skin, and cannot be scraped off easily, as required according to some early rabbinic authorities. Rabbi Ezekiel Landau personally experimented on a dried sterlet and was convinced that its scales qualify to render the fish kosher. However, he was attacked by many rabbis who disagreed with his decision. The disputing sides invoked the old case of Rabbi Ephraim of Regensburg and the barbuta. 

The notion that dreams could be a factor in deciding questions of religious law was abhorrent to the Landaus. They assumed that the permissive rulings of the Tosafot and other early commentators had been based on thorough analysis of the relevant texts and on empirical scientific observation of the fish species. Rabbi Samuel sprinkled his responsum on the topic with scriptural and talmudic quotes about the unreliability of dreams. 

Rabbi Landau argued that, for all Rabbi Ephraim’s piety and righteousness, it assuredly could not be the dream that persuaded him to revoke his position. After all, such dreams did not appear to any of the other authorities who had permitted barbuta. Rabbi Ephraim would never have retracted if there were not concrete factual and logical justification for the admonition that was voiced in the dream. In this particular case, he linked it to his having permitted the barbuta; but if it had been proven to Rabbi Ephraim that the barbuta had scales, as had been evident to the authors of the Tosafot, then he would certainly have applied his dream to some other issue on which he had taken a permissive stand. Yet in the end there is no justification for basing a decision on a mere dream. 

The mainstream of talmudic discourse has generally preferred the Noda‘ bi-Yhudah’s rational, rule-bound approach when deciding questions of religious law. 

Nevertheless, the persistence of dreamers like Rabbi Ephraim of Regensburg continues to add some mystical spice to the flavoursome chowder of talmudic discourse.

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