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on the verse. And of every living thing
of all flesh, two of every kind, you
shall bring into the ark to keep them
alive with you. The sages say in the
midrash that was written about 2,000
years ago, Berishit Rabba, chapter 30,
paragraph 13, the Rem did not enter the
ark with Noah, but its offspring did.
The sages say, "Know this. There was a
giant creature called Rem, and there was
no room in the ark to bring it in.
Today, there is a creature that looks
like a deer and is called Ray." Over the
generations, that name was given to it.
People saw its tall horns and called it
Ray. We saw it. But that's not the
original Ray. We have an interesting
description from the sages of what the
Ram looked like. When David was tending
his flock, he found the ram sleeping in
the desert and he thought it was a
mountain and climbed on it. It's
possible to explain that this ram when
asleep probably tucks its head inward or
perhaps from that angle it simply can't
be seen. So David thought it was a
mountain. Suddenly the ram stirred and
stood up. David felt like an earthquake
had hit. He was lifted into the air and
if he had fallen it would have been
dangerous. At that moment, David said,
"Master of the universe, bring me down
from this ram, and I will build you a
sanctuary 100 cubits tall." Some say
they measured its length. Others say its
circumference.
Meaning, just as this rim was 100 cubits
in length or height, David vowed, "If
you save me from the rim, I will build a
sanctuary, the temple of that size."
Some say the rim was 100 cubits long.
Others say its circumference was 50
cubits. After all, there are many types
of dinosaurs. Some are small and some
like this, a certain species. What did
the holy one, blessed be he, do? He sent
a lion. When the rem saw the lion, it
recoiled in fear and lay down. The rem,
although enormous, was still a lizard, a
reptile. Reptiles are giant lizards, and
lions strike fear into them. It saw the
lion immediately lay down, and David got
down to the ground. When David saw the
lion, he too was afraid. As it says,
"Save me from the mouth of the lion,
just as you have saved me from the horns
of the ram."
Decades ago when I read this midrash,
one thing bothered me. It says here,
"Horns of the ram." But dinosaurs, where
do they have horns? Exactly before the
book The Coming Revolution 2 was sent to
print, there was a big stir in the
scientific world. They discovered a
dinosaur with horns, a large dinosaur
weighing 5 tons with horns. And later it
was found that there are more like it.
And today there are findings that have
raised questions among researchers. They
don't have an answer to this question.
But according to our Torah, there is an
answer. There are several places in the
world where cave paintings have been
found depicting dinosaurs from several
thousand years ago. For example, in
Rhodesia, which today is called
Zimbabwe, they discovered cave
paintings. And among them, there's a
clear drawing of a brontosaurus, the
dinosaur with a very long neck shown
stretching its neck into a lake to drink
water. You can see it inside a pit.
Scientists have no explanation for how
they drew a creature that supposedly
went extinct 65 million years ago. There
are several such places around the
world. According to the Torah, the
answer is simple. They drew what they
saw. People saw dinosaurs before the
flood. They saw many of them. After the
flood, only a few remained, but people
still encountered them. Anyone familiar
with ancient cultures knows that in
every civilization, there are drawings
from 500, 1,000, or even 2,000 years ago
of what we now call dragons. These
images appear in China, India, Egypt,
and many other places. Dragons were
always thought to be figments of
imagination, but when you compare the
drawings to fossils discovered today,
you can see that they were drawing
dinosaurs. Yes, there were mythical
elements like fire breathing, but the
core drawing, the form resembles
dinosaurs.
So, not everything was imaginary. They
drew what they saw in their time. There
are even drawings that match exactly the
fossils that have been discovered in
recent generations.
