Question: Who knows one hundred nineteen?
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*Please cite/link your sources, if possible. At some point at least twenty-four hours from now, I will:*

* *Upvote all interesting answers.*
* *Accept the best answer.*
* *Go on to the next number.*

Answer: 
[The Yerushalmi (Shabbos 7:2)](http://www.hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=14141&pgnum=101) mentions sponges (ספוג) in a group of items where cutting them causes them to grow back even more, and therefore declares that someone who does so has performed two categories of work, "reaping" and "planting." These melachos refer to plants, not animals, so I would think that indicates that the sponge is viewed as a plant (probably because it doesn't move around).

That said, I haven't found this Yerushalmi cited as halachah.

Another possible data point, though, might be that in the course of explaining when a sponge may or may not be used on Shabbos, Shulchan Aruch (Orach Chaim 320:18) cites Aruch, who explains that the sponge sits atop the head of a large fish (a whale, maybe?) and covers its eyes when it sticks its head out of the water, so that it doesn't see ships and wreck them. Mishnah Berurah there (320:45) alternately describes a sponge as "a wool-like material found on beaches." Both of these descriptions suggest that they saw sponges as inanimate or vegetable matter rather than an independent life-form.
Assuming the key *halachik* distinction is that which underlies the difference between *tolesh* and *netilas neshama* in *hilchos shabbos*, as seems plausible, that should depend on whether sponges display some form of sentience (at least basic percepts of pain and/or pleasure, as distinct from the automated motions of machines and plants) . To some degree, modern "science" is somewhat unreliable in this analysis since contemporary scientists' materialistic dogmas interfere with their ability to classify sentience, or even to clearly ascribe it to humans, let alone lower lifeforms. Still, it does seem plausible that some form of centralized nervous system or even a brain should be necessary to say something is alive (חי) in the classical sense (or some comparable system that would mediate some low level of sentient perception). Though according to the *Ri Albo* cited by WFB, it should qualify as *safek treif* in the same sense that a *koy* is a *safek chaya safek behema*. In sum, *tzarich iyun*.