Tamid 32a ~ How High is the Sky? (And How to Measure It)

Tomorrow we will read a wondrous page of Talmud, that includes a discussion of astronomical distances.

תמיד לא, ב

:עשרה דברים שאל אלכסנדרוס מוקדון את זקני הנגב אמר להן

[תמיד לב, א]

מן השמים לארץ רחוק או ממזרח למערב אמרו לו ממזרח למערב תדע שהרי חמה במזרח הכל מסתכלין בה חמה במערב הכל מסתכלין בה חמה באמצע רקיע אין הכל מסתכלין בה

וחכמים אומרים זה וזה כאחד שוין שנאמר (תהלים קג, יא) כגבוה שמים על הארץ [וגו'] כרחוק מזרח ממערב ואי חד מינייהו נפיש נכתוב תרווייהו כי ההוא דנפיש ואלא חמה באמצע רקיע מ"ט אין הכל מסתכלין בה משום דקאי להדיא ולא כסי ליה מידי

Alexander of Macedon asked the Elders of the Negev about ten matters.

He said to them: Is the distance from the heavens to the earth further, or is the distance from east to west further? They said to him: From east to west is a greater distance. Know that this is so, as when the sun is in the east, everyone looks at it without hurting their eyes, and when the sun is in the west, everyone looks at it without hurting their eyes. By contrast, when the sun is inthe middle ofthe sky, no one looks at it, as it would hurt their eyes. [This shows that the sun’s place in the middle of the sky is not as far from the earth as its remote positions in the extreme east and west].

But the Sages say: This distance and that distance are equal, as it is stated: “For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is His kindness toward them that fear Him. As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us” (Psalms 103:11–12). [The verses compare the extent of God’s kindness and His removal of transgressions to vast expanses.] And if one of the distances is greater than the other, let the verse write that both of God’s enumerated attributes are like the measure that is greater. But if so, with regard to the sun in the middle of the sky, what is the reason that no one looks at it? It is because it stands exposed and nothing covers it, [whereas it is partially screened when it is in the east or the west.]

Method for measuring the distance from the Earth to the Moon. From Joseph Delmedigo’s 1629 masterpiece, Sefer Elim, p152.

Alexander on tour…

The path of the sun, based on the famous passage in Peaschim 94b.

Historians know that Alexander the Great waged a famous campaign against Gaza and Egypt in 332 BCE. That would have placed him in or near the area in southern Israel known as the Negev, and it is while he was there that he asked the local sages whether the distance to the heavens is greater than the distance from east to west. To moderns, this is a silly question, but not to Alexander and his contemporaries. They believed that the world was a flat saucer, covered with water on which the earth floated in the middle. They also believed above us lay a solid vault that contained the stars, and which the rabbis referred to as the rakia. So which was greater, the distance up to the heavenly vault that held the sun and the stars, or the distance from one side of the earth to the other? It’s a fair question.

November 11 2019 - The Transit of Mercury

November 11, 2019: Mercury transits the sun from east to west. The horizontal yellow line represents the ecliptic, and the top is North. Make sure you are using a sun-filter on your telescope, and don’t try this with hand-held binoculars (too wobbly to see). From here.

And here is how it looks in real life through a telescope. Mercury is the black dot in the lower part of the image. At top is a more blurry sunspot. From here.

On November 11, the tiny planet of Mercury will transit (that’s astronomy-speak for “passing in front of”) across the sun. These events get astronomers very excited. You may recall that back in June of 2012 Venus was in transit across the face of the sun, leading many to spend a sunny day peering into a telescope for a glimpse. (I did. It was amazing.)

Back in the nineteenth century, the transit of Venus was of huge scientific importance because by observing it from various locations and using some clever trigonometry, astronomers could calculate the distance from the Earth. Knowing this would allow the distance of other planets from the Earth to be calculated, which would then give the answer to one of the most important astronomical questions of the time: Just how big is the solar system?

Using the transit of Venus to determine the distance from the earth to the Sun. For a deep dive into how the math works see this delightful article in the December 2003 edition of Mathematics Magazine.

The transit of Venus always occurs twice in eight years, followed by a gap of 105.5 or 121.5 years. The first time it could be viewed was in 1639, but that transit was witnessed by only two observers. By the time of the paired transits of 1761 and 1769, scientific instruments were accurate enough to provide the data needed for the all-important calculations. So in 1760 and again in 1768 the major European nations including Britain, France, Spain and Russia sent teams across the globe to measure the transit times of Venus. Perhaps the most famous expedition was that led by Captain James Cook who sailed from London to Tahiti and made a series of accurate measurements that allowed the all-important calculations to be made.

Anyway, in a couple of weeks the tiny planet of Mercury will also transit the sun. In the past, this event too could have been used to calculate the size of the solar system. But it wasn’t. The planet is just too small and too far away, and the telescopes of the time were too inaccurate for any scientifically valid measurements to be taken. Instead, astronomers waited for the larger and more visible planet Venus to transit, which also caught the attention of some important Jewish authors.

Three Jewish responses to measuring the size of the universe

1. Sefer Haberit 1797

The first Hebrew book to discuss the transit of Venus was Sefer Haberit, The Book of the Covenant, first published in 1797 in Brno. That also makes it the first Hebrew book to discuss the measurement of astronomical distances.

The author was Pinhas Hurwitz, a self-educated Jew from Vilna. Sefer Haberit was divided in two parts; the first, consisting of some two hundred and fifty pages is a scientific encyclopedia, addressing what Hurwitz called human wisdom (hokhmat adam) and focuses on the material world. The second part, shorter than the first at only one hundred and thirty pages, is an analysis of divine wisdom (hokhmat elohim), and focuses on spiritual matters. Sefer Haberit was an encyclopedia, and contained information on astronomy, geography, physics, and embryology. It described all manner of scientific discoveries, from the barometer to the lightening rod, and gave its readers up to date information on the recent discovery of the planet Uranus, and the (not so recent) discovery of America. Sefer Haberit was also incredibly popular; it has been reprinted some thirty times, was translated into Yiddish and Ladino, and remains available today.

