Berachot 60a ~ Gender Determination

In the time of the Talmud and for centuries beyond, it was very important for a couple to produce male children. To this end, some rabbis suggested a technique to ensure that a boy was produced. Here it is described in today’s page of Talmud:

ברכות ס, א

וא"ר יצחק אשה מזרעת תחלה יולדת זכר איש מזריע תחלה יולדת נקבה

Rabbi Yitzchak said that if the woman emits seed first she gives birth to a male, and if the man emits seed first she gives birth to a female.

Today we will explore the topic of gender determination in the Talmud.

How to conceive a boy or a girl

In the tractate Niddah the statement about “emitting seed first” comes up several times, and in the name of a few different rabbis. And, as if emphasize its importance, the Talmud offers no fewer than four different supporting proofs for the principal. The first is the one that we just read in the name of Rav Ami:

נדה לא, א

אמר רבי יצחק אמר רבי אמי אשה מזרעת תחילה יולדת זכר איש מזריע תחילה יולדת נקבה שנאמר (ויקרא יג, כט) אשה כי תזריע וילדה זכר 

Rabbi Yitzchak says that Rabbi Ami says:The sex of a fetus is determined at the moment of conception. If the woman emits seed first, she gives birth to a male, and if the man emits seed first, she gives birth to a female, as it is stated: “If a woman bears seed and gives birth to a male”(Leviticus 12:2). 

The suggestion from the verse is that “if a woman bears seed” first, then she will “give birth to a male.” A second proof text from the Torah is provided by Rabbi Tzadok, this time from the story of our matriarch Leah.

תנו רבנן בראשונה היו אומרים אשה מזרעת תחילה יולדת זכר איש מזריע תחלה יולדת נקבה ולא פירשו חכמים את הדבר עד שבא רבי צדוק ופירשו (בראשית מו, טו) אלה בני לאה אשר ילדה ליעקב בפדן ארם ואת דינה בתו תלה הזכרים בנקבות ונקבות בזכרים 

The Sages taught: At first, people would say that if the woman emits seed first she gives birth to a male, and if the man emits seed first, she gives birth to a female. But the Sages did not explain from which verse this matter is derived, until Rabbi Tzadok came and explained that it is derived from the following verse: “These are the sons of Leah, whom she bore to Jacob in Paddan Aram, with his daughter Dinah”(Genesis 46:15). From the fact that the verse attributes the males to the females, as the males are called: “The sons of Leah,” and it attributes the females to the males, in that Dinah is called: “His daughter,” it is derived that if the woman emits seed first she gives birth to a male, whereas if the man emits seed first, she bears a female.

בנדה לא ,א–ב

The Talmud brings a third proof text, this one from the Book of Chronicles:

ויהיו בני אולם אנשים גבורי חיל דורכי קשת ומרבים בנים ובני בנים וכי בידו של אדם להרבות בנים ובני בנים אלא מתוך שמשהין עצמן בבטן כדי שיזריעו נשותיהן תחלה שיהו בניהם זכרים מעלה עליהן הכתוב כאילו הם מרבים בנים ובני בנים והיינו דאמר רב קטינא יכולני לעשות כל בני זכרים 

“And the sons of Ulam were mighty men of valor, archers, and had many sons and sons’ sons”(I Chronicles 8:40). Is it in a person’s power to have many sons and sons’ sons? Rather, because they delay while lying on wives’ abdomen, initially refraining from emitting semen so that their wives will emit seed first, in order that their children will be male, the verse ascribes them credit as though they have many sons and sons’ sons. And this statement is the same as that which Rav Ketina said: I could have made all of my children males,by refraining from emitting seed until my wife emitted seed first. 

And finally, the fourth proof text. A later passage in Niddah (Niddah 70b-71a) cites a number of questions that the sages of Alexandria asked of Rabbi Yehoshua. One of them was how can a man ensure he has male children? Rabbi Yehoshua told them the man should do two things: marry a woman who is fit for him, and act modestly during sexual intercourse. Hold on, the sages of Alexandria replied. Many men have done that, and it didn’t help! Rabbi Yehoshua then qualified his answer, and explained that in addition to marrying an appropriate woman and being modest, a man needs to pray for a son. Rabbi Yehoshua then cited a proof text from Psalms (127:3):

הנה נחלת ה' בנים שכר פרי הבטן

Behold, children are a heritage of the Lord; the fruit of the womb is a reward

So far so good. To have male children a man needs to marry an appropriate wife, act modestly when he is intimate with her, and pray. But now the Talmud asks a question based on the proof text. What is the act for which the reward are children?

