Last week’s column (“Worrying About Flying Camels”) discussed flying camels and Makkot 5a. Rava made a series of statements exploring how conspiring witnesses are established, based on time and space. If witness set A said they witnessed the murder in the morning in Sura, then witnesses set B say, “You were with us that evening in Nehardea,” then we see if set A could have traveled from Sura to Nehardea in that time span; if not, A are eidim zomemim. The Talmudic narrator objects that this is obvious, and explains that Rava is precluding consideration of the remote possibility of גַמְלָא פָּרָחָא, a flying camel. Rava also discusses the possibility of flying camels in Yevamot 116a, as a way someone in Nehardea could have given a get that same day in Sura.

A Jewish rationalist would say there’s no such thing as a flying camel. Zoologists and paleozoologists would presumably reject their existence. We don’t see other large winged mammals; griffins are mythological. Further, the mishna (Shevuot 29a) discusses types of vain oaths, including where one swears to something impossible, such as, “If I did not see a camel flying through the air,” (גָּמָל שֶׁפּוֹרֵחַ בָּאֲוִיר) or “If I did not see a snake like the beam of an olive press.” Chazal didn’t think these existed, so how could Rava consider it a real possibility?

Grounded Alternatives

Rashi in Makkot (and Yevamot similarly) explains that the camel doesn’t fly. Rather, this is a species of camel which are light in their running like a flying bird. I would note that nothing in the sugyot requires actual movement through the air, just fast travel. That’s why an alternative in Yevamot is “kefitzat haderech.” Indeed, there is a sugya which requires levitation. Eruvin 43a describes the seven rulings of Rav Chisda said on Shabbat morning in Sura and heard toward the conclusion of Shabbat in Pumbedita, with a suggestion that Eliyahu HaNavi wasn’t restricted from traveling outside the techum (Shabbat boundary), and doing so really quickly, because techum does not apply 10 tefachim above the ground. Alternatively, Yosef the demon related them. True, riding an animal is prohibited on Shabbat so a flying camel wasn’t a possibility, but we still get the sense that levitation and quick travel are different.

In Megillah 18a, Ravina points out that the Talmudic Sages don’t know that translation of הָאֲחַשְׁתְּרָנִים בְּנֵי הָרַמָּכִים in the Megillah, yet still fulfill when hearing the Megillah read. In a gloss on that sugya, Rav Yaakov Emden writes, “I have seen in the words of the chroniclers of countries that they are still known and found in the land of Persia, and they are a type of camel with two humps on their back (which a man rides between them, just as on a saddle). They have eight legs, and they are extremely swift racers, and it appears that certainly they were recognized and known to the authors of the Talmud Bavli (and so too, it is apparent that they were known to the Tanna of Eretz Yisrael, as is written (Mishna Kelaim 8:5), ‘The רַמָּךְ is permitted’—they are ¹אֲחַשְׁתְּרָנִים בְּנֵי הָרַמָּכִים. And without a doubt, the גַמְלָא פָּרָחָא mentioned many times in the Gemara is one of them. If so, that which they (Ravina) said, “Do we know?” perforce the explanation is that we don’t know the etymology of the words הָאֲחַשְׁתְּרָנִים בְּנֵי הָרַמָּכִים, to know why they were called by these names, what language they were coined from and what their implication is.”

There are interesting details here. What Rav Emden describes as a Persian camel is what we call a Bactrian camel, with two humps—as opposed to the dromedary, with one hump. Encountering it through books rather than direct experience, he thinks the man rides between the humps, and that it has eight legs, perhaps, matching the doubled humps and, perhaps, making them twice as fast. I don’t know which books he refers to, but mythological books describe the famous “sarabha” as an “ashtapad,” having eight legs (four of which are upward), and camel related. The key is that they are fast. Alas, I don’t think that these really existed. Maybe they need not truly exist for Rava to speculate based on their supposed existence.

Persian and Wild Camels

Perhaps the Gemara never described these as flying camels, but גַמְלָא פָּרָחָא is a scribal error. Indeed, in the Chidushei HaRamban on Makkot 5a, Ramban quotes Makkot as מהו דתימא ניחוש לגמלא פרסא קמ”ל, and quotes Yevamot as דילמ› גמל› פרסא. This samech could be confused by a sofer (writer), or misheard by a garsan (translator), as a chet. This brings us back to Rav Yaakov Emden’s Persian camels.

Indeed, Rava bar Rav Chanan—a fourth-generation Pumbeditan Amora and, thus, Rava’s contemporary—discusses Persian camels in Bava Kamma 55a. Shmuel said that the domestic goose and wild goose are diverse kinds to one another, and Rava bar Rav Chanan objected: “Why? If because this one’s beak is long and that one’s beak is short, then regarding a Persian camel (גַּמְלָא פָּרְסָא) and an Arabian camel (גַמְלָא טַיָּיעָא), this one’s neck is thick and that one’s neck is thin, so they should be considered diverse kinds!”

Alternatively, it could be a גַּמְלָא פְּרִיצָא, a wild camel. In Brachot 54a, Mar bar Ravana—a fourth-generation contemporary of Rava—was walking in the marketplace of Mechoza. A wild camel, גַּמְלָא פְּרִיצָא, attacked him. Peritza either means that it was unbridled, vicious/crazed or wild². The wall cracked open, he went inside it and was, thus, saved. Thereafter, whenever he came to the Mechozan marketplace, he recited, “Blessed … Who performed a miracle with me with the camel and in the willows³.” Personally, I would have said אָשִׁירָה לַה’ כִּי גָמַל עָלָי, but regardless, he was saved from a wild camel in Mechoza, which was where Rava was born and eventually led an academy.

Thus, the camels needn’t fly, even on an allegorical level. Perhaps Persian camels or crazed camels can run really fast—just as racing camels can reach 40 kilometres/hour—though not for sustained durations. Rava/the Talmudic narrator envisions using a single crazed camel—or even switching camels at stations like the Pony Express—to make a two-day trip in a matter of hours.

Rabbi Dr. Joshua Waxman teaches computer science at Stern College for Women, and his research includes programmatically finding scholars and scholastic relationships in the Babylonian Talmud.

1 Indeed, see Yerushalmi Kalaim 8:4 where Rabbi Eleazar ben Pedat draws this connection.

2 Munich 95 has פריקא, but I’d guess that was influenced by the next word, אִיתְפָּרַקָא.

3 “The willows” refers to a separate miraculous salvation.