In a section on solar and lunar eclipses, Hurwitz recalled the transit of Venus in 1769. He described how Cook’s expedition had almost been in vain when some of their scientific instruments were stolen the night before the transit, and how, thanks to the team’s valiant efforts, the stolen instruments were returned. Here is the original text:

And I have twice witnessed a solar eclipse caused by the moon. The first was in the Hague in Holland, and the second in Vilna in Lita, the city of my birth. During my life there was also a transit of across the sun by the planet Venus, which passed in front of it as a tiny round black dot…

This transit [of 1769] became famous across the world before it had even occurred. In British universities they examined and calculated the orbits of the planets and discovered that at a specific time Venus will pass across the face of the sun. Several years prior, they published that this event would be visible at a specific time in one location and at another time in another location…So one year prior a number of wealthy adventurers left England and sailed for more than a year to reach distant shores. They reached the island of Tahiti in the Americas, together with their telescopes and equipment to see the transit under the best conditions…

On the day before the event they set up their equipment at a specific location to be ready for the transit. But overnight the locals stole all the equipment, and then denied having done so, making the entire trip almost fruitless. But after intense negotiations they returned it all, and the transit of Venus occurred at the exact time that had been predicted…

Cook eventually returned to England with his measurements, which together with those from several other observations from Lapland to California eventually allowed the Sun-Earth distance to be calculated. (Oh, and that bit about the equipment being stolen. It is mostly true. A quadrant went missing. Here is how Cook described what happened next in his journal: “… it was not long before we got information that one of the natives had taken it away and carried it to the Eastward...I met Mr Banks and Mr Green about 4 miles from the Fort returning with the Quadrant, this was about Sunset and we all got back to the Fort about 8 oClock.”)

What is of interest here is that Hurwitz did not inform his readers of the real reason that the transit was to be observed.  There is no mention of the way in which the transit of Venus could be used to determine the size of the solar system or the distance from the sun to the Earth, which were of course the real reasons for all the time and effort being spent in observing it.  Why did Hurwitz leave all this out, and suggest instead that the reason for sending Captain Cook all the way from London to Tahiti was to see if the predictions for the time of the transit were accurate?

The answer lies in the fact that Hurwitz was somewhat conflicted about his belief in the model suggested by Copernicus in which the Earth and all the planets revolve around a stationary sun.  Although in some places in Sefer Haberit he spoke highly of the Copernican model, Hurwitz ultimately sided with the Tychonic universe in which all the planets except the Earth revolve around the Sun, while the Sun orbits a stationary Earth, dragging the planets along with it. He did this for a number of scientific and theological reasons, including a belief that the Earth was the crowning glory of creation. “All of the planets were only created for the sake of this Earth, and everything was created for the sake of mankind on the Earth...even if the purpose of these other heavenly creations is not always clear to us.”Since the Earth was the reason for creation, it was only fitting that it lay at the center of the universe.

Hurwitz described the goal of Cook’s expedition to Tahiti as testing the predictions of the timing of the transit, when in fact its mission was far more important than that. But since Hurwitz ultimately rejected the Copernican model, he chose not to discuss the real reason for Cook’s expedition, namely to provide data that would allow the size of the Copernican solar system to be calculated.  Instead, Hurwitz described the mission as one to verify the times of the predicted transit, as a sort of test of the ability of astronomers to predict these kinds of events.  Although he did not reveal the real goals of the expedition, he noted that is was a great success, and that transit of Venus occurred precisely the times predicted. Which it did.

“The range of solar parallax values derived from the 1769 transit, and thus the length of the astronomical unit, drew ever closer other values accepted today. ...a modern radar-based value for the astronomical unit is 92,955,000 miles.
And based on his analysis of the 1769 transit of Venus, Thomas Horsby wrote in 1771 that “... the mean distance of the Earth from the Sun will be 93,726,900 English miles.”
Eight-tenths of a percent difference. Absolutely remarkable.”

— Teets, D. Transits of Venus and the Astronomical Unit. Mathematic Magazine 2003; 75 (5); 347.

2. Kochava Deshavit 1835

We have previously discussed the Jewish scientist extraordinaire Chaim Zelig Slonimski, For our new readers here is a recap.

Chaim Zelig Slonimski. Kochava DeShavit 1835.

To coincide with the appearance of Halley's Comet in 1835, a Hebrew book called Kokhava Deshavit (The Comet) was published in Vilna. It described where and when the comet would be visible with precise coordinates for the inhabitants of Bialystok, as well as an explanation of the nature of comets and their orbits. The author was the remarkable Hayyim Zelig Slonimski, (1810-1904), the founding editor of Hazefirah (The Dawn), a weekly Hebrew-language newspaper first published in Warsaw in 1862. He also wrote Mosdei Hokhmah (The Foundation of Wisdom), a work on algebra, and struck up a friendship with the famed German naturalist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859). Not content with all this, Slonimski invented a method to send two telegraphs simultaneously over one wire (which was a very big deal at the time,) and developed a calculating machine that he later presented to the Imperial Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg. It was so successful that in 1845 the Russian minister of education made Slonimski an honorary citizen, a remarkable honor given the general oppression faced by the Jews at the time. So yes, Jewish scientist extraordinaire.

Writing in Kokhava Deshavit Slonimski explained why the transit was so important: “if [Venus] happens to pass in front of the sun and we can see it, that would be the time for astronomers to measure the angle it subtends in front of the sun (solar parallax), which is a fundamental and valuable [measure] for astronomy, as those who know these things understand. This is the reason that astronomers went to such lengths at that time to measure the moment of its [Venus’] conjunctions at various locations across the Earth. In 1769, when astronomers calculated that the transit would occur, they all prepared for this time in order to provide the most precise measurements…” [Small print: Slonimski here is absolutely correct. Solar parallax is an angular measurement that is one-half of the angular size of the Earth as seen from the sun. The reason the measurement is so important is that the distance to the sun is the radius of the Earth divided by the solar parallax.]