א"ר חמא ברבי חנינא בשכר שמשהין עצמן בבטן כדי שתזריע אשתו תחילה נותן לו הקב"ה שכר פרי הבטן

Rabbi Chama, son of Rabbi Chanina, says: In reward for men withholding their semen in their belly in order to allow their wives to emit seed first, the Holy One, Blessed be He, gives him the reward of the fruit of the womb, [that is, sons].

These are the four different proof texts from the Bible to support the claim that if a woman emits her seed first, she will give birth to a boy. Of course now we need to determine what, precisely, is meant by the phrase “if the woman emits seed first” (מזרעת תחילה).

Understanding THE PHRASE

(i) Ovulation

Perhaps it could refer to ovulation. This makes sense to us since we understand that fertilization requires two “seeds,” the egg, and sperm. But this would not have made sense to the rabbis of the Talmud. They, like everyone else at the time (and indeed until the beginning of the seventeenth century) had no concept of mammalian ovulation. In fact it was the blood that was lost at menstruation that was believed to be the mother’s contribution to her child’s formation, and not any eggs she may produce.

A classic example of this lack of understanding of ovulation is found in the early medieval commentary of Moses ben Nachman, known as Ramban (1194–1270) to Leviticus 12:2. Here is the key bit:

כי האשה אע"פ שיש לה ביצים כביצי זכר או שלא יעשה בהן זרע כלל או שאין הזרע ההוא נקפא ולא עושה דבר בעובר

For even though a woman has ovaries like the testes of a man, either they do not produce eggs at all, or else the egg jells and contributes nothing to the fetus.

(ii) Orgasm

The other possibility is that “emitting seed first” refers to orgasm. If you want to have a boy, the rabbis said, the husband should allow his wife to have an orgasm before himself. This interpretation is favored by the historian of all things medical and talmudic, Fred Rosner. Here is what he wrote in Medicine in the Bible and The Talmud (Ktav Publishing and Yeshiva University Press 1977, p175):

It seems obvious…that the meaning must be orgasm rather than ovulation, for otherwise it would not make sense to speak of the men restraining themselves during intercourse in order to allow their wives to “emit seed” first.

Theories of sex determination in Antiquity

In a fascinating paper in the Journal for the Study of Judaism, the scholar Pieter van Horst wrote “it is certain that ancient Greek concepts of embryogenesis influenced Jewish theories about the coming-into-being of a foetus.” So let’s look at some of those theories.

Aristotle (384–322 BCE) recorded the belief (with which he did not agree) that male offspring come from the right side of the male and females from the left side; an embryo that develops in the “right side” of the uterus (whatever that means) becomes male while that which develops in the left side becomes female. Aristotle himself believed that the mother’s contribution to the fetus was menstrual blood, and it had the same origin as male semen, although it was not as developed.

Another Greek, Empedocles (c. 494-434 BCE) thought that “heat” (whatever that means) gave rise to males and cold to females. But the view in the Talmud about editing seed first can be traced further back to another Greek, Democritus of Abdera (c. 460 - c. 370 BCE). Democritus believed that the gender depended on the parent whose semen predominated, “not the whole of the semen, but that which has come from the part by which male and female differ from one another.”

By the time we get to Galen, the Greek physician of the second century, there was an acknowledgement that the mother contributed her own seed, but, as van Horst notes the thought was that“…female sperm is by far less perfect, thinner, and colder than male sperm; it serves only as food for the male semen in its development into an embryo.

“The material surveyed so far covers the period of roughly 500 B.C.E. to 200 C.E. It has shown us that throughout this period a theory about female semen had its place side by side with a theory that denied females a contribution to embryogenesis. ”

— Pieter W. van Horst. Bitenosh's Orgasm. Journal for the Study of Judaism 2012. 43: 613-628.

