From the Talmudology Archives: Queen Esther's Fight or Flight Reaction

In honor of the festival of Purim, which being celebrated either now (in Australia) tomorrow, or on Friday (if you live in a very old walled city), we are reposting this from the Talmudology archives. Enjoy.

אסתר 4:4

וַ֠תָּבוֹאינָה נַעֲר֨וֹת אֶסְתֵּ֤ר וְסָרִיסֶ֙יהָ֙ וַיַּגִּ֣ידוּ לָ֔הּ וַתִּתְחַלְחַ֥ל הַמַּלְכָּ֖ה מְאֹ֑ד וַתִּשְׁלַ֨ח בְּגָדִ֜ים לְהַלְבִּ֣ישׁ אֶֽת־מָרְדֳּכַ֗י וּלְהָסִ֥יר שַׂקּ֛וֹ מֵעָלָ֖יו וְלֹ֥א קִבֵּֽל׃

When Esther’s maidens and eunuchs came and informed her, the queen was greatly agitated. She sent clothing for Mordecai to wear, so that he might take off his sackcloth; but he refused.

The meaning of the verse seems straightforward enough. Esther learned that throughout the empire, Jews were fasting, weeping and wailing, (although she did not yet know why). This greatly upset or"agitated" her.  But in the Talmud, Rav (d. ~247) and his student Rabbi Yirmiyah are not content with this straightforward reading. 

מגילה טו, א

ותתחלחל המלכה מאי ותתחלחל אמר רב שפירסה נדה ור' ירמיה אמר שהוצרכה לנקביה 

What is the meaning of the word ותתחלחל? Rav said: It means that she started to menstruate. R. Yirmiyah said: that her bowels were loosened.

Esther before Ahasuerus by Jacopo Tintoretto (1519-94). From The Royal Academy of Arts, London.

FIGHT OR FLIGHT

Any of us who have have experienced moments of intense fear or anxiety can understand R. Yermiah's explanation. In moments of sudden severe stress, the body's sympathetic nervous system ("fight or flight") goes into overdrive and releases epinephrine (AKA adrenaline). This prepares us for battle: our heart rate increases, blood is diverted away from the digestive system and towards the muscles, and our pupils dilate, to allow for better vision. At the same time the  parasympathetic nervous system ("rest and digest") is partially activated, which results in urination and defecation (or at least the urge to do so). 

Brain circuits involved in fear and anxiety. A schematic view of major brain circuits involved in fear and anxiety. External auditory, visual, olfactory, or somatosensory stimuli are relayed by the thalamus to the amygdala and cortex. The basolateral complex (BLA) of the amygdala is the input side of the system, which also receives contextual information from the hippocampal formation (entorhinal cortex, hippocampus, and ventral subiculum). After intra-amygdala processing of the emotional stimuli, the central nucleus of the amygdala (CeA), on the output side, activates the locus ceruleus (LC) and central and peripheral noradrenaline systems (via corticotropin-releasing factor [CRF] neurons), and the hypothalamus (paraventricular nucleus [PVN] and lateral hypothalamus [LH]). The bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNST, part of the “extended amygdala”) is also a control center for the neuroendocrine system by integrating information originating from both the hippocampus and the amygdala. In addition, the CeA directly activates various midbrain regions or nuclei responsible for different aspects of the fear/anxiety response: freezing or escape (periaqueductal gray [PAG]), increased respiratory rate (parabrachial nucleus [PBN]), startle (caudal reticulopontine nucleus of the reticular formation [RPC]), and the dorsal motor nucleus of the vagus (DMN) in the medulla, which (together with the lateral hypothalamus) is responsible for the increase in heart rate and blood pressure associated with emotional events. The prefrontal cortex (PFC) processes more elaborate (“cognitive”) information; it modulates the physiological, neuroendocrine, and behavioral responses (via the amygdala), and it is also involved in the extinction of fear- and anxiety-related conditional responses. ACTH, adrenocorticotropic hormone; ANS, autonomous nervous system; BP, blood pressure; GABA, γ-aminobutyric acid; Glu, glutamate; NA, noradrenaline (neurotransmitter) or nucleus ambiguus (structure); NTS, nucleus tractus solitarius. From Steimer, T. The biology of fear- and anxiety-related behaviors. Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience - Vol 4 . No. 3 . 2002, 231-249.

Queen Esther's Stress

As we saw in Megillah, Rav opined that fear can induce menstrual bleeding. In Sotah, the Talmud further delineates the effect of stress on menstruation.

סוטה כ, ב

למימרא דבעיתותא מרפיא אין דכתיב ותתחלחל המלכה מאד ואמר רב שפירסה נדה והא אנן תנן חרדה מסלקת דמים פחדא צמית ביעתותא מרפיא

Does fright loosen the womb [and causes a woman to menstruate]? Yes, as the verse states (Esther 4:4) "...and the Queen [Esther] became very afraid" about which Rav explained:" she began to menstruate."