…Germany sent three astronomers to Domingo in the Americas and to East India, and England sent them to North America, Madras, and Tahiti. The Russian Empress Catherine sent people to follow astronomers from Germany and Sweden. They brought lots of equipment from London and Paris which they sent to the four corners of her empire…

They calculated the angle of parallax with great precision, but it was not quite accurate enough. They will get a better measurement at the next opportunity. This will occur in the Jewish year 5634 [1874] on the ninth of December, when Venus will again transit the sun at 2.18pm. The transit will last 4 hours and 9 minutes.

The reader can almost see the smile on Slonimski’s face as he shared the start time of the transit. In fact Slonimski viewed these kinds of calculations as one of the great triumphs of astronomy. When in 1846 astronomers discovered the planet Neptune, they did so on the basis of a series of calculations that suggested the existence of a planet to account for irregularities in the orbit of Uranus. And Slonimski was overjoyed, imbuing the moment with a religious patina:

The findings of this amazing discovery have struck every wise person with awe. Nothing like this in the history of humanity has ever occurred since God created man on the Earth. For can a person sit at home and use his human mind to calculate and then find a completely hidden celestial object thirty-six times as far away as the Sun is from the Earth? Yet indeed he can point to the sky and say “look, aim your telescopes there. That is where you will find another planet that orbits the Sun”…

3. Nivreshet Lenez Hahamah 1898

The third Hebrew book to discuss the measurement of astronomic distance is Nivreshet Lenez Hachama (The Chandelier of the Sunrise), published in Jerusalem in 1898. Its author was the geocentric Hayah David Spitzer. He rejected Copernicus and his heliocentric model, believing instead that the entire universe revolved around the Earth, because “everything, including the Sun, was created for the Earth and for Israel who dwell on it and keep the Torah.” Spitzer’s main interest was in determining the precise times of sunrise and sunset in halakhah, and he spent hours carefully measuring these times in and around Jerusalem.

Spitzer rejected all the calculations about the size of the solar system and the distance to the nearest stars that had been calculated using the observations of the transit of Venus, as well as estimates of the speed of light that had been made in the nineteenth century. He did so on both ‘scientific’ and religious grounds. For example, if as astronomers claimed, some stars were 24,000 light years away from Earth, their light could not have reached the Earth that had only existed for some 6,000 years. In addition, what purpose would there have been in creating such remote stars, whose light served no purpose for those on Earth? Finally, since the speed of light is not mentioned in the Talmud, the notion that light has a finite speed cannot be correct. Here is the original text.

Hayah David Spitzer, Nivreshet Lenez Hahamah(Jerusalem: Blumenthal, 1898). 35a.

We find various discussions in out Talmud about the size of the universe, and the distance to and the size of the stars. But we there is no mention at all about the idea that sunlight or light from the stars takes a finite time to reach us. If there was even the remote possibility that this was so our sages would certainly have discussed it in detail…

Spitzer claimed that anyone could perform a simple experiment that would refute the notion that light took a finite time to travel vast distances. If, during the day, the door to a house was suddenly closed, it should still be possible to see an image of the sun for some time since the light would take time to travel from the site of the now closed door across the room and into the eye of the observer. Similarly, 

if we open a closed door or window…we should not be able to see sunlight for some time, and we should be forced to sit in darkness as if the doors had not been opened. What can be said of this idiocy and stupidity, at which any person would laugh? Rather, as soon as a person opens his eyes he stops seeing nothing and when he opens his eyes at night he immediately sees all the stars, both those nearby that need sixteen years for their light to travel, and those far away whose light takes one hundred and twenty years to reach us.

Sptizer 34b.

Oy. Even when judged by the scientific standards of his own time, Spitzer’s work was astonishingly naive. To explain why he adopted this extreme (and extremely uninformed) position, you need to understand that Spitzer believed that the entire scientific process had but one goal in mind - to destroy the fundamentals of Jewish belief: “Their entire aim is to deny God’s Torah, to destroy religion, to confuse those who would disagree with them and to embarrass and belittle the sages of Israel.”

---

These three rabbinic authors had three quite different ways of approaching both the history of the transit of Venus and the measurement of distances that was deduced from it. Hurwitz was certainly inquisitive about all things scientific, but did not reveal the real goals of the expeditions to observe the transit, because they would raise further questions about the model of the solar system in which he believed- a model in which the Earth was the unmoving center. Slonimski informed his readers of the real goals of the observations and had no issues – religious or scientific - with accepting a universe in which the Earth was not the center. But for Spitzer, the enterprise of astronomy was a vast conspiracy to undermine Torah values. He therefore stretched to reject any science that the transit of Venus bequeathed to future generations.

“Alexander was not just another conqueror in the ancient world. He severed that world from its past. He hellenized it, and at the same time he delivered a lethal blow to its traditions.”

— G. W. Bowersock. The Invention of Time. The New York Review of Books. Nov 7, 2019, 29.

Humanity has been intrigued by the heavens for as long as recorded history. The answer Alexander the Great received from the Elders of the Negev was not based any mathematical principles or measurements of the planets or stars. It was based on a more important and more trustworthy source: the word of God. Over a millennia later, the Temple in Jerusalem was interpreted as a model of the solar system, with its gates representing the planets. That’s next time, on Talmudology.

[Partial repost from a here.]

Tamid 27b ~ Open Defecation

On Monday, the first day of the festival of Sukkot, we will study Tamid 27. So print this up to read as you sit in your sukkah, or visit a friend who has invited you in.

While hiking in Alaska many years ago, one of my sons noted that there was one big advantage about urinating outside. “You can’t miss.”