A new understanding of a Dead Sea Scroll

It is with this background that van Hort explains an enigmatic passage in one of the Dead Sea Scrolls (1QapGen2:9-15), known as the Genesis Apocryphon. It is one of the original Dead Sea Scrolls discovered by Bedouin shepherds in 1946 and now held at The Shrine of the Book in Jerusalem.The scroll recounts a discussion between Noah and his father Lemech, who was worried that Noah was not really his own progeny. “I thought in my heart” says Lemech, “that the conception was the work of the Watchers, and the pregnancy of the Holy Ones, and it belonged to the Nephilim.” He suspects that his wife Bitenosh has committed adultery.

Then Bitenosh, my wife, spoke to me very harshly... (9) and said: 'Oh my brother and lord, remember my sexual pleasure!... (10) in the heat of intercourse, and the gasping of my breath in my breast.'" …(14) Remember my sexual pleasure!... (15) that this seed comes from you, that this pregnancy comes from you…

How, asks van Horst, could Bitenosh think that a reference to the pleasure she experienced when being intimate with Lamech would allay his suspicion? And here is his fascinating solution:

That could only be a convincing argument if that pleasure entailed the conception of their child at the moment the two of them (and no one else) were together. Since the author implies that Bitenosh's argument did convince Lamech, he must have meant her reference to her pleasure to be a conclusive argument. So "pleasure" must here definitely be something much more specific than just the fact that Bitenosh had a pleasant time with Lamech when they begot Noab. That is to say, most probably Bitenosh here refers to her orgasm on that occasion. The fact that not only Lamech but also Bitenosh had an orgasm at that moment is taken as a proof that it is the two of them, together who begot the child. That can only be the case if the female orgasm is here regarded as the event during which she emitted her own seed into her womb where it mingled with Lamech's seed so as to form the beginning embryo. It is only a double-seed theory that can explain why Bitenosh here takes recourse to an appeal to her moment suprême (to which Lamech was witness!) as a cogent argument…

It is fascinating to see how an originally Greek scientific concept here serves to allay the anxious suspicions of a biblical hero.

Yes. It is.

It wasn’t until the invention of the microscope and the work of Antonie van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723) and Reinier de Graaf (1641-1673), that we began to understand what was really going on. The former described seeing sperm in semen, and the latter dissected pregnant rabbits and described the development of the egg in the ovary. (Fun fact: in his honor, the structure within which the egg matures is known to this day as a Graafian follicle.)

Other ways to have a baby boy

The scholar Moses Gastner who died in 1939 was a lifelong collector of Hebrew manuscripts. These later became part of the collectionso of both the Rylands Library in Manchester and the British Library in London. Gastner also translated the siddur, wrote a history of the Bible, and led the Spanish and Portuguese Congregation in London. Among his many works was a little-known entry (“Birth, Jewish”) in the two-volume Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics published in New York in 1908. In the entry Gastner included material from his the vast collection of medical and magical manuscripts. Here is one, which Gastner does not date: 

If a woman is anxious to get sons, she must ask a shepherd to get the after-birth of a cow, dry it, and pound it, and drink the powder in wine.

If dried cow after-birth did not suit your tastes, there was this: 

Make a decoration of bear’s or wolf’s meat as much as a bean. If the animal is male the child will be male, and if it is female, the woman will give birth to a daughter.

The Talmud (Niddah 31b) suggested another, perhaps more palatable method to guarantee a baby boy:

אמר רבא הרוצה לעשות כל בניו זכרים יבעול וישנה 

Rava said: One who wishes to make all of his children males should engage in intercourse with his wife and repeat the act.

It’s not a secret any more

At the conclusion of his article on sex determination in the Talmud, Rosner wrote that the Talmud 

emphatically states that if a woman emits her semen first, she will bear a male, and if the man emits his semen first, she will bear a female. We have yet to understand what the Talmud means. The secret of sex predetermination remains hidden.

But this is not correct. We certainly do understand what the Talmud meant, where that meaning came from and what became of it. What once was certainly a mystery (but not a secret) is now well understood. The gender of offspring is determined by chromosomes, and nothing else. 

