B”H
“Chazaka” in Torah literature means that
if something happened three times in a similar way, you may presume that it was
not an accident but follows a particular pattern.
Natan Slifkin (NS) in his “rationalist blogspot”
explicitly refused three times to answer my questions which challenged his
published position.
A brief background:
1. I published an article on Dialogue Magazine
No. 3 (Fall 5773) about the identity of the Biblical shafan, where 15
reasons are presented to support the rabbit as the Biblical shafan and 6
reasons to disqualify the hyrax as a candidate.
Being that it is a short article, I did not
include in it an analysis of the objections that could be presented to my
identification of the rabbit or against my suggested definition of “maale gera
2. NS published in his blogspot an extensive
but non-systematic response to it.
3. I asked if he
was ready to discuss the contents of his letter.
4. He initially agreed.
5. I decided to begin the discussion by
pointing out to one of his published erroneous statements written in his
response, i.e.
“But rabbits do not, and
did not, live in Eretz Yisrael or anywhere nearby”.
6. Since I think that the above statement is
not accurate, I posted a comment including nine sources, among them, six
supporting the existence of native rabbits in Egypt .
The latter is particularly significant -even
according to my opponents’ position- for the following reasons:
a) Bene Yisrael lived in Egypt for more
than two hundred years.
b) Egypt is very close to Eretz
Yisrael and both countries were connected by a common trade route.
7. Then, a long comment-thread developed, where
most of my questions and challenges were repeatedly ignored.
Many evasive strategies were used by NS,
including omissions, distortions, taking texts out of context, citing mutilated
paragraphs, inadequate generalizations, unsupported claims, faulty cause-effect
connections, “appeal to authority”, proclaiming premature conclusions, sarcasm,
“straw man arguments”, etc.
8. Although NS initially agreed to discuss, now
despite a long list of unanswered questions, he has decided to stop answering
my challenges, questions and comments.
The unanswered points could be
summarized in my posts dated:
February 1, 2013 at 5:09 PM (20.1 IB)
February 2, 2013 at 1:44 AM
February 5, 2013 at 1:07
AM (first and second part)
February 11, 2013 at 8:24 AM (first and second part)
February 11, 2013 at 8:27 PM
February 14, 2013 at 12:09 AM
February 14, 2013 at 7:20 PM
Additional thoughts:
9. An important point is that even if no
evidence of rabbits in the ancient Middle East could be found, that would not
be a challenge to my suggestion that the Biblical Shafan is the rabbit,
since Bene Yisrael got acquainted with the rabbit when Moshe presented it to
them.
The inherent difficulty[1] in identifying these species and their signs
is evident from the very first moment when Hashem instructed Moshe Rabbenu
regarding them, and told him (Leviticus 11:2):
“Zot hachaya asher tochelu…” (This
is the living thing that ye may eat among all the beasts that are on the
earth).
The Talmud (Chulin 42a) reports that, as indicated by the words “this
is”, when enumerating the various species, the Almighty miraculously showed
Moshe each and every species[2] and exclaimed, “this one you may eat” or,
“this one you may not eat”.
It is also reported that Moshe did the same with Bene Yisrael.[3]
Thus, even in the remote case that Bene Yisrael were
not yet acquainted with the rabbit in Egypt, and
even if there were no rabbits in Eretz Yisrael, nevertheless David HaMelech and
Shelomo HaMelech were not speaking about an unfamiliar species.
Even if rabbits were absent in Eretz Yisrael in
Biblical times, and even in the whole Middle East ,
Am Yisrael -in any case- would become familiar with them in their journeys
through the exile-long centuries; thus it would be necessary to warn them against
their consumption.
10. Besides questions regarding rabbits in the
ancient Middle East , NS
a) NS wrote in his response to my article in
Dialogue Magazine:
“Some zoologists, however, have observed
that hyraxes do in fact regurgitate small quantities of food for remastication”,
IB:
Could you please provide the sources supporting
that?
NS never published any support to his
questionable statement. Nullius in verba.
b) IB: The hyrax cannot be the shafan, because even the
proponents of identifying the hyrax as the shafan acknowledge that there
is no evidence that the hyrax practices rumination, caecotrophy or even
merycism; thus, the hyrax is not “maaleh gerah”.
In any case, as explained elsewhere, merycism (practiced by the
kangaroo) is not equivalent to “maaleh gerah”, because nutritionally it
does not resemble rumination or caecotrophy.
NS never tried to engage in discussing with me to
refute this argument.
11. More challenges against NS’s
response could not be presented because the discussion was abruptly aborted by
NS on February 14, 2013 at 12:13 AM.
12. As a side note, it should be emphasized
that NS’s refusal to debate is very significant, because I agreed to
debate with NS in a clearly non-neutral environment, i.e. in his blogspot, a
forum where comments are moderated by NS himself, where he can decide what to
publish and what not, when to publish, when to erase a comment, allowing or not
bloggers using simultaneously double identities, etc. All this censorship and
manipulation is done without the public’s awareness.
13. Sadly, the number and intensity of ad
hominem attacks made by NS and other “bloggers” (not filtered by NS), were
a big hindrance to the flux of ideas. Needless to say, these attacks were not
reciprocated by me.
14. With NS´s refusal to continue the
discussion on the Biblical shafan we could integrate another “chazaka”.
In the past NS declined to debate the scientific
evidences in favor of “his” evolution of the species, then he refused to debate
the reproductive characteristics of lice and now the zoological characteristics
of the biblical shafan.
15. All the above, should give us something to
think about...
Finally, I do believe I have partially
presented my case for any objective reader.
Yitzchak Betech
P.S. Nevertheless, I am still willing B"H
to continue this interchange immediately after NS will start answering the
unanswered questions.