תמיד כז, ב

א"ל רב לחייא בריה וכן א"ל רב הונא לרבה בריה חשיך תקין נפשך וקדים תקין נפשך כי היכי דלא תרחק תוב וגלי כסי וקום 

Rav said to his son Hiyya, and likewise Rav Huna said to his son Rabba: Relieve yourself when it gets dark, and relieve yourself before day break, [even if you have no particular need to do so. The reason is that the streets are mostly empty at these times, and one can relieve himself near his home without concern that he might be seen. This is important,] so that you will not have to relieve yourself [during the day, when the streets are full,] and you will be compelled to retain your feces while you distance yourself, which is liable to jeopardize your health. [Furthermore, when relieving yourself, you should behave modestly.] Sit down first and only then uncover yourself; afterward, cover yourself first and only then stand up.

Open Defecation - a Worldwide Problem

In 2018 a small team of public health and civil engineering experts conducted a survey of open defecation in the American city of Atlanta. Yes. Atlanta. America’s 37th most populous city, and home to the busiest airport in the world. They identified and mapped thirty-nine open defecation sites, the majority of which were located within just 400 meters of a soup kitchen. San Fransisco has also been challenged with open defecation on its streets. An NBC report last year found more than “300 piles of feces” throughout the downtown area, leading Dr. Lee Riley, an infectious disease expert at the University of California to conclude that areas of the city are even dirtier than the slums in some developing countries.

As its name implies open defecation is the practice of defecating in the open environment rather than using any kind of toilet. Although great progress has been made in reducing the practice, it still remains a serious challenge to public health. India is likely to be the country that comes to mind in association with open defecation, but that country has in fact made tremendous strides. “Sanitation is more important than independence,” Mahatma Gandhi remarked at a time when more than three-quarters of the population defecated in the open. Just two weeks ago, on the 150th anniversary of Gandhi’s birth, the Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared India free of open defecation. India launched its Swachh Bharat (Clean India) campaign in 2014, and Modi claimed that since then “toilets have been provided to more than 600 million people in 60 months, building more than 110 million toilets…No one was ready to believe earlier that India will become open defecation-free in such a short period of time. Now, it is a reality.” Critics are not convinced that the rates of open defecation have fallen as rapidly as Modi claimed, but there is no doubt the country has made a remarkable effort to improve the situation. According to the World Health Organization, the campaign saved as many as 300,000 deaths.

“Defecating in the open is as old as humankind. As long as population densities were low and the earth could safely absorb human wastes, it caused few problems. But as more people gathered in towns and cities, we gradually learned the link between hygiene and health and, in particular, the importance of avoiding contact with feces. Today open defecation is on the decline worldwide, but nearly 950 million people still routinely practice it. Some 569 million of them live in India. Walk along its train tracks or rural roads, and you will readily encounter the evidence.”

— National Geographic Magazine, August 2017

The percentage of people defecating in the open air declined worldwide from 1990 to 2015, with the most dramatic reductions in some of the least developed countries. Yet nearly 950 million people still practice this public health hazard. From National Geographic Magazine, August 2017.

“Open defecation, as strange as this may sound to Westerners, offers young women a welcome break from their domestic confines and the oversight of in-laws and husbands”

— National Geographic Magazine August 2017.

Bathrooms with locks - a Jewish gift to humanity

Two days ago we read a Mishnah that introduced a rather radical notion for the time: lockable latrine stalls. Here it is:

משנה תמיד כו,א

ומדורה היתה שם ובית הכסא של כבוד זה היה כבודו מצאו נעול יודע שיש שם אדם פתוח בידוע שאין שם אדם

And a fire was burning there [in a tunnel off of the the side of the Temple in Jerusalem]…and there was a bathroom of honor in the Chamber of Immersion. This was its honor: If one found the door closed, he would know that there was a person there, and he would wait for him to exit before entering.

Restored view of Ithidiki’s lavatory on Amorgos, built in the mid-4th century BCE. From G.P. Antoniou, Lavatories in Ancient Greece. Water Science and Technology, Water Supply 7:1; 156-164.

This notion of privacy was not always shared. Prof Ann Olga Kolowki-Ostrow of Brandeis University is the world’s expert about Roman toilets, and author of the fascinating Archaeology of Sanitation in Roman Italy: Toilets, Sewers, and Water Systems. Virtually every home excavated in Pompeii and Herculaneum has its own private toilet she notes, but the Romans used two terms for their toilets, latrina and forica. The latrina was found in a home or private space and was not publicly accessible, whereas the forica was an open plan multi-seat facility. In contrast, the Mishnah and this passage of Talmud remind us that for Jews, the toilet was supposed to be a very private space.

More Advice on Hygiene

Today’s page of Talmud continues with more advice about what today we would call hygiene:

שטוף ושתי [שטוף] ואחית וכשאתה שותה מים שפוך מהן ואח"כ תן לתלמידך 

When you drink wine, rinse the cup first and only then drink from it; after you drink, rinse the cup and only then set it back in its place. But when you drink water, it is not necessary to rinse the cup afterward; rather, pour out some of the water to rinse the rim of the cup, and afterward you may give the cup to your student, if he wants to drink.

The Essenes and Hygiene

Although ancient Judaism often encouraged frequent bathing and the washing of shared utensils, some sects really emphasized it. One of the most well known was the Essenes, a sect that broke away from Jerusalem and whose members lived around the Dead Sea from the second century BCE to the first century CE. It was this sect that gave us the Dead Sea Scrolls, and in the these scrolls are strict rules for where the Essenes were allowed to defecate. According to a report published in Nature, these places had to be “far enough away from the camp not to be visible, sometimes as much as 3,000 cubits (1.4 kilometres) away in a northwesterly direction. They also had to bury their feces and perform a ritual all-over wash in the local waters afterwards.” The report continues:

At Qumran, following such instructions would take the Essene men to a nicely secluded spot behind a mound. And … the soil there bears the hallmarks of a latrine — and one not used by the healthiest of people.

Dead eggs from intestinal parasites, including roundworm (Ascaris), whipworm (Trichuris), tapeworm (Taenia) and pinworm (Enterobius vermicularis), were preserved in the soil. "If you look at a latrine from the past you will always find these parasites," comments Piers Mitchell, a medical practitioner and archaeologist at Imperial College London, UK.