What actually determines the gender of a fetus

A human egg or sperm each contain 23 chromosomes. All eggs carry an X chromosome; each sperm carries an X or a Y chromosome. If a sperm with an X chromosome fertilizes the egg, the fetus grows into an XX female. If a sperm with an Y chromosome fertilizes the egg, the fetus grows into an XY male. That’s it. Simple.

[Reprint from Niddah 28a].

Berachot 59b ~ Birkat HaChammah: The Blessing That Isn't There

ברכות נט, ב

תָּנוּ רַבָּנַן: הָרוֹאֶה חַמָּה בִּתְקוּפָתָהּ, לְבָנָה בִּגְבוּרָתָהּ, וְכוֹכָבִים בִּמְסִילּוֹתָם, וּמַזָּלוֹת כְּסִדְרָן, אוֹמֵר: ״בָּרוּךְ … עוֹשֵׂה בְרֵאשִׁית״. וְאֵימַת הָוֵי? אָמַר אַבָּיֵי: כׇּל עֶשְׂרִין וּתְמָנְיָא שְׁנִין, וְהָדַר מַחְזוֹר וְנָפְלָה תְּקוּפַת נִיסָן, בְּשַׁבְּתַאי בְּאוּרְתָּא דִּתְלָת נַגְהֵי אַרְבַּע

The Sages taught: One who sees the sun in the beginning of its cycle, the moon in its might, the planets in their orbit, or the signs of the zodiac aligned in their order recites: Blessed…Author of creation. The Gemara asks: And when is it that the sun is at the beginning of its cycle? Abaye said: Every twenty-eight years when the cycle is complete and returns to its genesis, and the Nisan, vernal, equinox, when the spring days and nights are of equal length, falls within the constellation of Saturn on the night of the third and eve of the fourth day of the week, as then their arrangement returns to be as it was when the constellations were first placed in the heavens.

This passage is the source for the rarest blessing in Judaism, known as Birkat HaChammah, the Blessing over the Sun. It can only be said on a Wednesday morning once every 28 years. The last opportunity you had was on Wednesday April 8 2009. Do you remember where you were then? (I was on a flight and I wasn’t the only passenger on the plane who looked out of the window and recited the blessing.) The ceremony was reported in The New York Times and commemorated with a special exhibition at the Jewish National and University Library in Jerusalem. But why can this event only be said on a Wednesday every 28 years? Abaye didn’t explain that. But we will.

The calculation of Birkat Hachammah

Abaye’s explanation of when this rare blessing occurs is based on a calculation cited by Shmuel. He claimed that the length of the solar year is exactly 365 days and six hours. And the word exactly is very critical, so remember it. Because the solar year had this regular length, the timing of the seasons would vary predictably, as described in a passage in Eruvin (56a.)

ערובין נו, א

אמר שמואל אין תקופת ניסן נופלת אלא בארבעה רבעי היום או בתחלת היום או בתחלת הלילה או בחצי היום או בחצי הלילה 

ואין תקופת תמוז נופלת אלא או באחת ומחצה או בשבע ומחצה בין ביום ובין בלילה ואין תקופת תשרי נופלת אלא או בשלש שעות או בתשע שעות בין ביום ובין בלילה ואין תקופת טבת נופלת אלא או בארבע ומחצה או בעשר ומחצה בין ביום ובין בלילה 

ואין בין תקופה לתקופה אלא תשעים ואחד יום ושבע שעות ומחצה ואין תקופה מושכת מחברתה אלא חצי שעה 

Shmuel stated: Spring can only occur at the start of one of the four quarters of the day: either at the beginning of the day or the beginning of the night, or in the middle of the day or in the middle of the night. 

The summer season can only begin at one and a half or seven and a half hours, which may be in the daytime or at night. Autumn can only begin at the third or ninth hour of the day or at night, and winter can only begin at the fourth and a half hour or the tenth and a half hour, which may be during the day or at night.

And the exact length of every season is ninety-one days seven and a half hours.

