They load animals to [travel to] the south; to the land of trouble and anguish, from where the young and the old lion come, the viper and the fiery flying serpent (saraf), they will carry their riches upon the backs of young asses, and their treasures upon the humps of camels, to a people who shall not profit them.
What is this saraf or fiery flying serpent? There are some species of snakes known as “flying snakes,” but they leap out of trees and glide rather than fly. No snake actually flies, nor do any snakes breathe fire.
A possibility is that the verses describing fire-breathing, flying snakes have simply been mistranslated. The appellation “fiery snake,” saraf, does not necessarily refer to a fire-breathing snake; it could refer to a poisonous snake, whose venom “burns” people. The description of these snakes “flying” likewise may not refer to that which is usually understood by the term but rather jumping, as Rashi explains: “They are a type of snake, and it is not that they possess wings with which to fly, but rather that they jump and leap very far.”
Fire-proof Salamanders
Another approach to resolving these types of issues is that the seemingly inaccurate descriptions of the Talmud may actually be true, contrary to the views of most scientists. For example, there are ancient accounts of salamanders being born in fires and possessing the ability to live in fire. Aristotle wrote that “the Salamander shows that it is possible for some animal substances to exist in fire, for they say that fire is extinguished when this animal walks over it.”
This understanding is also evident in Torah sources. Rashi, in his commentary to Sanhedrin 63b, explains the Gemara’s term salamandra as “a small creature that emerges from an oven that has had a fire burning in it for seven years. If a person smears himself with its blood, fire has no power over him….”
These accounts are usually dismissed as myth, yet studies of these amphibians actually confirm this remarkable ability. It seems that while the salamander does not thrive in fire, it does possess an ability to survive in fire for a limited time due to the secretion of an extraordinary fire-resistant foam. Nevertheless, this creature’s remarkable ability is casually dismissed by so many zoological works – a striking example of how one should not rush to dismiss the existence of a phenomenon.
Phoenix from the Flames
Still another approach, and the one that I use most prevalently in my books, is that when Chazal spoke of these creatures, they were speaking allegorically rather than describing actual existing beings.
The phoenix is a bird of ancient legend fabled for its extraordinary lifespan and method of regenerating itself by being consumed in fire, then growing anew from the ashes. It is this supposed power that makes a phoenix so useful as a pet to Dumbledore, the wizard headmaster in the Harry Potter books.
Descriptions of the phoenix can be found as far back as the writings of the ancient Egyptian historian Herodotus, in the fifth century BCE. The phoenix is also mentioned in our holy Jewish texts of the Talmud, Midrash, and arguably even in Tanach itself. The Midrash Bereishit Rabbah (19:5) says that in the Garden of Eden there was a bird that “[l]ives for a thousand years, and at the end of these thousand years, a fire emerges from its nest and incinerates it. A volume equivalent to an egg is left, which grows limbs and lives.”
The phoenix is known as the chol or the avrashna, and grounds for its immortality are given in the Gemara (Sanhedrin 108b):
