Kiddushin 29a ~ Swimming and Drowning

קידושין כט, א

האב חייב בבנו למולו ולפדותו וללמדו תורה ולהשיאו אשה וללמדו אומנות וי"א אף להשיטו במים רבי יהודה אומר כל שאינו מלמד את בנו אומנות מלמדו ליסטות ליסטות ס"ד אלא כאילו מלמדו ליסטות

With respect to his son, a father is obligated to circumcise him, to redeem him [if he is a firstborn], to teach him Torah, to marry him off, and to teach him a craft.  Some say, he is also obligated to teach him to swim...(Kiddushin 29a)

Every year, according to The World Health Organization, more than 5,000 children drown in Europe. And for every child who drowns (the majority of whom are under five years of age) at least two others suffer lifelong neurological disability.  

Average standardized mortality rates for drowning in children aged 0–19 years in the WHO European Region, 2003–2005 or most recent three years. From The European Report on Child Injury Prevention. World Health Organization 2008.

In the United States, there are an average of ten drowning deaths each day. Of the more than 3,500 people who drown each year in the US, about a fifth are children under the age of 14.  And here are some other facts that may surprise you about drowning in the US, courtesy of the Centers for Disease Control:

• Nearly 80% of people who die from drowning are male.

• Children ages 1-4 have the highest drowning rates. In 2009, among children 1-4 years old who died from an unintentional injury, more than 30% died from drowning.

• Among children ages 1-4, most drownings occur in home swimming pools.

• Drowning is responsible for more deaths among children 1-4 than any other cause except congenital anomalies (birth defects).

• Between 2005 and 2009, the fatal unintentional drowning rate for African Americans was significantly higher than that of whites across all ages.  The disparity is widest among children 5-14 years old. The fatal drowning rate of African American children ages 5-14 is almost three times that of white children in the same age range.

• The disparity is most pronounced in swimming pools; African American children drown in swimming pools at rates 5.5 times higher than those of whites.  

How We Drown

Unlike the movie depiction of a person loudly flailing as he tries to stay afloat, the process of drowning is actually very quiet; there is usually no noise and little to see.

Once the victim disappears under the surface, the oxygen content of the blood rapidly decreases and unconsciousness follows quickly. In most cases water enters the lungs and results in wet drowning: This causes constriction of the blood vessels in the lungs (and for the medically curious among you, hypertension with a ventilation/perfusion mismatch, aggravated by surfactant destruction and washout, decreased lung compliance and atelectasis. Acute respiratory failure is common.There. Now you know.)  But in 10–20% of deaths from drowning, a small amount of water entering the larynx causes persistent spasm, which results in chocking and an immediate outpouring of thick mucus, froth and foam, but without significant aspiration; this is called dry drowning.

What's more Dangerous - a swimming pool or a gun?

The dangers of children drowning is real. So real that it turns out that owning a pool is more dangerous that owning a gun. (Notice to readers outside the US: you can own a gun here...) Dunber and Levitt, in their wildly popular 2005 book Freakonomics (p135-6) explained why this is so:

Consider the parents of an eight-year-old girl named, say, Molly. Her two best friends, Amy and Imani, each live nearby. Molly's parents know that Amy's parents keep a gun in their house, so they have forbidden Molly to play there. Instead,Molly spends a lot of time at Imani's house,which has a swimming pool in the backyard. Molly's parents feel good about having made such a smart choice to protect their daughter.

But according to the data, their choice isn't smart at all. In a given year,there is one drowning of a child for every  11,000 residential pools in the United States. In a country with 6 million pools, this means that roughly 550 children under the age of ten drown each year.) Meanwhile, there is 1 child killed by a gun for every1 million-plus guns. In a country with an estimated 200 million guns, this means that roughly 175 children under ten die each year from guns.The likelihood of death by pool (1 in 11,000) versus death by gun (1 in 1 million - plus ) isn't even close: Molly is far more likely to die in a swimming accident at Imani's house than in gunplay at Amy's.