Let us untangle all this. The Bible clearly describes the Sun as having been created on the fourth of the seven days of creation (Gen. 1:16–19). In Jewish law, the day legally begins not at midnight, as it does in our Western calendar, but at sundown. So the fourth day, counting from Sunday, begins at sundown on Tuesday evening. According to the rabbis of the Talmud, the Sun was created at the very start of the fourth day of creation, at a time we would recognize today as 6 p.m. on Tuesday evening (assuming that the length of daylight is exactly 12 hours). This time is also assumed by these rabbis to be the vernal equinox, the time we call the start of spring.

To understand Shmuel’s explanation about the times for the start of the seasons, take a look at the table below. Remember that Shmuel’s solar year is exactly 365 days and 6 hours long. Since each of the four seasons occupies exactly one quarter of a year, each season is 91 days and 7.5 hours. Because the Sun was created at 6 p.m. on Tuesday evening (the start of the fourth day, which was spring in that first year of creation), the next season, summer, would begin exactly 91 complete days and 7.5 hours later. Since 91 complete days brings us back to 6 p.m. (but not a Tuesday), the start of summer may be calculated by adding 7.5 hours to the time of the start of spring, which is 1:30 a.m., or 7.5 hours into the night. The first fall season began 7.5 hours later than the first summer, or at 9 a.m., and the first winter began at 4: 30 p.m., or 10.5 hours into the day, assuming that daytime began at 6 a.m. This is outlined in the table and is in keeping with Shmuel’s statements about the start of the seasons.

Year	Spring	Summer	Fall	Winter
1	0 hours into the night (6 p.m.)	71⁄2 hours into the night (1:30 a.m.)	3 hours into the day (9 a.m.)	101⁄2 hours into the day (4:30 p.m.)
2	6 hours into the night (midnight)	11⁄2 hours into the day (7:30 a.m.)	9 hours into the day (3 p.m.)	41⁄2 hours into the night (10:30 p.m.)
3	0 hours into the day (6 a.m.)	71⁄2 hours into the day (1:30 p.m.)	3 hours into the night (9 p.m.)	101⁄2 hours into the night (4:30 a.m.)
4	6 hours into the day (midday)	11⁄2 hours into the night (7:30 p.m.)	9 hours into the night (3 a.m.)	41⁄2 hours into the day (10:30 a.m.)
5	Cycle repeats as for Year 1

According to Shmuel, the start of every fourth spring always occurs at 6 p.m. but does not fall on the same night of the week. It is not difficult to calculate on which night spring will begin every four years if the spring of year one began on a Tuesday. Four whole years later contain sixteen seasons, which each last 91 days and 7.5 hours. Thus, sixteen seasons contain (16 × 91 days + 16 × 7.5 hours) or 1,456 days and 120 hours. Now 120 hours are exactly 5 days, so four years contain 1,461 days, or 208 weeks and 5 days. Because every complete week added to the Tuesday evening start brings us back again to Tuesday evening, we need only add 5 days to the day of the week on which the season began to determine the day of the week on which it will begin four years later. If in the first year, spring began on a Tuesday night, in the fifth year, it will begin on a Sunday night; in the ninth year, it will begin on a Friday night, and so on. In fact, spring will not start at 6 p.m. on a Tuesday until a full twenty-eight years have passed, as we can see from the table below.

Year	1	5	9	13	17	21	25	29
Evening on which Spring begins:	Tuesday	Sunday	Friday	Wednesday	Monday	Saturday	Thursday	Tuesday

And so, according to Shmuel’s calendar, in the first year of every twenty-eight-year cycle, at precisely 6 P.M. on a Tuesday, the Sun returns to the exact position on the very same day of the week in which God had placed it at the very start of creation. This is why Abaye—who accepted Shmuel’s solar scheme—codified the blessing of the Sun to be recited at this interval, and the cycle came to be known as the Mahzor Hagadol—the great cycle. Even though the Sun returns to the same position every four years, this return only coincides with a Tuesday evening once every twenty-eight years. Although the Talmud seems to suggest that the blessing be recited on Tuesday evening, when Maimonides codified this ritual, he wrote that it should be performed “on the morning of the fourth day of the week,” which is what happens to this day.

But it’s a Fiction

However, the system of Shmuel that was adopted by Abaye is purely a religious construct, and although it claims to have an astronomical equivalent, there is no solar phenomenon that happens once every twenty-eight years. Let me repeat it so you are completely clear: there is no solar phenomenon that happens once every twenty-eight years.