It seems a pretty ordinary picture of ancient ill health, says Mike Turner, a parasitologist at the University of Glasgow, UK. He describes the pinworm rather aptly as "common as muck", adding that to use its presence to argue that the Essenes wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls is "an interesting bit of lateral thinking…”

[One researcher, J. Zias] is certain that the toilet was used by the scrolls' authors. He was already convinced that the Essenes lived at Qumran from previous studies of the local graveyard, which contains remains of almost exclusively men, which fits with the fact that the Essenes were a monastic sect.

What's more, the men buried there had an average age at death of 34, making them a sickly bunch. But it wasn't the toilet parasites that finished them off, Zias suggests, but their ritual of post-poo bathing in a stagnant pool.

Geography worked against the Essenes because the pool in which they cleansed themselves was filled with run-off collected during the winter months. "Had they been living in Jericho 14 kilometers to the north, where one finds fresh spring water, or in other sites whereby one has an oasis, they would have lived quite well," Zias says.

What rotten luck: a religious code that emphasized bathing, but not the cleanliness of the water itself.

Although it lacked any idea about the causes of communicable diseases, the Talmud sometimes contained what we now understand to be very good public health advice. And the requirement to remove human waste far from habitation predates the Talmud. It is found in the text of the Torah itself:

וְיָד֙ תִּהְיֶ֣ה לְךָ֔ מִח֖וּץ לַֽמַּחֲנֶ֑ה וְיָצָ֥אתָ שָׁ֖מָּה חֽוּץ׃ 

וְיָתֵ֛ד תִּהְיֶ֥ה לְךָ֖ עַל־אֲזֵנֶ֑ךָ וְהָיָה֙ בְּשִׁבְתְּךָ֣ ח֔וּץ וְחָפַרְתָּ֣ה בָ֔הּ וְשַׁבְתָּ֖ וְכִסִּ֥יתָ אֶת־צֵאָתֶֽךָ׃ 

כִּי֩ יְה-וָ֨ה אֱלֹקיךָ מִתְהַלֵּ֣ךְ ׀ בְּקֶ֣רֶב מַחֲנֶ֗ךָ לְהַצִּֽילְךָ֙ וְלָתֵ֤ת אֹיְבֶ֙יךָ֙ לְפָנֶ֔יךָ וְהָיָ֥ה מַחֲנֶ֖יךָ קָד֑וֹשׁ וְלֹֽא־יִרְאֶ֤ה

בְךָ֙ עֶרְוַ֣ת דָּבָ֔ר וְשָׁ֖ב מֵאַחֲרֶֽיךָ׃

Further, there shall be an area for you outside the camp, where you may relieve yourself. With your gear you shall have a shovel, and when you have squatted you shall dig a hole with it and cover up your excrement. Since the Lord your God moves about in your camp to protect you and to deliver your enemies to you, let your camp be holy; let Him not find anything unseemly among you and turn away from you.

As we sit in our temporary dwellings and celebrate the festival of Sukkot, perhaps now is the perfect time to think about how fortunate we are that we no-longer have to dig our own outside latrines. It’s something that the Children of Israel, wandering for forty years in the desert, might have really appreciated.

Keritot 15b ~ Amputation and Ritual Impurity

משנה כריתות טז ,א–ב

וְעוֹד שְׁאָלָן רַבִּי עֲקִיבָא. אֵבָר הַמְדֻלְדָּל בִּבְהֵמָה, מַהוּ. אָמְרוּ לוֹ, לֹא שָׁמַעְנוּ. אֲבָל שָׁמַעְנוּ בְּאֵבָר הַמְדֻלְדָּל בְּאָדָם, שֶׁהוּא טָהוֹר. שֶׁכָּךְ הָיוּ מֻכֵּי שְׁחִין שֶׁבִּירוּשָׁלַיִם עוֹשִׂין, הוֹלֵךְ לוֹ עֶרֶב פֶּסַח אֵצֶל הָרוֹפֵא וְחוֹתְכוֹ עַד שֶׁהוּא מַנִּיחַ בּוֹ כִשְׂעֹרָה, וְתוֹחֲבוֹ בְסִירָה, וְהוּא נִמְשָׁךְ מִמֶּנּוּ, וְהַלָּה עוֹשֶׂה פִסְחוֹ, וְהָרוֹפֵא עוֹשֶׂה פִסְחוֹ. וְרוֹאִין אָנוּ שֶׁהַדְּבָרִים קַל וָחֹמֶר

Rabbi Akiva further asked: What is the status of a dangling limb of an animal [Does it impart ritual impurity like a severed limb]? They said to Rabbi Akiva: We have not heard a ruling from our teachers in that specific case, but we have heard with regard to a dangling limb of a person that it is ritually pure.

And this is what the people in Jerusalem would do, who were afflicted with boils and whose limbs were dangling due to their affliction: on the eve of Passover, each of them would go to the doctor, who would cut the affected limb almost completely off, but he would leave it connected by a hairbreadth of flesh, so that neither the doctor nor the afflicted would be rendered ritually impure by a severed limb. Then, the doctor would impale the limb on a thorn attached to the floor or the wall, and the afflicted would pull away from the thorn, thereby completely severing the limb.

Thomas Rowlandson, 'Amputation' (1793), Wellcome Library, London.

That’s quite a graphic description; I do hope it didn’t spoil your breakfast. On today’s page of Talmud we digress to resolve the important question of the ability of a partially severed animal limb to transmit ritual impurity. A completely severed limb certainly transmits impurity, but what if the limb remains partially attached? Rabbi Akiva was hoping for an answer but his colleagues could only provide a ruling regarding a partially severed human limb. Good news, they replied: it doesn’t.