A Common Sense Halacha?

In his commentary on the Mishnah, Maimonides counts the command to teach a child to swim as one of the duties incumbent on a parent (or, more precisely on a father). 

פירוש המשנה לרמב"ם מסכת קידושין פרק א משנה ז 

 מצות הבן על האב שש מצות ואלו הן, למולו ולפדותו וללמדו תורה ולהשיאו אשה וללמדו אומנות ולהושיטו בנהר. ולמדו לכולם מן הכתובים בראיות שיארך ביאורם כאן ואין תועלת מרובה בכך, כל אלו חייב האב לעשותם לבן, ואין האם חייבת לעשותם לבנה והוא ענין אמרם האנשים חייבין והנשים פטורות

There are six duties incumbent on a father towards his son: 1) to circumcise him; 2) to redeem him [from a Cohen if he is a firstborn]; 3) to teach him Torah; 4) to marry him to a woman; 5) to teach him a trade and 6) to teach him to swim...A father is required to do each of these things, but a mother is not required to teach them to her daughter, for this is one of those things that fall into the category of "men are obligated and women are exempted"... 

However in his Mishnah Torah, Maimonides did not include the obligation to teach swimming, and this obligation is also omitted in the sixteenth century normative Shulchan Aruch. There is no obvious reason for this omission, though this question would make a great topic of conversion at your Shabbat table tonight. But not everything that makes sense needs to be part of the code of Jewish Law. It can just be...a sensible thing to do.  Perhaps there is no better example of this than a parent, (mother or father) teaching their child, (son or daughter,) to swim.  

“As a father who has lost a son, I know first-hand the unbearable pain that comes with a child’s death. Amidst my grief, I am able to take some small solace in the fact that everything possible was done to fight the disease that took my son’s life. If my son had died in a backyard pool due to my own negligence, I would not even have that to cling to. Parents who have lost children would do anything to get their babies back. Safeguard your pool so you don’t become one of us.”

— Steven Levitt, co-author of Freakonomics. "Pools more dangerous than guns". Chicago Sun-Times 7/28/2001

Kiddushin 25b ~ Can Elephants Jump?

In a discussion of how one acquires ownership of an animal, Rabbi Shimon rules that they must be lifted - literally, lifted.  And then the Talmud asks how exactly an animal is lifted.

קידושין כה, ב 

אלא מעתה פיל לרבי שמעון במה יקנה אמר ליה אביי בחליפין אי נמי בשוכר את מקומו רבי זירא אמר מביא ארבעה כלים ומניחן תחת רגליו

If so, how would one acquire an elephant according to Rabbi Shimon?  Abaye said to him - by means of chalifin [a token exchange of a utensil or piece of clothing to finalize the transaction]. Rebbi Zeira says, the buyer brings in four vessels and places them under the elephant's feet [demonstrating that the elephant has now entered the buyer's domain]. (Kiddushin 25b)

A.H Atwell, National Geographic.

Now leaving aside why the Talmud wondered about elephants when one could ask the same thing about say, cows or a horses, and leaving aside the question of just how Rebbi Zeira would go about getting his elephant to stand with each leg on a pot, the reader surely wants to know if there is um, an easier way to acquire an elephant. And yes, there is. The Talmud offers another helpful way to gain possession of your very own Dumbo. אי נמי בחבילי זמורות - "An alternative is to use bundles of vines." Rashi offers an explanation: the vines are three tefachim [about 30 cm.] heigh, and the elephant is led to stand on them, "and any lifting that is above three tefachim is called lifting [for the purposes of the transfer of ownership]."

Elephants at the circus in Washington DC. in 2016 They demonstrated - just in time - that Rebbi Zeira's suggestion was indeed workable. So long as you have a full time elephant trainer...