But haven't we learned elsewhere in a Mishnah (Niddah 39a) that fear suspends the discharge of menstrual blood? In fact, fear that is not sudden contracts [the womb and prevents bleeding], but sudden fear loosens [the womb and causes early menstrual bleeding].

Here are some of the things that the rabbis of the Talmud believed could induce menstruation:

1. Carrying a heavy load (Tosefta Niddah 9:1)

2. Jumping (ibid)

3. Sudden fright (Niddah 71a, and Niddah 39a)

4. Yearning for intercourse (Niddah 20b)

5. Garlic, onions and peppers (Niddah 63b)

Let's take a look at the medical literature and see whether or not it supports Rav's assertion.

“Data from both animal and human research indicate that psychological stress is associated with altered menstrual function.”

— Barsom S, et al. Association between psychological stress and menstrual cycle characteristics in perimenopausal women. Women’s Health Issues 14 (2004) 235-241

The Effect of Stress on Menstrual Function

In a review from the Department of Biological Sciences at Ohio University, researchers acknowledged that stress is difficult to define. However, one final common pathway of stressors is the low availability of dietary energy. Ovulation - which is the first part of the cascade that leads to menstruation - has been blocked in hamsters "by food restriction, pharmacological blockers of carbohydrate and fat metabolism, insulin administration (which shunts metabolic fuels into storage), and cold exposure (which consumes metabolic fuels in thermogenesis)." Women athletes frequently experience a lack of menstruation, which is found in up to 65% of competitive young runners. But what about psychogenic causes of a disturbed menstrual cycle - after all, Rav taught that it was fear that caused Esther's presumably early onset of menstruation? While not adressing this directly, the Ohio University researchers had this to say about the relationship between psychological stressors and amenorrhea (the lack of menstruation. Remember that word - it will come up again):

Associations between psychological disturbances and amenorrhea or infertility have long been interpreted as a causal relationship, but prospective studies demonstrating that psychogenic factors contribute to reproductive dysfunction in women are almost completely lacking . Early psychoanalytic conclusions that psychological conditions underlie involuntary infertility in women have been criticized recently on several grounds: first, the same psychological conditions have been found in analyses of fertile women; second, other women with very serious psychic problems conceive with ease; and third, couples with an unfulfilled desire for a child do not show psychological disorders any more frequently than do couples without fertility disorders. Even the direction of causality is questionable, because there are grounds for believing that infertility and its medical treatment cause the depression and anxiety observed in some infertility patients. These findings have led to the recommendation that the term ‘psychogenic infertility’ should be withdrawn from use because it is simplistic and anachronistic.

Menstruation and Incarceration

Some of the rabbis viewed Esther's association with King Achashverosh as being coerced: she was brought to his palace against her will, and remained there in a similar state. So with only a bit of a stretch, we might turn to a 2007 paper published in Women's Health Issues which addressed the influence of stress on the menstrual cycle among newly incarcerated women.  Researchers analyzed 446 non-pregnant women who answered a number of detailed questions about their menstrual cycles.  They found that 9% reported amenorrhea (I told you what that meant two paragraphs ago) and that a third reported menstrual irregularities.  

“Incarcerated women have high rates of amenorrhea and menstrual irregularity and the prevalence may be associated with certain stresses. Further research on the causes and consequences of menstrual dysfunction in this underserved population is needed.”

— Allsworth J. et al. The influence of stress on the menstrual cycle among newly incarcerated women. Women's Helath Issues 2007; (17) 202-209.

As might be expected, the stressors of the incarcerated women in this study included drug and alcohol problems and sexual abuse. These are not the same stressors that faced Queen Esther - who was held in such esteem by her kingly husband that he promised her (Esther 5:6) "up to half of the kingdom."  But this work does show how stress may impact the menstrual cycle.  

A Longitudinal Study of Psychological Stress and Menstruation

The final study we will review comes from a cohort of predominantly white, well educated married women of whom 505 were "invited to participate join a special survey focusing on midlife and menopause." Rather than ask about stress and current menstruation, the researchers performed a two-year analysis. Here's what they found:

In analyzing stress levels and cycle characteristics across 2 years...women with marked increases in their level of stress (n =30) are shown to have decreased length (0.2 days/cycle) of menstrual cycle intervals and decreased duration of bleed (0.1 day/cycle) compared with increases in these measures (2.9 days/cycle for cycle interval; 0.3 days/cycle for duration of bleed) among women with no marked change in stress level (n =103); t-tests indicate that these differences are significant (p < .05).