And what are we to make of the historical tidbit that the Mishnah provides? Here is Rashi’s explanation as to why those afflicted with “boils” would amputate their partially severed limbs before Passover:

וחותכו : לא משום טהרה שקודם לכן נמי טהור אלא שלא יהא מאוס ברגל באבר המדולדל

They would cut it off: Not because they needed to do so to become ritually pure, because before then, when the limb was still partially attached, they were also ritually pure. Rather, they amputated the limb so that they would not appear repulsive on the Festival.

A partially attached limb looks unsightly, so the unfortunate person would remove it in order not to put the pilgrims off of their food, (in this case a Passover sacrificial lamb). But because a completely severed human limb imparts ritual impurity, they were faced with a quandary. Once the limb is amputated, it renders both the amputee and the surgeon ritually impure, since both were in contact with it. But those who are impure may not eat the Passover sacrifice. So what to do? There was a workaround. The surgeon would amputate most, but no all of the limb, and the patient would impale the limb on a hook and pull himself away. The limb would be quickly removed and since the patient was not in contact with the severed arm or leg or whatever, (and neither was the surgeon), they could go on their merry way eating the Passover lamb in a state of ritual purity.

Gangrene and Falling Limbs

One possible cause of the “boils” described in the Mishnah is leprosy. This bacterial disease was rife (and still is found in parts of) the Middle East. It causes resorption of the bone and loss of toes, fingers and the nose. However, leprosy is usually identified with tzara’at - and the leper would have already been declared ritually impure and was thus ineligible to join and eat the Passover sacrifice. So the disease described in the Mishnah - שְׁחִין (shekhin) - is likely different from leprosy.

Perhaps it was gangrene. Gangrene is the death of tissue, caused by a loss of the blood flow, and we discussed it when we studied Avodah Zarah. Here’s a brief recap:

Gangrene is a very serious condition. (You can see all kinds of pictures of gangrene here.) It is mostly seen on the feet, but I've seen gangrene of the hands and fingers as well. When mountain climbers (and the homeless) loose fingers and toes, it's from gangrene.  There are two kinds of gangrene. In wet gangrene, bacteria invade tissue which have little or no blood supply. They feed on the tissue and produce a great deal of pus; hence the description "wet".  Left untreated, the patient will likely become septic and die.  Amputation is often the only treatment option. 

Dry gangrene has a slower onset, and the tissue looks mummified or cracked; hence the term "dry". It does not usually cause infection or death. After several days, it becomes obvious where the black dead tissue ends and the pink health tissue begins. At that time, the tissue can be amputated; commonly, it just falls off (like here, but don't look if you are eating). The case of the Mishnah could be one of dry gangrene, but the services of a surgeon are not always needed. The healthy flesh is clearly demarcated from the dead tissue, which just…falls off.

Ancient Amputation

Depiction of amputation in ancient Egypt (Edwin Smith Papyrus, New York Academy of Medicine).

In an enticing paper published last year titled Hallmarks of Amputation Surgery, the authors point out that the earliest human remains with evidence of an amputation are dated approximately 4900 BCE. “The remains were a skeleton of a male who was lacking bones in the left forearm, wrist, and hand. Analysis of the possible site of amputation indicated a clear oblique section through the medial and lateral epicondyle consistent with the flint tools available at the time. The amputation was successful and he not only survived the amputation but lived for months or years afterward.” In ancient Egypt, amputations were performed as a retribution for a judicial punishment, and there are crimes and law offenses punished with amputation as early as the Babylonian era in the law code of Hammurabi. In addition the Egyptians performed medical amputations, but “they were feared more than death and thought to affect the amputee in the afterlife.”

“ וַיַּעַל יְהוּדָה וַיִּתֵּן יְהוָה אֶת־הַכְּנַעֲנִי וְהַפְּרִזִּי בְּיָדָם וַיַּכּוּם בְּבֶזֶק עֲשֶׂרֶת אֲלָפִים אִישׁ׃ וַיִּמְצְאוּ אֶת־אֲדֹנִי בֶזֶק בְּבֶזֶק וַיִּלָּחֲמוּ בּוֹ וַיַּכּוּ אֶת־הַכְּנַעֲנִי וְאֶת־הַפְּרִזִּי׃
וַיָּנָס אֲדֹנִי בֶזֶק וַיִּרְדְּפוּ אַחֲרָיו וַיֹּאחֲזוּ אֹתוֹ וַיְקַצְּצוּ אֶת־בְּהֹנוֹת יָדָיו וְרַגְלָיו׃
וַיֹּאמֶר אֲדֹנִי־בֶזֶק שִׁבְעִים מְלָכִים בְּהֹנוֹת יְדֵיהֶם וְרַגְלֵיהֶם מְקֻצָּצִים הָיוּ לַקְּטִים תַּחַת שֻׁלְחָנִי כַּאֲשֶׁר עָשִׂיתִי כֵּן שִׁלַּם־לִי אֱלֹהִים וַיְבִיאֻהוּ יְרוּשָׁלִַם וַיָּמָת שָׁם׃

When Judah advanced, the LORD delivered the Canaanites and the Perizzites into their hands, and they defeated ten thousand of them at Bezek. At Bezek, they encountered Adoni-bezek, engaged him in battle, and defeated the Canaanites and the Perizzites. Adoni-bezek fled, but they pursued him and captured him; and they cut off his thumbs and his big toes. And Adoni-bezek said, “Seventy kings, with thumbs and big toes cut off, used to pick up scraps under my table; as I have done, so God has requited me.” They brought him to Jerusalem and he died there.”

— Judges 1:4-7

Moving along several hundred centuries, Hippocrates (460-370 BCE) recommended amputation to stop gangrene but only as a last resort; he suggested the amputation be performed distal to the necrotic demarcation at the time, where the flesh was dead and had completely lost sensation. “In the first century Aulus Cornelius Celsus (25 BCE–50 CE) in his work De medica proposed an amputation for a gangrenous limb; he advised cutting between the living and diseased part, but not through a joint. He also proposed the ligation of vessels to control blood loss, the proximal division of bone in order to allow a “flap” of skin to cover the stump, and the packing of the wound with lint soaked in vinegar to prevent further infections.”

