Shabbos 28b
The Mysterious One-Horned Animal in Adam's First Korban
Part of Ein Yaakov · 4:45
A short piece on the unusual animal (possibly a unicorn-like creature) the Gemara says Adam offered as his first korban, and the translation debate over the word 'tachash.'
Audio Transcript
thank the Aibershter, the way he thanked the Aibershter is through a korban. So he brought one. I don't know why, it's obviously strange. What did what did the animal do, you know? What did the animal, what do you mean what did the animal do? It was the best thing for the animal. Bring a korban? No, for the animal to bring a korban is a problem. There was no פסוק. By Noach there was a פסוק that he could do it, by Adam I don't know I don't know why why there's no פסוק. By Adam HaRishon that by Adam HaRishon should bring a korban? Who told him to bring a korban? What? Not sure about 2,000 years. No, he learned Torah there. But he knew which was tahor and which was not. How did he know which was kasher? Yeah. How did he know which was kasher? Look at the feet. How did he know to look at the feet? So, it could be that he heard it from from the Aibershter. I mean, sure. The Torah, how did they get the Torah for? How did they learn Chanoch learned Torah, how did Mesushelach learn Torah? Adam HaRishon also learned Torah, it says. אסתכל באורייתא וברא עלמא, but The Aibershter looked in Torah. No, but he called the חיות names and everything. Yeah, so he knew Torah. So he knew this. So he knew to give a korban. Yeah, he has the first day he brought it later, before the chet? So, this animal had one horn in this in in the forehead. Now
when it says ותיטב לה' משור פר, it says if you if you learn Torah and do mitzvot, it's even better to ה' from a שור פר, from an ox, מקרין מפריס. And since it says מקרין, it means he had one קרן. So the Gemara says, מקרין תרתי משמע, מקרין is לשון רבים, so the Gemara says אמר רב נחמן בר יצחק מקרן כתיב. It says without a י', so it's מקרן, so it had one קרן. So since like we find a בהמה with one קרן by Adam Harishon, and definitely it was kosher a בהמה, because you cannot bring a treifah a בהמה to as a korban, so probably it's assumed that the תחש, which also had one horn, was also a kosher it. So then the Gemara says if you're using that as a ראיה, לפשוט מינה דמין בהמה הוא. So bring a ראיה to the בהמה, because you could only bring a korban a בהמה, not a חיה. So then that ראיה is true. So the Gemara says no, כיוון דאיכא קרש דמין חיה הוא, there is another kind of animal which is called קרש, and it says on the bottom Einhorn, that's unicorn, I know, that is a מין חיה. ולית ליה אלא חד קרנא, only has one קרן, so ממילא now already you have two kinds: one that he did, one that Adam Harishon for sure was a kosher it. Then you have another one which was not, I mean which for sure was a בהמה. This one was for sure a חיה, so now we don't know which one was the תחש, שמא מין בהמה ומין חיה, so we don't know by the תחש if it's a בהמה or a חיה, it stayed. So we proved that it was a kosher animal, but we though still don't know we didn't what it means to be, whether it was a חיה or a בהמה. A horse? A seal? So what's the problem if it's Why not a חיה? A חיה is not Yeah. Yeah.
Why does one translate it into a seal? Into what? A seal. What's a seal? No, which what's translated as a seal? A תחש. Oh, I have no idea. Who translates it? The English English King James Version? No, no. King James Version. So, so what did Adam Harishon bring? Did he bring a בהמה or a חיה? How did he bring a חיה? You can't bring a חיה for a korban, right. Therefore, forgot to say. But then it's not necessarily So then that is a בהמה, so the תחש is a בהמה also. is a חיה, is a בהמה or a חיה, is a, oh, it was kasher. But we don't know if this was a חיה or a תחש. Adam brought the Einhorn, the Einhorn was an example No, it's not. He didn't bring the Einhorn, he didn't bring that in the korban. You see, since there is that's חיה, his was definitely a בהמה. So since we find two, and here we find a תחש, which is similar, but we don't know to which one. So mimela we don't know if it's a בהמה or a חיה. Jewish family name, Einhorn. Probably comes from this, no? Yes, sure. Just like you have a first name חיה, no? a חיה הסברא is a חיה. A שור is a בהמה, and a חמור is a חיה. No, that's Chaim. Yeah, but חיה, but it's a חיה, an animal also. You have a Keresh is a single-horned deer. A guy gave the name of his child ברוך הבא מלך המשיח. And he, yeah, and he called, no, a girl, and he call and he called her ראשי תיבות, בהמה. So, they asked him, how do you call her בהמה? He said, if you can call חיה, why can't you call בהמה? He's right. Well, if you have a person who is called Mashiach, no, they have with Spanish, they have people who are called Mashiach, as a name. Yeah, Mashiach. No, no, his name wasn't Mashiach. His name was his name was whatever, מגזירה. No, but
there are people named Mashiach, what do you We have Mashiach Hadad, no? There's a guy Mashiach. See, his father his father was Rafael Hadad, who is a very chashuve Yid in in Scranton, and he helped a lot of a lot of people in Bukhara.