Some of the differences that the researchers found in this group were really small - "0.3 days/cycle for duration of bleeding" but if you are into statistics this difference can be significant (that's what those t-tests are all about). But these statistical associations were not powerful, and the researchers concluded that "the results of this investigation...suggest that, in the long term, stressful life events have little relationship to the length of menstrual cycle intervals and the duration of menstrual bleeding in perimenopausal women."

The three studies we've reviewed (even that last one with its weak findings) all suggest that there is indeed some relationship between psychological stress and menstruation.  Generally, the effect of stress is to increase the length of the menstrual cycle which may result in amenorrhea.  This finding  is also mentioned in Sotah 20b:   "פחדא צמית - chronic fear contracts [the uterus and prevents menstruation]."  But according to Rav, stress caused Esther to menstruate sooner - the opposite of most modern research findings.  Single events should be used with caution when trying to build a general explanatory model, but Rav, and the other rabbis of the Talmud were onto something when they noted that both acute and chronic fear (which is of course just one type of stress) -  can effect a women's menstrual cycle.  

Happy Pi Day2019, and Happy Birthday Albert Einstein

WHAT IS PI DAY, AND WHEN IS IT CELEBRATED?

From here.

Today, March 14, is celebrated as Pi Day by some of the mathematically inclined in the US. Why? Well, in most of the world, the date is written as day/month/year. So in Israel, all of Europe, Australia, South America and China, today's date, March 14th, would be written as 14/3. 

But not here in the US. Here, we write the date as month/day/year; it's a uniquely American way of doing things. (Like apple pie. And guns.) So today's date is 3/14. Which just happen to be the first few digits of pi, the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter.

And that's why each year, some (particularly geeky) Americans celebrate Pi Day on March 14 (3/14). The year 2015 was Pi'ish than all others, since the entire date (when written the way we do in the US, 3/14/15) reflects five digits of pi, and not just the first three: 31415. Actually we got even more geeky: This day in 2015 at 9:26 and 53 seconds in the morning, the date and time, when written out, represented the first ten digits of Pi: 3141592653.

So that's why Pi Day is celebrated here in the US -  and probably not anywhere else. (It has even be recognized as such by a US Congressional Resolution. Really. I'm not making this up. And who says Congress doesn't get anything done?) 

PI IN THE BIBLE

In the ּBook of Kings (מלאכים א׳ 7:23) we read the following description of  a circular pool that was built by King Solomon. Read it carefully, then answer this question: What is the value of pi that the verse describes?

מלכים א פרק ז פסוק כג 

ויעש את הים מוצק עשר באמה משפתו עד שפתו עגל סביב וחמש באמה קומתו וקוה שלשים באמה יסב אתו סביב 

And he made a molten sea, ten amot from one brim to the other: it was round, and its height was five amot, and a circumference of thirty amot circled it.

Answer: The circumference was 30 amot and the diameter was 10 amot. Since pi is the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter, pi in the Book of Kings is 30/10=3. Three - no more and no less.

There are lots of papers on the value of pi in the the Bible. Many of them mention an observation that seems to have been incorrectly attributed to the Vilna Gaon.  The verse we cited from מלאכים א׳ spells the word for line as קוה, but it is pronounced as though it were written קו.  (In דברי הימים ב׳ (II Chronicles 4:2) the identical verse spells the word for line as קו.)  The ratio of the numerical value (gematria) of the written word (כתיב) to the pronounced word (קרי) is 111/106.  Let's have the French mathematician Shlomo Belga pick up the story - in his paper (first published in the 1991 Proceedings of the 17th Canadian Congress of History and Philosophy of Mathematics, and recently updated), he gets rather excited about the whole gematria thing:

A mathematician called Andrew Simoson also addresses this large tub that is described in מלאכים א׳ and is often called Solomon's Sea. He doesn't buy the gematria, and wrote about it in The College Mathematics Journal.

A natural question with respect to this method is, why add, divide, and multiply the letters of the words? Perhaps an even more basic question is, why all the mystery in the first place? Furthermore, H. W. Guggenheimer, in his Mathematical Reviews...seriously doubts that the use of letters as numerals predates Alexandrian times; or if such is the case, the chronicler did not know the key. Moreover, even if this remarkable approximation to pi is more than coincidence, this explanation does not resolve the obvious measurement discrepancy - the 30-cubit circumference and the 10-cubit diameter. Finally, Deakin points out that if the deity truly is at work in this phenomenon of scripture revealing an accurate approximation ofpi... God would most surely have selected 355/113...as representative of pi...

Still, what stuck Simoson was that "...the chroniclers somehow decided that the diameter and girth measurements of Solomon's Sea were sufficiently striking to include in their narrative." (If you'd like another paper to read on this subject, try this one, published in B'Or Ha'Torah - the journal of "Science, Art & Modern Life in the Light of the Torah." You're welcome.)

