Does Tosafos Prove the Chilazon Must Thrash?

This objection sounds nice at first, but it gets shaky once you read the Tosafos inside.

Tosafos writes:

הכא שמא חלזון דרכו לפרכס ולקרב מיתתו

Meaning:

“Here, perhaps the ḥilazon’s derech is to thrash, or convulse, and bring its death closer.”

That word שמא is doing a lot of work.

Tosafos is not saying, “The ḥilazon definitely thrashes.” He is not giving us a field guide to the ḥilazon. He is trying to explain a sugya in Shabbos. Maybe the ḥilazon, once caught, moves around in a way that speeds up its death. Maybe that is why the Gemara has to deal with both trapping and wounding it.

Maybe yes. Maybe no.

So already, this is not a strong biological test. It is not: “Find me a creature that thrashes, and if it does not thrash, throw it out.” That is too much weight to put on one שמא in Tosafos.

But Tosafos does not stop there. He continues:

וצ״ע דבירושלמי משמע דצד חלזון לא מיחייב משום צידה

Meaning:

“Still, this needs further analysis, because from the Yerushalmi it sounds like one who traps the ḥilazon is not chayav for tzad.”

That line is the real problem for the objection.

The Yerushalmi in Shabbos discusses the same basic case: a person traps a ḥilazon and wounds it. One opinion says he is chayav two: one for tzad and one for netilas neshamah. Another opinion says he is chayav only one, for netilas neshamah.

Then the Yerushalmi says:

ולית לה צידה

“There is no chiyuv of trapping here.”

Now stop and think about that for a second. The objection wants to build a proof from Tosafos that the ḥilazon must be a thrashing creature, and that this creates a problem for Murex. But Tosafos himself ends by pointing to a Yerushalmi that sounds like trapping the ḥilazon may not even be a chiyuv of tzad.

That is not a small detail. That is Tosafos saying the whole matter needs iyun.

There is another mix-up that sometimes creeps in here. The Yerushalmi later mentions the keresh, the one-horned animal connected to the Mishkan. But that is not the Yerushalmi telling us what the ḥilazon was. The keresh is part of a separate discussion about where the melachah of trapping appears in the Mishkan. It is not a description of the ḥilazon.

So the argument does not really land.

At most, Tosafos raises a possibility that the ḥilazon may thrash or convulse after being caught. He says שמא. He does not turn that into a siman. And right away, he brings the Yerushalmi, which sounds like there may be no chiyuv tzad by the ḥilazon at all.

That is a pretty weak place to build a disproof of Murex.