Fish of Scale: Is the Livyasan Kosher?

Adapted from the writings of Dayan Yitzhak Grossman

January 2, 2025

AP News reports:

Meat from fin whales caught for the first time in nearly 50 years off Japan’s northern coast fetched up to more than $1,300 per kilogram (2.2 lbs) at auction Thursday, as officials try to keep the struggling industry alive.

Japan’s Fisheries Agency this year added fin whales to its list of three whale species that can be legally hunted as the country expands commercial whaling along its coast…

On Thursday, some 1.4 tons of fresh meat from several fin whales caught off Japan’s northern main island of Hokkaido was auctioned at the Sapporo fish market and the Kangei Maru’s home port of Shimonoseki.

In Shimonoseki, where 250 kilograms (550 lbs) of fin whale meat was flown from Hokkaido for the event, the tail meat—a delicacy known as “onomi”—fetched the day’s highest price at 200,000 yen ($1,312) per kilogram (2.2 lbs), according to the city’s fishery promotion department…

Nobuhiro Kishigami, a professor and expert on indigenous whaling at the National Museum of Ethnology in Osaka, said whale meat is eaten in some whaling towns but rarely in Tokyo or elsewhere in Japan. Whale meat is more expensive than beef or other meat.

“It is not a kind of food you have daily, but a delicacy…If it is not accessible and delicious, well, let’s leave the taste aside, it won’t sell if it is not cheap and good,” he said. “This is supposed to be business, and without large government subsidies, I think it would be extremely difficult for it to be sustainable.”[1]

To the best of this author’s knowledge, it is unanimously agreed that no whales are kosher. Acharonim imply that this is because aquatic creatures are only kosher if they have fins and scales.[2]

The livyasan (Leviathan) is a large and mighty sea creature that appears in several places in Tanach. The Gemara says, based on its description in Iyov,[3] that it is a kosher fish:

It was taught in a breisa: R’ Yosi ben Durmaskis says: Livyasan is a kosher fish, for it is stated about it: “Its pride is in the strength of its shields…under it are pointed shards.” “The strength of its shields”—these are its scales; “under it are pointed shards”—these are the fins with which it swims. (Because it has fins and scales, it is a kosher fish.)[4]

Elsewhere, the Gemara says that the livyasan will be served to tzadikim in the future:

Rav Yehuda said in the name of Rav: Every creature that Hakadosh Baruch Hu created in His world, He created them both male and female. Also the livyasan, the straight snake; and the livyasan, the curved snake; He created them male and female. If they would mate (and bear offspring), they would destroy the entire world. What did Hakadosh Baruch Hu do? He gelded the male, and He killed the female and salted it for the righteous in the Future Era, as it says, “And He killed the serpent (tanin) that was in the sea.”[5]

In light of this latter Gemara, the Maharsha (R’ Shmuel Eidels) wonders why R’ Yosi ben Durmaskis felt it necessary to establish the kashrus of the livyasan via inference from psukim, since it is surely inconceivable that Hashem will feed tzadikim something that isn’t kosher. He suggests that R’ Yosi ben Durmaskis was only inferring that livyasan is a fish rather than some other creature, like a waterfowl.[6]

But the Lev Aryeh (R’ Aryeh Yehudah Leib of Podhaitz) and the Maharatz (R’ Zvi Hirsch) Chayes reject the Maharsha’s assumption that it is inconceivable that tzadikim will eat something that is currently not kosher. They cite Midrashim in support of the idea that the current rules of kashrus will be abrogated in the future, including one having to do with the livyasan itself:

R’ Yudan son of R’ Shimon said: The behemoth and the livyasan are beasts of contest for the righteous in the Future Era; and whoever did not see such a contest of beasts of the nations of the world in this world will merit to see it in the World to Come.