PI IN THE TALMUD

The Talmud echoes the biblical value of pi in many places. For example:

תלמוד בבלי מסכת עירובין דף יד עמוד א 

כל שיש בהיקפו שלשה טפחים יש בו רחב טפח. מנא הני מילי? - אמר רבי יוחנן, אמר קרא : ויעש את הים מוצק עשר באמה משפתו עד שפתו עגל סביב וחמש באמה קומתו וקו שלשים באמה יסב אתו סביב 

"Whatever circle has a circumference of three tefachim must have a diameter of one tefach."  The problem is that as we've already noted, this value of pi=3 is not accurate. It deviates from the true value of pi (3.1415...) by about 5%. Tosafot is bothered by this too.

תוספות, עירובין יד א

והאיכא משהו. משמע שהחשבון מצומצם וכן בפ"ק דב"ב (ד' יד:) גבי שני טפחים שנשתיירו בארון ששם ספר תורה מונח שהיא בהיקפה ששה טפחים ופריך כיון דלאמצעיתו נגלל נפיש ליה משני טפחים וכן בתר הכי דמשני בספר דעזרה לתחלתו נגלל ופריך אכתי תרי בתרי היכי יתיב משמע דמצומצם לגמרי וקשיא דאין החשבון מדוקדק לפי חכמי המדות

Tosafos can't find a good answer, and concludes "this is difficult, because the result [that pi=3] is not precise, as demonstrated by those who understand geometry." 

PI IN THE RAMBAM

In his commentary on the Mishnah (Eruvin 1:5) Maimonides makes the following observation:

פירוש המשנה לרמב"ם מסכת עירובין פרק א משנה ה 

צריך אתה לדעת שיחס קוטר העיגול להקפו בלתי ידוע, ואי אפשר לדבר עליו לעולם בדיוק, ואין זה חסרון ידיעה מצדנו כמו שחושבים הסכלים, אלא שדבר זה מצד טבעו בלתי נודע ואין במציאותו שיודע. אבל אפשר לשערו בקירוב, וכבר עשו מומחי המהנדסים בזה חבורים, כלומר לידיעת יחס הקוטר להקיפו בקירוב ואופני ההוכחה עליו. והקירוב שמשתמשים בו אנשי המדע הוא יחס אחד לשלשה ושביעית, שכל עיגול שקוטרו אמה אחת הרי יש בהקיפו שלש אמות ושביעית אמה בקירוב. וכיון שזה לא יושג לגמרי אלא בקירוב תפשו הם בחשבון גדול ואמרו כל שיש בהקיפו שלשה טפחים יש בו רוחב טפח, והסתפקו בזה בכל המדידות שהוצרכו להן בכל התורה.

...The ratio of the diameter to the circumference of a circle is not known and will never be known precisely. This is not due to a lack on our part (as some fools think), but this number [pi] cannot be known because of its nature, and it is not in our ability to ever know it precisely. But it may be approximated ...to three and one-seventh. So any circle with a diameter of one has a circumference of approximately three and one-seventh. But because this ratio is not precise and is only an approximation, they [the rabbis of the Mishnah and Talmud] used a more general value and said that any circle with a circumference of three has a diameter of one, and they used this value in all their Torah calculations.

So what are we to make of all this? Did the rabbis of the Talmud get pi wrong, or were they just approximating pi for ease of use?  After considering evidence from elsewhere in the Mishnah (Ohalot 12:6 - I'll spare you the details), Judah Landa, in his book Torah and Science, has this to say:

We can only conclude that the rabbis of the Mishnah and Talmud, who lived about 2,000 years ago, believed that the value of pi was truly three. They did not use three merely for simplicity’s sake, nor did they think of three as an approximation for pi. On the other hand, rabbis who lived much later, such as the Rambam and Tosafot (who lived about 900 years ago), seem to be acutely aware of the gross innacuracies that results from using three for pi. Mathematicians have known that pi is greater than three for thousands of years. Archimedes, who lived about 2,200 years ago, narrowed the value of pi down to between 3 10/70 and 3 10/71 ! (Judah Landa. Torah and Science. Ktav Publishing House 1991. p.23.)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, EINSTEIN

Today, March 14, is not only Pi Day. It is also the anniversary of the birthday of Albert Einstein, who was born on March 14, 1879. As I've noted elsewhere, Einstein was a prolific writer; one recent book (almost 600 pages long) claims to contain “roughly 1,600” Einstein quotes. So it's hard to chose one pithy quote of his on which to close.  So here are two.  Happy Pi Day, and happy birthday, Albert Einstein.

“As a human being, one has been endowed with just enough intelligence to be able to see clearly how utterly inadequate that intelligence is when confronted with what exists.”

