Are Flying Camels Real?! (article summary)
My article for this past Shabbat was still on Makkot, and a follow-up to my article from last week, Worrying About Flying Camels.
You can read this most recent article on Substack (with hyperlinks), flipdocs, the Jewish Link website, or in the image below.
A quick outline of the main points.
Last week, two sugyot discussed flying camels, gamla parcha in Aramaic. But zoologists and Jewish rationalists would say that this does not exist. Furthermore, a Mishnah in Shevuot states that someone who swears he saw a flying camel (gamel pore’ach ba’avir, Hebrew) is swearing to something impossible and making a vain oath. Thus, even internal to Chazal, these should not exist.
Indeed, Rashi explains gamla parcha as speed, not flight. Unlike other sugyot that require vertical elevation, here all that is needed is speed.
A gemara in Megillah states that Sages don’t know the meaning of הָאֲחַשְׁתְּרָנִים בְּנֵי הָרַמָּכִים. Rav Yaakov Emden consulted old Persian “history” books and found reference to a two-humped camel (which the man rides between like a saddle) with eight legs that is really fast. Needless to say, some of these facts are a bit off.
What about variant texts? The Ramban quotes the gemara with gamla parsa, with a samech. These are Persian camels which are fast. And a gemara elsewhere contrasts Persian and Arabian camels in terms of their characteristics, yet reckoned the same species.
I’d favor reading it as gamla pritza, a wild or crazed camel. One such camel attacked Ravina in the marketplace of Mechoza and he was miraculously saved. Whenever encountering that area, he would bless Hashem who saved him, as well as for a separate miracle involving willows.
I would suggest that he should have said אָשִׁירָה לַה’ כִּי גָמַל עָלָי. Or thinking about it now, he should have said Birchat HaGamal.
Now, Mechoza is Rava’s hometown, and he is the one speaking about gamla parcha which I claim should be gamla pritza.
Finally, in the article, they shrunk the AI-generated image of a realistic eight-legged winged camel. It is a good one, so I will repeat it here:
While AI is no longer drawing people with six fingers, here it still clearly struggles. Yes, there are eight legs, but they certainly should not be distributed like this! Three legs in the front and five in the back? No wonder it evolved wings — it could not elegantly move otherwise.