Rashi, Chullin 85b on Tolaas

Bottom Line

The Raavya describes the Chilazon as a תולעת (tola’as) and states that it has no עור (or), in the context of liability for chaburah on Shabbos. Neither expression identifies the creature as a literal “worm” in the modern zoological sense.

The word תולעת is a broad traditional term rather than a precise species designation. Rashi, for example, calls the flax-eating יאניבא a תולעת, yet identifies it in Old French as טייני״א (teigne), which Otzar La’azei Rashi translates as עש — “moth.” A creature that Rashi calls a tola’as can therefore belong to an entirely different zoological group from what an English reader pictures when hearing “worm.”

This helps explain Rashi’s terminology elsewhere as well. When Rashi refers to the Chilazon generically as a תולעת, that need not describe its precise zoological form. Where he supplies the Old French לימצ״א / limace, however, the vernacular term is more specific: limace/limacon was used for snails. The generic Hebrew category and the more specific foreign-language identification are therefore not contradictory.

Likewise, אין לו עור means that the Chilazon lacks or—skin or hide—in the halachic context of chaburah; it does not mean that it lacks a shell. A soft-bodied mollusk enclosed within a hard shell presents no difficulty.

Finally, elsewhere the same Raavya uses פורפירין / פורפירא (purfirin / purpira) in explaining Techeiles. Taken together, the Raavya’s description חלזון תולעת ואין לו עור provides no zoological objection to a hard-shelled marine gastropod such as the Murex. Translating תולעת simply as “worm” gives the Hebrew a degree of zoological specificity that its actual usage does not support.