— Letter to Queen Elisabeth of Belgium, September 1932

“One thing I have learned in a long life: That all our science, measured against reality, is primitive and childlike — and yet it is the most precious thing we have.”

— Banesh Hoffman. Albert Einstein: Creator and Rebel. Plume 1973

Chullin 105b ~ The Healing Effects of Alcohol

חולין קה, ב

לכרסם דחמרא שיכרא דשיכרא מיא דמיא לית ליה תקנתא והיינו דאמרי אינשי בתר עניא אזלא עניותא

The treatment for catarrh caused by the foam of wine is beer; the treatment for catarrh caused by the foam of beer is water; and for catarrh caused by the foam of water there is no remedy. And this is in accordance with the adage that people say: Poverty follows the poor. [Not only does a pauper have nothing to drink other than water, but there also is no treatment for the disease caused by his beverage.]

In today’s page of Talmud we read that the disease known as karsom (כרסם) was caused by the “foam” that floats above wine, beer or water. Karsom is translated by the Soncino, Koren and ArtScroll Talmuds as catarrh, that green phlegmy discharge from our noses and mouths when we come down with a heavy cold. In his dictionary, the great philologist of rabbinic literature Marcus Jastrow notes that there is another spelling of the word, barsom, (ברסם) “a dripping like balsam, whence catarrh of the head.” And Rashi describes it as “nasal mucus” (רירין הבאין מן החוטם). In any event, the cure for one type of this mucus was beer, which raises the question - can ingesting alcohol cure disease?

We are not going to examine the ongoing debate as to whether a regular glass of wine is good for you or not. At best the evidence is mixed, with any positive effects being highly dependent on not drinking “too much.” Alcohol may be cardioprotective, but only at a moderate dose and frequency of ingestion. On the other hand, even at a low dose, alcohol does some pretty terrible things to your immune system and ability to repair damaged tissue.

“...even after a single acute or binge exposure, alcohol leads to tissue damage. In gastric mucosa and in bone, alcohol exposure alters basic signaling processes. In the repair of skin damage following injury or surgery, alcohol disrupts signaling in a broader context, in multiple tissue types. The derangement of the inflammatory response by alcohol leads to altered cytokine and chemokine production by multiple cell types and this, in turn, influences the responses of other cell types. ”

— Jung et al. Alcohol Exposure and Mechanisms of Tissue Injury and Repair. Alcohol Clin Exp Res. 2011 ; 35(3): 392–399.

“Habitual light to moderate alcohol intake (up to 1 drink per day for women and 1 or 2 drinks per day for men) is associated with decreased risks for total mortality, coronary artery disease, diabetes mellitus, congestive heart failure, and stroke. However, higher levels of alcohol consumption are associated with increased cardiovascular risk.”

— O'Keefe et al. Alcohol and Cardiovascular Health: The Dose Makes the Poison...or the Remedy. Mayo Clin Proc.2014;89(3):382-393.

Alcohol has been used as a medicine for over 5,000 years and when thee alternative was drinking water contaminated with bacteria, alcohol provided a safer (and certainly more enjoyable) way to remain hydrated, since it is a natural antiseptic. Juniper essential oil for example, which is obtained from Juniper berries is both antimicrobial and antifungal. It is also an essential ingredient of gin. “Juniper is such an important aspect of gin” we learn on this useful website, “that quite literally, it is not only the primary botanical used in gin but by law, it needs to be the predominant flavour in anything seeking to be classified as gin.”

alcohol and the discovery of the cause of CHolera

In the 1850s, London (and much of Europe) suffered a series of cholera outbreaks, and no-one knew what caused them. But John Snow (1813-1858), anesthesiologist to Queen Victoria had a hunch. He drew a map of the deaths around the Broad Street pump, which, he suspected was somehow involved in transmitting whatever it was that was spreading the disease.

There were a large cluster of deaths in the immediate vicinity of the Broad Street Pump; that made sense if the pump was supplying contaminated water. However, there were far fewer deaths than would be expected at the brewery, which lay at the corner of Broad Street and Hopkin Street. Snow dug deeper, and this is what he found:

John Snow. On the Mode of Communication of Cholera. London, John Churchill 1855. p42.

The men had been saved by their allotted drinks of beer, which came from a separate well and not from the one on Broad Street. This explanation did much to bolster Snow’s suspicions. On September 8, 1854 he famously removed the pump handle which prevented the pump from being used and, so the story goes, the cholera epidemic was averted.

Alcohol and Influenza

The Talmud had suggested wine would fight some infections. In the last century physicians had a similar idea. In 1913 in New York, a physician named John Hopkirk published a small book: Influenza. Its History, Nature, Cause and Treatment. To cure some of the many complications of influenza (including pneumonia and otitis media) Hopkirk wrote that “it will always be necessary…to administer port or champagne…there is no finer pick-me-up after an attack of influenza than good “fiz”.” During the Great Flu Epidemic of 1918 a few years later, physicians reverted to a similar strategy. Writing in the London Times on November 1, 1918, Britain’s chief medical officer had limited advice: wear small face masks, eat well, and drink a half bottle of light wine.