The French surgeon Ambroise Pare (1520-1590) is considered the father of modern surgery, and he advised amputations not only for infected or injured limbs, but for the removal of cancerous growths too. Here is how to get the job done, from an english translation (The Workes of that Famous Chirurgion Ambrose Parey) published in London in 1649:

The Religious Impulse on seeing tragedy

Today’s discussion reminds us of the desperate circumstances in which people found themselves before the advent of modern medicine. Without access to antibiotics, minor skin infections might develop into necrosis of the tissues and there would be a need to amputate an arm or a leg. But the rabbis never missed an opportunity to praise God, however awful or hopeless a situation. And so they instituted a blessing to be made “on seeing an amputee or one afflicted with boils:” “Blessed be He, the True Judge.” It’s a blessing we hope never to have to make.

“אמר רבי יהושע בן לוי הרואה את... הקטע ואת הסומא ואת פתויי הראש ואת החגר ואת המוכה שחין ואת הבהקנים אומר ברוך דיין אמת

Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi said: One who sees ... an amputee, a blind person, a flat-headed person, a lame person, one afflicted with boils, or spotted people recites: Blessed be He, the True Judge”

— TB Berachot 58b.

Keritot 7b ~ Surviving a Cesarian Section

כריתות ז,ב

אלו שאין מביאות… יוצא דופן. ר' שמעון מחייב ביוצא דופן

These women do not bring a sin offering… a woman who gives birth by caesarean section. Rabbi Shimon deems a woman liable to bring a sin offering in the case where she gives birth by caesarean section.

Cesarean section. From here.

In a list of the women who need to bring a sacrifice after childbirth or a miscarriage, the Mishnah exludes a woman who underwent a cesarean section. She is not required to bring a sacrifice, although Rabbi Shimon disputes this ruling and opines that a sacrifice is indeed required. This is all very well, but let’s stop for a moment and think about this. The Mishnah was edited around 200 CE; there were neither antibiotics nor anesthetics (at least in any modern sense) and there was no germ theory of disease. Postpartum maternal deaths following natural childbirth common enough, but the rates of a woman surviving a cearean section must have been extremely low. Yet here is the Mishnah teaching that a woman who recovers from this operation is exempt from bringing a sacrifice, which implies that surviving a cearean section was an event so common that it required its own legal ruling.

dying by cesarean section

“Death borders upon our birth
And our cradle stands in the grave
”

— Joseph Hall, Bishop of Exeter (1564–1656)

Precisely because it was so unlikely for a woman to survive a cesarean section, historians believe that despite his name, Julius Caesar could not have been born as a result of this procedure. “Caesar’s mother Aurelia survived childbirth and outlived her son to bury him 55 years later” wrote one reviewer of a history of cesarean section. “The fact that she lived and gave birth successfully rules out the possibility that Caesar was born in this way.” In fact the first recorded case of a mother and baby both surviving a cesarean section was only in 1500 (that’s 1,300 years after the Mishnah). It occurred in Switzerland,  

where Jacob Nufer, a pig gelder, reportedly performed the operation on his wife after a prolonged labour. She spent several days in labour and had assistance from 13 midwives but was still unable to deliver her baby. Her husband received permission from the religious authorities to perform a caesarean section. Miraculously, the mother lived and subsequently gave birth to five other children by vaginal deliveries including twins. The baby lived to the age of 77 years.

But even this story may not be accurate, since it was only reported some eighty years after the event. It was only with the introduction of chloroform as an anesthetic and hand-washing as means of reducing maternal mortality (both around 1847) that the cesarean became a viable means of saving the life of either mother or infant. So why did the Mishnah bother to record the dispute as to whether a woman who survived a c-section brings a sacrifice?

“Hitherto it has commonly been concluded or assumed that there is no sound evidence for caesarean section with maternal survival before 500 A.D. If, however, the rabbinical reports are accepted as implying familiarity with the mother’s recovery from the operation, the date for the earliest practice of caesarean section with a successful outcome for both mother and child must be advanced by almost a millennium and a half.”

— Boss, J. The Antiquity of Caesarean Section with Maternal Survival: The Jewish Tradition. Medical History 1961; 5: 17-31.

survival after cesarean section

It turns out that contrary to expectations, during the time of the Mishnah in the second century, “Jews practiced caesarean section not only to rescue an infant from a dead mother, but also to rescue both mother and baby from a prolonged labour. The mother's survival is implicit in written passages which are unambiguous on the matter, serious in purpose, and certainly not the subjects of modern amendment.” At lest that is the claim made by Jeffrey Boss, in a 1961 paper published in the journal Medical History.

Let’s start with an easier case: animals. The Mishnah in Bechorot (2:9) describes a dispute between Rabbi Tarphon and Rabbi Akivah regarding the special status of an animal born by cesarean section, and its sibling, born naturally later on. In his commentary, Maimonides wrote:

יוצא דופן הוא שיקרע כסל הבהמה ויצא הוולד משם ועושים זה כמו כן באשה שתקשה ללדת והגיעה לשערי מות

Through the wall: this means that the animal is cut open and the calf removed. This is also done to a dying woman who is unable to deliver her baby naturally.

Maimonides, - himself a physician of great repute - does not dispute whether an animal could survive a c-section. He just accepts it as fact. Now let’s consider another Mishnah in the same tractate Bechorot (8:2), that deals with the special obligations surrounding a first-born child.

יוֹצֵא דֹפֶן וְהַבָּא אַחֲרָיו, שְׁנֵיהֶם אֵינָן בְּכוֹר לֹא לַנַּחֲלָה וְלֹא לַכֹּהֵן. רַבִּי שִׁמְעוֹן אוֹמֵר, הָרִאשׁוֹן לַנַּחֲלָה, וְהַשֵּׁנִי לְחָמֵשׁ סְלָעִים: 

A baby extracted by means of a caesarean section and one that follows is not a first-born for inheritance or a first-born to be redeemed from a priest. Rabbi Shimon says: the first is a first-born for inheritance and the second is a first-born as regards [the redemption] with five selas.