Tosafot's Solution - jumping elephants

Tosafot, a collection of medieval commentaries on the Talmud, is dissatisfied with Rashi for a number of reasons. First, if the Talmud had meant to suggest that a platform three tefachim in height be built, it would have said so, and not concocted some contraption using grape vines. Second, the grape vines, are legally considered to be part of the ground itself, so the elephant standing on them would not be separate from the ground, which is precisely what is needed to effect a legal transfer of ownership.    

In light of these objections, Rav Meshulam offers his own explanation of what the Talmud meant when it suggested using vines.

אי נמי בחבילי זמורות. פי' בקונטרס משכחת לה להגבהת פיל בחבילי זמורות הגבוהים מן הארץ שלשה ומעלהו עליהן דהגבהת ג' הגבהה היא דנפיק לה מתורת לבוד ולפירושו בכלים לא מצי למימר דליקני מדין הגבהה שיניח כלים תחת רגליו דסתמייהו אין בעוביין שלשה טפחים ולפי' ר"ת דמפרש דהגבהה בטפח קני צ"ל סתם כלים אין בעוביין טפח וקשה אמאי נקט חבילי זמורות לנקוט אבנים או עצים ומפרש הרב משולם דלהכי נקט חבילי זמורות לפי שהן מאכל פיל כדאמרינן פרק מפנין (שבת דף קכח.) מטלטלין חבילי זמורות בשבת מפני שהן מאכל לפילין ומגביהין לפיל חבילי זמורות למעלה והוא קופץ ומגביה את עצמו מן הארץ ואוכלן ואין לתמוה אי חשיבא הגבהה בהכי דכה"ג אשכחן בפרק שילוח הקן (חולין דף קמב.) כי היכי דליגבינהו ולקנינהו

...Rav Meshulam therefore explained that the Talmud offered the explanation of vines because elephants eat them...and we lift up the vines in front of the elephant , which will jump up to eat them, thereby lifting itself off of the ground...

Elephants stand on tip toe. From here.

There is one small problem with Rav Meshulam's explanation: elephants can't jump. Here is Tony Barthel, curator of Elephant Trails at the National Zoo in Washington DC.  "If you were to look at an elephant’s skeleton, you’ll see that they’re standing on their tippy toes...All the bones are pointed straight down.” This means that they cannot jump, even if they wanted to.  Elephants cannot jump, and they cannot technically even run, since that requires all four legs to be off the ground at once. Why then did Rav Meshulam suggest this explanation, one which is not biologically possible?  Here is Rabbi Dr. Natan Slifkin's answer, from his Torah Encyclopedia of the Animal Kingdom:

The answer is that he had no reason to believe otherwise. There were no zoos in medieval Europe, and very few elephants.The emperor Charlemagne, king of the Franks,received an elephant as a gift in 797.Frederick II used an elephant in his capture of Cremona in 1214. King Henry III of England received an elephant from Israel in 1254. Alfonso V of Portugal gave an elephant to Renew d'Anjou in 1477. The Vatican was given an elephant in 1514. But the average person in those times never saw an elephant. Illustrations from that era show that artists, basing themselves on stories,were very unsure about how to depict elephants.They were often portrayed as possessing a body like those of horses or deer, sometimes even with split hooves. Of particular relevance to us is that they are sometimes drawn with the hindlimb structure of lions or dogs, poised with elastic energy. Rav Meshullam ben Nathan, who was born in Provence in 1120 and passed away in Melun in 1180, never saw either a live elephant or an accurate drawing of one. He thus had every reason to believe that, like other animals elephants can jump.

So there you have it.  Don't suggest biological explanations if you've not studied biology. Even if you are Rashi's son-in-law.

From here, the thirteenth century Book of the Marvels of the World (Livre des Merveilles du Monde). Note the bent hind legs of the elephant, which suggest the ability to jump.

[An expanded version of Rabbi Dr. Slifkin's essay can be found here.]