Purim in next week

When celebrating the festival of Purim, the Talmudic sage Rava recommends (Megillah 7b) that a person drink until they are so inebriated that they cannot distinguish between the phrases “cursed is Haman” (the enemy of the Jews), and “blessed be Mordechai” (one of the key figures in their salvation). Perhaps in doing so, we can remain sober enough to remember that from the time of the Talmud until today alcohol was thought to prevent and cure all manner of disease. But only in moderation.

Chullin 104b ~ Mordechai, Plagiarism, and the Lips of the Dead

With the joyous Jewish Festival of Purim less than two weeks away, it is a happy coincidence that we read the following in today’s Daf Yomi, the one-page-a-day study cycle of Talmud:

חולין קד,ב
כל האומר דבר בשם אומרו מביא גאולה לעולם, שנאמר (אסתר ב), ותאמר אסתר למלך בשם מרדכי

Whoever cites something in the name of the person who originally said it, brings redemption to the world. As the prooftext states - “And Esther told the King in the name of Mordechai...”

From here, so not plagiarized.

Plagiarism, it seems, has never been so popular.  Remember How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life, the 2006 debut novel from Harvard undergraduate Kaavya Viswanathan? The author had plagiarized several passages from others (including Salman Rushdie) and the publisher Little Brown recalled and destroyed all its unsold copies.  It's not just authors; politicians plagiarize too.  In 2013 the German minister for education resigned amid allegations she had plagiarized her PhD. thesis, and in 2014 year Senator Jon Walsh of  Montana had his Master's Degree revoked by the US Army War College which determined that it had been plagiarized. (Walsh dropped out of the Senate race as a result of the scandal.)  

Plagiarism. It's not just for authors and politicians. Scientists do it too. In the last three years alone, Retraction Watch has reported that over 160 scientific papers were retracted because of plagiarism. In fact plagiarism has become so pervasive in academia (and the need to report it has become so important) that a recent paper paper in Ethics & Behavior outlines advice for academics considering becoming plagiarism whisleblowers. 

This  seems to be a very good era in which to remind ourselves - and our students - that the full and proper attribution of the work of others is a core Jewish value. 

Sadly, Jewish literature has a many examples of plagarism, improper attribution, and other infractions of publication etiquette.  We are going to look at four of these. They are all different, and their ethical breaches are not to be equated, but they are reminders of the responsibility of those who publish to check, double check, and attribute.   

1.  Partial or inaccurate citation

Inaccurate citation is a relatively lightweight problem, but it's a problem nevertheless. The  English language Schottenstein Talmud, published by ArtScroll, chose a censored text of the Talmud as the basis for its translation project. (Full disclosure: I enjoy the Schottenstein Talmud, and study from it each day, God, bless it).  As I've pointed out elsewhere, this was a sad choice, and a missed opportunity to return the text to its more pristine (and more challenging) state. 

One example of ArtScroll's decision is found very early on in Berachot (3a).  There, the original uncensored text records a statement said in the name of Rav: אוי לי שהחרבתי את ביתי ושרפתי את היכלי והגליתים לבין אומות העולם

Woe is me [God], for I destroyed my home [the Temple], burned my Sanctuary,  and sent [the Jewish People] into exile among the nations of the world. 

However, the editors of the English ArtScroll Talmud chose to use a censored text in which an additional phrase was slipped in by the censor:  אוי לבנים שבעונותיהם החרבתי את ביתי ושרפתי את היכלי והגליתים לבין אומות העולם

Woe to my children who sinned, [and hence made me, God] destroy my home [the Temple], burn my Sanctuary,  and send them into exile among the nations of the world. 

Here is a version of the uncensored text- the one that ArtScroll could have used.  As you can see, the censor's additional text is not there:

Babylonischer Talmud - BSB Cod.hebr. 95, 1342

Then, to compound the error, the ArtScroll Talmud addes a footnote explaining the metaphorical meaning of this erroneous text!

Schottenstein Talmud, Mesorah Publications, Berachot 3a

To be clear: ArtScroll did not plagiarize anything, but they should have done a better job of quoting the text accurately. After all, isn't that what Rabbi Yochanan taught us to do? Had they done so, the lips of the great sage Rav, whose teachings were improperly amended by the censor, would again "move in his grave" - as we will learn below.

 Now on to more egregious  issues - hard core palgarism.