Clearly this Mishanha assumes that the mother survived a cesarean and then gave birth to another child. Next, consider the explanations given by the rabbis of the Talmud who comment on our Mishnah on today’s page of Talmud:

מ"ט דר"ש אמר ר"ל אמר קרא (ויקרא יב, ה) ואם נקבה תלד לרבות לידה אחרת מאי היא יוצא דופן ורבנן מ"ט א"ר מני בר פטיש (ויקרא יב, ב) אשה כי תזריע וילדה עד שתלד ממקום שמזרעת

What is the reason of Rabbi Shimon (who obligates a sacrifice?)? Reish Lakish said that the verse states: “But if she bears a girl”(Leviticus 12:5). The term “she bears” is superfluous in the context of the passage, and it serves to include another type of birth, and what is it? This is a birth by caesarean section. And as for the Rabbis, what is their reasoning? Rabbi Mani bar Pattish said that their ruling is derived from the verse: “If a woman conceives [tazria] and gives birth to a male” (Leviticus 12:2). The word tazria literally means to receive seed, indicating that all the halakhot mentioned in that passage do not apply unless she gives birth through the place where she receives seed, not through any other place, such as in the case of a caesarean section.

Boss notes that the rabbis “make no comment on the implied survival of the mother after the operation, neither explaining away the implication of the Mishnah nor treating it as remarkable.”

In another mishnaic discussion about postpartum ritual uncleanliness (Niddah 5:1) the rabbis again argue with Rabbi Shimon about the obligations of a woman who had given birth by c-section.

נידה מ, א

יוֹצֵא דֹפֶן, אֵין יוֹשְׁבִין עָלָיו יְמֵי טֻמְאָה וִימֵי טָהֳרָה, וְאֵין חַיָּבִין עָלָיו קָרְבָּן. רַבִּי שִׁמְעוֹן אוֹמֵר, הֲרֵי זֶה כְיָלוּד

For a child born from its mother's side, she does not sit the prescribed days of uncleanness nor the days of cleanness, nor does one incur on its account the obligation to bring a sacrifice. Rabbi Shimon says: it is regarded as a regular birth.

Again, there is no discussion as to whether this could have occurred. It is simply taken as fact. In his commentary on this Mishnah, Maimonides wrote:

רבי שמעון אומר שאמרו תלד לרבות יוצא דופן והוא שישוסע חלצי האשה אם תקשה עליה הלידה ויצא העובר משם

Rabbi Shimon said: When the Torah wrote “if she bears” it includes a child that comes from the side of the belly. This means that because the child will not emerge naturally the loins of the woman are cut open and the child is delivered.

“Maimonides does not here demur to her being well enough to make her purificatory offering” wrote Boss. Another famous commentator on the Mishnah, the fifteenth century Italian Rabbi Ovadiah ben Abraham of Bertinoro also makes the case for surviving a c-section:

יוצא דופן. אשה שפתחו [מעיה] ע״י סם והוציאו העובר לחוץ ונתרפאה:

Through the side of the belly: This means a women whose belly was opened by means of a medicine (סם) and the child was delivered and she survived…

Maimonides didn’t believe a woman could survive

But in fact Maimonides did demur. He demurred a lot. Let’s go back to the back to that Mishnah in Bechorot (8:2) that we cited above: “A baby extracted by means of a caesarean section and one that follows neither is a first-born for inheritance or a first-born to be redeemed from a priest.” (וֹצֵא דֹפֶן וְהַבָּא אַחֲרָיו, שְׁנֵיהֶם אֵינָן בְּכוֹר לֹא לַנַּחֲלָה וְלֹא לַכֹּהֵן). Here is Maimonides:

מה שאפשר להיות בזה שתהא האשה מעוברת משני וולדות ונקרע דופנה ויצא א' מהן ואח"כ יצא השני כדרך העולם ומתה אחר שיצא השני אבל מה שאומרים המגידים שהאשה חיה אחר שקורעים דופנה ומתעברת ויולדת איני יודע לו טעם והוא ענין זר מאד ואין הלכה כרבן שמעון

It may happen that a woman is pregnant with twins, one is delivered by cesarean section, and then the other is delivered normally, and the first child dies after the second is born. But what some say, that a woman can live after her side is cut open and then bear a child, is contrary to reason and utterly absurd…

Notwithstanding the opinion of the great Maimonides, Boss reaches this conclusion:

The texts quoted indicate that the Tannaim assumed that a woman could be fit to offer a sacrifice forty or eighty days after undergoing caesarean section, and that she might be delivered of an infant by a subsequent pregnancy. Internal evidence dates the texts to the second century A.D. and indicates that they were discussions of known possibilities and not of fantasies; the evidence of manuscripts shows that the texts must precede the development of the operation in Europe…The mother's survival is implicit in written passages which are unambiguous on the matter, serious in purpose, and certainly not the subjects of modern amendment.

Cesarean Section Today

You can read the Boss paper here, and decide for yourself if the evidence is persuasive. What is certain is that the cesarean section began as a veterinary procedure. It was once an extremely unusual operation only undertaken as a last ditch effort to save a baby from inside the womb of its dead or dying mother. How things have changed; there are now an estimated 30 million cesarean sections performed around the world each year. In the Dominican Republic, almost 60% of all births are by C-section, and overall they are almost five times more frequent in births in the richest versus the poorest countries. As one news report concluded, when it comes to cesarean section, it’s either too little too late, or too much too soon.

“The skill needed for such an operation implies some general tradition of surgery, and surgery was in fact considerably developed in Talmudic times among the Jews. From the Tannaitic period, the material on surgery is indicative but scanty, but among the Amoraim, who taught between 100 and 300 years later...there was considerable anatomical knowledge and surgical skill...”

— Boss, J. The Antiquity of Caesarean Section with Maternal Survival: The Jewish Tradition. Medical History 1961: 5; 17-31