Kiddushin 25a ~ Polydactyly

קידושין כה, א–ב

 א"ר חייא בר אשי אמר רב היתה לו יתרת וחתכה עבד יוצא בהן לחירות, אמר רב הונא והוא שנספרת על גב היד

Rav Hiyyah bar Ashi said in the name of Rav: if a slave had an extra finger and his master cut it off, the slave is freed on account of this act. Rav Huna said this only applies if the extra finger is in line with the others [lit. counted alongside the hand].  

Polydactyly (from the Greek daktylos, meaning finger), is a developmental abnormality in which there are more than the customary five fingers or toes at the end of the arms and legs. It has long been recorded in ancient civilizations - and is even mentioned in our own Hebrew Bible. Do you know who is described there as having a total of twenty four fingers and toes? (Click here to find out.)

Polydactyly is classified by the location of the extra digit: If it is found on the thumb or big toe, it is called preaxial polydactyly. If it is found on the the little (fifth) finger or toe it is called postaxial polydactyly.  Accessory digits in-between are classified according to their location and where they join the hand or finger. Syndactyly, on the other hand (!) occurs when there are fewer than five fingers or toes on each limb. (We will discuss syndactyly when we study tractate Bechorot, (daf 45a), on June 1st, 2019,  הבעל"ט.)

Rav Huna's Classification, and Swanson's classification

There are many different ways to classify polydactyly - although the most commonly used is the 1964 Swanson classification system, a modified version of which was adopted by the American Society for Surgery of the Hand and the International Federation of Societies for Surgery of the Hand in 1976. 

But Rav Huna, who died in Babylon around the year 296 CE, developed his own classification system long before Swanson, and it is based on simple observation: does the extra digit seem to begin in line with the other fingers, or does its origin seem to lie above them?  For Rav Huna, an extra digit that originated beyond the metacarpal-phalyngeal joint (the knuckle for our non-medical reader) in the hand, or beyond the metatarsal-phalageal joint in the foot did not have the legal status of a normal digit.  So an act of assault by the owner of a slave in which this kind of digit was amputated would not legally count as sufficient cause to allow the slave to gain his freedom.  With this information, look at the drawings below and decide in which case the loss of the extra digit would be sufficient cause for the slave to be freed.

Various forms of postaxial (ie. not on the big toe) Type A polydactyly of the foot, ranging from a partially duplicated fifth intermediate phalanx (top left) to a fully developed sixth digit, including the metatarsal (bottom right). From Case DT. Hill RJ. Merbs CF. Fong M. Polydactyly in the Prehistoric American Southwest.  Journal of Osteoarchaeology 2006: 6: 221–235.

If the slave had an extra fifth toe outlined in Figures 2-6, its loss would result in the slave going free. In all these cases, the extra digit arises in line with the base the the other toes (and in Figure 6, the extra toe is joined to an extra metatarsal). But in Figure 1, the extra fifth digit arises from the distal end of the fifth distal phalange (or, for our non-medical reader, the tip of the pinky); in this case its traumatic amputation by the slave's owner would not result in the slave gaining his freedom. 

This categorization appears to be another previously unrecognized medical first in the Talmud: Rav Huna's classification of polydactyly.   

“היתה לו אצבע יתירה וחתכה, אם עומדת בסדר האצבעות יוצא לחירות ”

— שולחן ערוך יורה דעה הלכות עבדים סימן רסז סעיף כט

Polydactylous feet from Newspaper Rock in Indian Creek State Park, Utah. These carvings in rock are called petroglyphs, and were made by native Americans as long as 1,500  years ago.