 2.  Plagiarism in part

Sometimes another author says it just right, and uses language in so perfect a way that others will want to claim it as their own.  One example of this is found in the 500 year long debate over whether Jews could believe in the Copernican model of the solar system in which the sun was stationary.  In the late nineteenth century Reuven Landau (c. 1800-1883) adopted a hard-core conservative position against this model. He found it to be existentially threatening, and argued that because humanity was the center of the spiritual universe, it must live in the very center of the physical one. But rather than outline his claims in his own words, he stole from the very  widely read Sefer Haberit, an encyclopedic work that had been published some one hundred years earlier.  Here is an excerpt from Landau's text, in which he raises what he believes to be scientific objections to the Copernican model.  The bold text shows where the text is identical to Sefer Haberit, first published in 1798. 

If it is as Copernicus has written, and the earth circles the sun at great speed from west to east, it would be the case that a stone which falls to the ground from the top of a high tower on its western side should not land exactly at the foot of the tower but rather should come to rest slightly to the west of the tower. For while the stone is in free-fall, the earth together with the tower have moved in orbit to the east, by three and two-thirds parsa’ot. Yet we see with our own eyes that this does not occur. Rather the stone falls and comes to rest precisely at the foot of the tower.

Quite simply put, Landau to have stolen from Sefer Haberit. A simple attribution was all that was needed. And it was not there. (You can read more about this plagiarism here, and more about Sefer Haberit in my book, and in this recently published work from David Ruderman)

Well, you say, that's not quite right. but it's not too bad either. Well, here comes full, unadulterated plagiarism.

 3. Plagiarism in full: Stealing an entire chapter, word for (almost) word

In 1788 in Berlin, Barukh Linda (not to be confused with the plagiarist Reuven Landau) published a small encyclopedia for children called Reshit Limmudim. In it, Linda carefully explained the heliocentric model of Copernicus and how the planets moved around the sun. This book became, in the words of the  historian Shmuel Feiner the “most famous, up-to-date book on the Hebrew bookshelf at the end of the eighteenth century,” And then, a year after it was published a Rabbi Shimon Oppenhiemer, living in Prague, stole from it.

Oppenheimer (1753-1851 -and definitely not this Oppenheim(er)) objected to the claim that the earth revolved around the sun, and in 1789 in Prague he published Amud Hashachar in which he detailed his opposition. But rather than use his own words, he stole, word for word, the descriptions of the solar system from the pro-Copernican Reshit Limmudim, carefully leaving out the bits that supported Copernicus.  In a move that pushes hutzpah to a new level, Oppenheimer even published a moving poem as if it had been written to him. However, the poem was a dedication to the real author Linda - from Naphtali Herz Wessely.  Oy.

Had enough of Rabbi Oppenheimer? There’s more.  When it came to plagiarism, this Rabbi Oppenheimer was a repeat offender, (enough perhaps to earn a special mention in a Jewish Retraction Watch).  Because in 1831 he published Nezer Hakodesh, a book on religious ethics (I'll say that again in case you missed it - it's a book on religious ethics)...which he plagiarized from the 1556 work Ma'alot Hamidot !  Here's a random example so you can see  the scale of the plagiarism.

מעלת המדות, 1556

נזר הקודש 1831

There is a fascinating end to the story.  The famous Rabbi Yechezkel Landau (that’s the third Landua/Linda in this little post –sorry), head of the Bet Din in Prague, banned Oppenheimer from printing further copies of Amud Hashachar, but not because it was plagarized.  Rather, Chief Rabbi Landau objected to the book’s frontispiece, in which Oppenheimer described himself as “The great Gaon, sharp and famous, the outstanding investigator Shimon”.  Read it for yourself:

First edition of עמוד השחר, Prague 1789. From the Jewish National and University Library, Jerusalem

In his rebuke, the head of the Bet Din made no mention of the fact that sections of the book were plagiarized, even though this information was widely known. Oppenheimer proceeded undeterred, and published a second edition of his plagiarized and anti-Copernican work – although he was “honest” enough to remove the stolen poem praising his book - a poem that had originally been written by Naphtali Herz Wessely in praise of Lindau’s Reshit Limmudim.

4.  Incomplete quotation of a passage

Our last example of plagiarism and citation misuse is again from the ArtScroll publishers, though this time it’s a little more serious than their using a censored manuscript of the Tamud. This time Artscroll is itself the censor.

In their new edition of the Mikra’ot Gedolot, (or, as they call it, Mikra'os Gedolos) the editors have censored an entire passage from the commentary of the great eleventh century French scholar Shmuel ben Meir, known as the Rashbam , without any indication that they have tampered with the text. In a famous passage, Rashbam claimed that – contrary to normative Jewish thought, the twenty-four hours of the Jewish day should begin at sunrise, and not after sunset, as is our practice.  This antinomian position seems to have been too much to share with its readers, so ArtScroll just expunged it.

