Some people question what the name shibbolet shu’al actually refers to. No-one translates the term into modern language, until Rashi called it avena (oats in Old French) a thousand years ago and 500 years after the writing of the Talmud. Could he have been mistaken?

Remember the song from Sesame Street?

One of these things is not like the others,
One of these things just doesn’t belong,
Can you tell which thing is not like the others
By the time I finish my song?

(Hint: Don’t look at the drawings, or the colors, just look at the plants.)

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Let’s see that again, shall we?

On the left, common wheat, triticum aestivum, (also known as bread wheat) the most cultivated wheat species in the world.

On the right, spelt (triticum spelta.) When people recite the “short list” of gluten-grains (”wheat, rye, and barley”), they don’t mention spelt because it IS a kind of wheat. We try to keep it simple.

That simplicity backfires, because as a result people say, “Spelt is gluten-free, right?” WRONG! I know, the labels say “wheat free” but they lie! Spelt is actually an ancient form of wheat. (Notice they’re both triticum.) The rabbis got it right on both counts: They list spelt separately - because people treat it as a different thing. But they called it a “type” of wheat - because spelt and the wheat that we know are, like, sisters.

Next we see barley (hordeum vulgare) on the top, rye (secale cereale) below. These two species are not quite as closely related. Cousins, rather than brothers.

Remember what Dr. Kagnoff said in that YouTube video? About 13 minutes in, he classifies wheat (including spelt), rye, and barley as “all part of the same sub-family, part of the same tribe, all very closely related.” (Good graphic, doc!)

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Even though scientists consider wheat, rye, and barley as “cousins,” the rabbis classify rye as a “type” of barley. That’s because the bible only mentions wheat and barley, and the rabbis are coming along and performing what my husband calls a “typical rabbinic amplification.” They’re increasing magnification on our “lens” so that we can see that the phrase “wheat and barley” also includes spelt, rye, and oats.

[These are the same rabbis who will call one activity the "father" of another activity; obviously when they talk about relationships they're not always referring to genetics.]

Finally we have oats (avena sativa.) Part of the same sub-family, says Dr. Kagnoff, but different tribe. A long-lost cousin, so to speak.

It may not LOOK like they’re related, but oats are actually one step closer to wheat than any other edible grain of the grass family. Rice, corn, millet, all come from different sub-families. Oats are in the SAME sub-family.

As for the “quaint” (to our 21st-century eyes) classification of oats and rye as sub-types of barley you must check out Wikipedia’s entry on the origin of oats. Quote: “Oats, like rye, are usually considered a secondary crop, i.e. derived from a weed of the primary cereal domesticates wheat and barley.” (Emphasis added.)

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Kilayim: Did you read Dr. Felix’s assertion that oats could never have been shibbolet shu’al, since the mishna allows shibbolet shu’al to be mixed with barley?

That all has to do with another mitzva, called kilayim, that forbids the mixing of species. For example, if you have a field you can’t deliberately mix a bag of wheat seeds and a bag of barley seeds together and plant the blend. By accident, if a few alien seeds get mixed into a bag, that’s ok. No more than 1 part in 24, though, and only if it was by accident.

But if you have a bag of barley and a bag of shibboleth shu’al, no problem. Throw ‘em all together, doesn’t matter.

Professor Felix claimed that since oats are obviously a different species, there’s no way such a mixture with barley would be permitted.

But perhaps if oats had ALWAYS been a weed growing amongst the barley, maybe some years even more than 1/24 despite the best efforts of the farmer, in practical terms you might have to sometimes treat them as one species.

Or maybe they said, “Nebach, how sad for the poor man, he has to take his pitiful barley, that can’t even make decent bread (not like wheat, the good stuff!) and stretch it out with weeds. We better let him eat it or he may starve.”

(Don’t quote me on this, I am not a rabbi, nor do I play one on TV.)

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BTW, it’s not yeast that makes chametz. (a) You don’t need to add yeast to make chametz, maybe because (b) there’s yeast everywhere; on fruit, even on your own body. They add yeast to wine for example, and wine is clearly not chametz. All we can say for certain is that what the sages called “leavening” is the thing that happens when you get this category of grain wet, and then let it sit around for 18 minutes.

Maybe the water “activates” the naturally-present yeast, somehow, but then again it’s possible what we translate as “leavening” has nothing to do with yeast.

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What’s in a name?: Let’s articulate HOW oats look different from the other “chametz” grains.

You’ll say, “Duh! On oats the seeds are all separate and individual-like, but on wheat, etc., the seeds are all lined up in compact heads.” It’s the distinguishing characteristic of oats, the thing that makes them unique, those separate, individual seeds.

(Even rice & millet look more wheat-like than oats do.)

My rebbe, Rav Matis Weinberg, always says a (true) name is an expression of the very nature of a thing.

Even in English the word “oats” is plural, indicating multiplicity, as opposed to the word “wheat,” in the singular, indicating monolithic uniformity.

In Hebrew, the word shibbolet literally means the part of a plant containing grains, such as an ear of corn. But it can also mean a spike/point, a stream, or a path, concepts all linked by the idea of something separating out from a larger whole. It may be that ears of grain are called shibbolet because they have hairlike projections sticking out from the seeds. Like the English “ear,” it’s a generic term that can be applied to any grain.

Rashi is the first Rishon to translate shibbolet shu’al into modern terms (avena) and he explains that this specific grain is called shu’al (fox) because “ears” of oats are [shaped, lit. "made"] like the tail of a fox.

In what way? Well, look at this fox’s tail. It’s fluffy. Look at the oats in the picture above. They look like the tail of the fox.

Let’s not forget that the ancient Israelites would have been very familiar with what oats look like. Not because they cultivated oats, on the contrary; because they would have been constantly, vigilantly, weeding them out of their prized wheat fields, lest the oats go to seed.

The very thing that Prof. Felix takes issue with, the way that oats LOOK different from the other grains (because they’re all separated on the stalk, which makes them fluff up) turns out to be the very essence of shibbolet shu’al.

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