Kiddushin 16b ~ Measuring Puberty

קידושין טז, ב

בן תשע שנים שהביא שתי שערות שומא מבן ט' שנים ויום אחד עד בן י"ב שנה ויום אחד ועודן בו שומא ר' יוסי בר' יהודה אומר סימן בן י"ג שנה ויום אחד דברי הכל סימן 

If a nine year old grows two hairs [in the pubic region] the growth should be attributed to a mole [and not as a sign of sexual maturity]. [If these hairs grow] from the age of nine years and one day until twelve years and one day, and they are still there [when the child reaches twelve, one opinion is that they should be attributed to a] mole, and Rabbi Yossi bar Rabbi Yehuda says they are a sign of sexual maturity. [If these hairs grow] when the child is thirteen years old and one day, then everyone agrees they are a sign of sexual maturity...(Kiddushin 16b)

Pre-Modern Descriptions of Puberty

The way in which children develop into adults has fascinated us for centuries.  In fact, the earliest surviving statement on human growth dates back to the sixth century BCE, (not long after the prophet Jeremiah lived) and is by the Athenian poet Solon. One critic described his poem as combining "scientific sense with philosophical probability (if not, regrettably, with poetic elegance)." Here is Solon:

A young boy acquires his first ring of teeth as an infant and sheds them before he reaches the age of seven years. When the god brings to an end the next seven year period, the boy shows the signs of beginning puberty. In the third hebdomad, [ a period of seven years] the body enlarges, the chin becomes bearded and the bloom of the boy's complexion is lost. In the forth hebdomad physical strength is at its peak and is regarded as the criterion of manliness; in the fifth hebdomad a man should take thought of marriage and seek sons to succeed him. In the sixth hebdomad a man's mind is in all things disciplined by experience and he no longer feels the impulse to uncontrolled behavior. In the seventh he is at his prime in mind and tongue and also in the eighth, the two together making fourteen years. In the ninth hebdomad, though he still retains some strength, he is too feeble in mind and speech for the greatest excellence. If a man continues to the end of the tenth hebdomad, he has not encountered death before due time.

Hippocrates believed that puberty could be delayed in areas where "the wind is cold and the water is hard". Rabbi Shimon ben Gamliel (d. 70CE) would have agreed, because he thought that the growth of pubic hair was hastened in those who used the bathhouse regularly.  But it is especially interesting to compare Aristotle's writings on puberty with those of the Talmud (which of course were codified several hundred years later).

In man, maturity is indicated by a change in the tone of the voice, by an increase in size and an alteration in appearance of the sexual organs, and also by an increase in size and alteration in appearance of breasts, and above in the hair growth above the pubes.

Aristotle (d. 322 BCE) seems to have put a lot of weight on the growth of pubic hair, just like the rabbis of  in the Talmud did many years later. Galen, who died in 199 CE, was cautious about timing the onset of puberty: "Some begin puberty at once on the completion of the fourteenth year, but some begin a year or more after that" (De Sanitate Tuenda, or p288 of this translation). Jumping forward several centuries, we find that girls in Tuscany in 1428 were allowed to marry aged eleven and a half, although they were forbidden to live with their husbands until they were twelve. However the Bishop of Florence (later canonized as Saint Anthony) declared that cohabitation was allowed "provided the girl had reached puberty." 

The Tanner Scale

Today, the stage of sexual maturity in children is most commonly measured using the Tanner scale, described by the British pediatrician James Tanner, who died in 2010.  (He wrote a fascinating History of the Study of Human Growth as a sort of a hobby, but his day job was working as a Professor at the Institute of Child  Health in London.)  Here is how Tanner described his scale in boys, (from his original paper published in 1970):

Stage 1: Pre-adolescent. The velus [sic] over the pubes is no further developed than that over the abdominal wall, i.e. no pubic hair.

Stage 2: Sparse growth of long, slightly pigmented downy hair, straight or slightly curled, appearing chiefly at the base of the penis. This stage is difficult to see on photographs, particularly of fair-headed subjects...

Stage 3: Considerably darker, coarser, and more curled. The hair spreads sparsely over the junction of the pubes. This and subsequent stages were clearly recognizable on the photographs.