Here is the Rashbam as it appears in the new ArtScroll edition:

חומש מקראות גדולות בראשית. ארטסקרול–מסורה 2014. The red arrow indicates censorship of the Rashbam.

And here is the original text of the Rashbam with the censored text in bold.

ד) וירא אלהים את האור - נסתכל במראהו כי יפה הוא. וכן ותרא אותו כי טוב הוא, נסתכלה במשה שנולד לששה חדשים כמו שמואל לתקופת הימים וראתהו כי טוב ויפה הוא שנגמרו סימניו וצפרניו ושערו, ותצפנהו שלשה ירחים, כלו' עד סוף ט' חדשים שהרי ראתהו וידעה  שהוא טוב ויפה בסימנים, שאינו נפל

ויבדל אלהים בין האור ובין החשך - שי"ב שעות היה היום ואח"כ הלילה י"ב. האור תחלה ואח"כ החשך. שהרי תחלת בריאת העולם היה במאמר יהי אור. וכל חשך שמקודם לכך דכת' וחשך על פני תהום לא זהו לילה

ה) ויקרא אלהים לאור יום - תמה על עצמך לפי הפשט למה הוצרך הקדוש ברוך הוא לקרוא לאור בשעת יצירתו יום? אלא כך כתב משה רבינו, כ"מ שאנו רואים בדברי המקום יום ולילה כגון יום ולילה לא ישבותו, הוא האור והחשך שנברא ביום ראשון, קורא אותו הקדוש ברוך הוא בכ"מ יום ולילה. וכן כל ויקרא אלהים הכתובים בפרשה זו. וכן ויקרא משה להושע בן נון יהושע, האמור למעלה למטה אפרים הושע בן נון, הוא אותו שקרא משה יהושע בן נון שמינהו קודם לכן משרתו בביתו, שכן דרך המלכים הממנים אנשים על ביתם לחדש להם שם כמו שנאמר ויקרא פרעה שם יוסף צפנת פענח, ויקרא לדניאל בלטשצר וגו'

ולחשך קרא לילה - לעולם אור תחלה ואח"כ חשך

ויהי ערב ויהי בקר - אין כתיב כאן ויהי לילה ויהי יום אלא ויהי ערב, שהעריב יום ראשון ושיקע האור, ויהי בוקר, בוקרו של לילה, שעלה עמוד השחר. הרי הושלם יום א' מן הו' ימים שאמר הק' בי' הדברות, ואח"כ התחיל יום שיני, ויאמר אלהים יהי רקיע. ולא בא הכתוב לומר שהערב והבקר יום אחד הם, כי לא הצרכנו לפרש אלא היאך היו ששה ימים, שהבקיר יום ונגמרה הלילה, הרי נגמר יום אחד והתחיל יום שיני

This censorship of the Rashbam is not unique to ArtScroll. It exists in other standard printings of Mikra'ot Gedolot, like this one from Machon Hama'or, (Jerusalem 1990), although not in the Torat Chaim from Mossad Harav Kook.

Marc Shapiro, who brought this to the attention of Jewish world, has called for ArtScroll to give a full refund to any one who purchased these censored copies. And he is absolutely correct. A recent academic editorial noted that improper quotation is a type of plagiarism; like complete plagiarism, this selective quotation strips ownership away from the original author, and leaves in its wake a text never intended.  

THE need for recognition

In his autobiography, the British comedian John Cleese (of Monty Python and Fawlty Towers fame) recalls how he reacted the very first time that he was recognized after a stage performance.  As he walked home, a family who had been in the audience pointed at him and waived. It was by all accounts a small gesture, but Cleese recalled its effects in detail even fifty years later:

I can still remember the sudden feeling of warmth around my heart that swelled and swelled and lifted my spirits. It is as though I had been accepted into a new family, and acknowledged as having brought them something special that they really appreciated. It was only a moment but it was wonderful, and they didn't even know my name...in today's celebrity culture it must be hard to imagine that a tiny moment of recognition like that could feel so uncomplicated and positive...

The need for recognition is not a vice or a character flaw, but a profound human need. To ignore it is not just an oversight but an act of neglect.  The rabbis of the Mishnah and the Talmud understood the corollary: that to attribute is to nourish.  To acknowledge the creative act of another person is a kind of blessing, like those required before eating, or on seeing a beautiful vista.  Blessings and citations acknowledge the creative impulse in others, and so make the world a little bit better. They are redemptive. As this Mishnah taught:

“אמר רבי יוחנן משום רבי שמעון בן יוחי כל ת”ח שאומרים דבר שמועה מפיו בעולם הזה שפתותיו דובבות בקבר

Rabbi Yochanan said in the name of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai: The lips of a [deceased] scholar move in the grave when their teachings are said in their name.
”

— Yevamot 97a

[Mostly a repost (so not self-plagiarism) from here.]