<b>This is the offering … and rams’ skins dyed red, and sealskins (Exod. 25:3).</b> R. Judah and R. Nehemiah discussed this verse. R. Judah said: It was a large pure animal, with a single horn in its forehead and a skin of six different colors that roamed the desert.<sup class="footnote-marker">9</sup><i class="footnote">The authorities were undecided as to whether it was a domesticated animal or a wild beast. See Shabbat 28b.</i> They captured one of them and from its skin made a covering for the ark. R. Nehemiah contended that it was a miraculous creature He created for that precise moment, and that it disappeared immediately thereafter from earth. Why is it called <i>orot tahashim</i> (“sealskins,” lit. “skins of <i>tahashim</i>”)? Because the verse states: <i>The length of each curtain shall be thirty cubits</i> (Exod. 26:8). What known animal could supply enough skin for a curtain of thirty cubits? It must, indeed, have been a miraculous creation, which disappeared (immediately after it was created).