Stage 4: Hair is now adult in type, but the area covered by it is still considerably smaller than in most adults. There is no spread to the medial surface of the thighs.

Stage 5: Adult in quantity and type, distributed as an inverse triangle of the classically feminine pattern. Spread to the medial surface of the thighs but not up the linea alba or elsewhere above the base of the inverse triangle.

“There has been less discussion in the literature as to whether the appearance of pubic hair has advanced in females, although this does seem to be the case, pubarche having advanced by at least 6 months. The PROS study found stage II pubic hair to be apparent in African-American females at a mean age of 8·78 years and 10·51 years in whites.”

— Slyper, AH.The pubertal timing controversy in the USA, and a review of possible causative factors for the advance in timing of onset of puberty. Clinical Endocrinology (2006) 65, 1–8

Tanner also described other signs of sexual maturity, since growth of pubic hair is not the only maker.  In boys, for example, Tanner used a five-stage system for genital growth: in stage one, the  "testes, scrotum, and penis are of about the same size and proportion as in early childhood," whereas in stage two, "the scrotum and testes have enlarged and there is a change in the texture of the scrotal skin..."  Tanner noted that the stages of pubic hair development and the stages of genital development differ, so that a boy may reach full genital maturation sooner than he reaches stage five on the pubic hair scale.  

From Marshall A. Tanner JM. Variations in the pattern of pubertal changes in boys. Archives of Disease in Childhood 1970. 45: 13-25.

Tanner's work reveals what we already know intuitively. Maturity, whether sexual or emotional, is a process that takes time and proceeds through many stages. The rabbis of the Talmud relied predominantly on one marker of adulthood:  sexual maturity as evidenced by a minimal of pubic hair growth.  But they used it in conjunction with the age of the child.  They also understood that the onset of these signs might be sooner in some children and later in others.

Sequence of events in puberty in girls (top) and boys. From Marshall A. Tanner JM. Variations in the pattern of pubertal changes in boys. Archives of Disease in Childhood 1970. 45:22.

In most European countries, the age of the onset of puberty (as measured by the onset of menstruation) has fallen by about a year per century. Boys also seem to be developing earlier than previously, possibly by more than a year. Data from the US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES III) study of boys aged 8 –19 years, suggests that the mean age of onset of male genital development based on visual inspection is now about nine years for African-Americans and ten years for white boys.

Another First?

Last year we analyzed talmudic statements of R. Hiyya (who lived in the second half of the second century,) and Rava, (d. 350CE) who appear to have been the first to report an association between obesity and delayed puberty in boys.  They claimed that puberty may be delayed in boys who are underweight, and this association has now been confirmed. As we noted then, none of the researchers has credited these talmudic sages for being the first to notice these associations. But Rava and R. Hiyya were first, and firsts count for something in science. The Baraita in today's daf  may be the first recorded discussion of the lower limits of sexual maturity. But the rabbis of the Talmud used other markers of maturity, like breast development which is discussed in Masechet Niddah (47a).They distinguished between "lower" and "upper" signs of puberty, and so presaged the work of Tanner. (The rabbis also ruled that "all girls who are examined are examined by women". Thank heavens.)

There were several reasons why the Talmud had to codify the stages of physical maturity.  Among these were to allow a father to decide to whom his daughter would marry.

A father who declares...my daughter is twelve years and a day is believed in order to marry the child off...(רמב׳ם הל׳ אישות ב:כג)

Today, any notion that a child under the age of twelve (or sixteen for that matter) would be mature enough to marry is utterly repugnant to us. But according to the UN in developing countries, one in every three girls is married before reaching the age of eighteen, and one in nine is married by the age of fifteen.  When we read the Talmud we often get a glimpse into a Jewish world very different from our own. But some practices of that world still exist outside of the Jewish community today, to the shame of us all. 

From United Nations Children’s Fund, Ending Child Marriage: Progress and prospects, UNICEF, New York, 2014.