How will they be slaughtered? The behemoth will thrust into the livyasan with its horns and tear it, and the livyasan will thrust into the behemoth with its fins and pierce it. But the Chachamim say: Is this a valid shechitah? Did we not learn in a Mishnah: “All may slaughter, and we may slaughter with anything, and we may always slaughter, except with a harvesting sickle, a saw, and teeth, because they tear (rather than cut).” R’ Avin bar Kahana said: Hakadosh Baruch Hu said, “A new instruction will go forth from Me (Yeshayah 51:4)”—i.e., a novel, anomalous instruction will go forth from Me.^[7]^,[8]

The Maharatz Chayes cites the explanation of the Maharash (R’ Shmuel Yaffe Ashkenazi) on this Midrash that it refers to a merely temporary abrogation (hora’as sha’ah) of the laws of shechitah,[9] and he argues that it is similarly possible for the livyasan to be a nonkosher fish that will be eaten by tzadikim in the future as a hora’as sha’ah.

Another putative assertion of Chazal that a current kashrus prohibition will be abrogated in the future is a statement widely cited in the name of a Midrash that the pig is called chazir because in the future Hashem will return it (asid lehachziro) to Klal Yisrael.[10] While some have understood this statement literally, as an assertion that the consumption of pork will be permitted in the future—the Or Hachaim (R’ Chaim ibn Atar) assumes this will be a consequence of the pig becoming a ruminant[11]—others have interpreted it metaphorically, and some have noted that such a statement is not found in any known Midrash and reject it as inauthentic.[12]

The ideas that “a new instruction will go forth” in the future (according to those who don’t hold that this is a temporary dispensation) and that the consumption of pork will become permitted (according to those who don’t hold that this is because the pig will become a ruminant) seem to violate the fundamental tenet of Yahadus that the Torah is eternal and will never undergo modification. A detailed discussion of this issue is beyond the scope of this article, but for references to some of the considerable literature on the topic, discussing the aforementioned sources along with various others that seem to indicate that the Torah will undergo changes in the future—such as the Gemara’s assertion that “mitzvos will be nullified in the future”[13]—see the sources cited in the footnotes.[14]

[1]Mari Yamaguchi. Fresh fin whale meat is auctioned for the first time in decades in Japan. AP News. https://apnews.com/article/japan-whaling-meat-fin-8e454678bf9c3418cd54ad60ebfcdb66.

[2]Shu”t Mekom Shmuel siman 74; Yad Efraim Y.D. 115:4. I am indebted to my chavrusa R’ Yitzchak Mandel for bringing these sources to my attention.

[3]Iyov 40:25-41:26. The word livyasan also appears earlier in Iyov (3:8), but while some understand the term there to have its usual meaning of a large aquatic creature, others understand the term there differently: see R’ Yosef Karo, Ibn Ezra, Rabeinu Tam, the Ramban, the Ralbag, R’ Moshe Kimchi, and the Ri MiTrani.

[4]Chulin 67b.

[5]Bava Basra 74b.

[6]Maharsha Chidushei Agados Chulin ibid. For various other answers to this question, see Chidushei Chasam Sofer ibid. s.v. Livyasan dag tahor hu, and here (citing the Chazon Ish).

[7]Vayikra Rabbah 13:3.

[8]Lev Aryeh Chulin ibid.; Maharatz Chayes ibid.

[9]Yefei To’ar Vayikra parsha 13 siman 3.

[10]Citations of a version of this Midrash in the writings of the Rishonim include Chidushei HaRitva Kidushin 49b and Rosh Amanah perek 13.

[11]Or Hachaim Vayikra 13:3.

[12]Yefei To’ar Vayikra parsha 13 siman 3. Cf. Sefer Hametzareif (Kunitz) cheilek 1 siman 74 (cited in Taharas Hamayim ma’areches hachess os 20 and Sdei Chemed Klalim Pe’as Hasadeh ma’areches hachess klal 8); Shu”t Ateress Paz cheilek 1 kerech 2 Y.D. siman 6; R’ Eliyahu Bracha, Ha’im Hachazir Yihyeh Mutar LeYisrael Ba’achilah Le’asid Lavo? Meishiv Bahalacha; Alim Litrufah gilyon 1161, Bechoros 24a.