Shmuel’s length of the solar year (which is of course not the time for the Sun to orbit the Earth, but rather for the Earth to complete one revolution around the Sun) is actually longer than the correct period of orbit, which is 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 45 seconds. The length of the solar year as calculated by Shmuel is too long by over eleven minutes. And there is one more problem. Shmuel claimed that the seasons each last  91 days and 7.5 hours. But the seasons are not of equal length. This inequality occurs because the speed of the Earth is not constant. As a result, the length of the seasons varies and in the northern hemisphere, winter lasts about eighty-nine days and summer about ninety-three days. Furthermore, the length of daylight varies from place to place and changes over the course of the year. This means that daytime is not always exactly twelve hours, as it was assumed by Shmuel to be for the purposes of his calculations. To further complicate matters, Jewish law adopted another measure of the length of a solar year that is closer to (but still slightly longer than) the true length of the solar year. It is not surprising that one scholar of Judaism referred to the blessing of the Sun as “perhaps the most unusual periodic Jewish ritual currently practiced.” It is not only the rarest blessing; it is the only one we make over an event that is not actually happening.

Birkat Hachammah in Early Modern Jewish History

Despite its rarity and the fact that there is no true solar event occurring at the time of the ritual, the blessing of the Sun has become a much loved event and seems to have become increasingly important to Jews over the last few hundred years. One of the earliest descriptions of the ritual is provided by a student of Rabbi Jacob Moellin (known by the acronym Maharil). Here is the student’s description of preparations for the blessing of the Sun in the spring of 1421:

At that time Maharil told the town beadles to announce in the synagogue on the previous evening (i.e., Tuesday evening) that the next day—Wednesday—everyone should be careful to say the blessing at sunrise “Blessed are you Lord our God, king of the universe, who makes works of creation”...for at the start of every [twenty-eight year] cycle, the Sun returns to the exact spot in which it was placed at the creation of the world. . . .

Isaac Schorr, the rabbi of the town of Gewitsch now in the Czech Republic, described what happened when the weather refused to cooperate for the ritual blessing to be recited in 1757:

The people of the community were eager to serve and to bless by invoking God’s name; they were happy and rejoiced to do the will of their maker, for they cherished a mitzvah at its proper time… Their hopes were disappointed, however, and were turned into despair, for on that day, and the time of the onset of the equinox, the sky was overcast with clouds, and the sun could not be seen at all.

More recently, a solution to the vagaries of the weather was suggested by some rather enthusiastic followers of Rabbi Yoel Teitelbaum, leader of the Satmar Hasidim. They questioned whether a light plane could be hired to carry them above the clouds should the day be overcast, allowing then to perform the ritual blessing above the clouds. Although Rabbi Teitelbaum ruled that this flight was not required, the ritual is clearly one that has become an important, if rare, part of Jewish practice.

The Rabbi who was arrested at Birkat Hachammah

In April 1897 The New York Times reported on the arrest of one rabbi (and the flight of another) as they led a large group that had gathered to recite Birkat Hachammah. The whole things was a bit of a misunderstanding, or as The Times put it, “ The attempt of a foreign citizen [the Rabbi] to explain to an American Irishman [the police officer] an astronomical situation and a tradition of the Talmud was a dismal failure.” Here is the original. Read it through; it is absolutely delightful.

The New York Times, April 8, 1897.

View fullsize

The Widespread Celebration of Birkat Hachammah

It was not only the Orthodox Jewish Community that celebrated the last Birkat Hachammah. Conservative, Reform, and Reconstructionist Jews also widely participated. For example Temple Beth Israel, a reform synagogue in York, Pennsylvania, encouraged children to attend this “once in a generation, multi-generational event” by joining a service at dawn on the lawn of the temple, followed by a “Dutch-treat breakfast” at a local diner. Other synagogues called on their members to use the event as a way to increase environmental awareness. One suggestion from the Reconstructionist movement was to undertake to “reduce my household’s carbon emissions by 10% by next Passover.” And the comedian Stephen Colbert lampooned the event on his popular cable television show, when he “freed his Jews.”

The next opportunity to say this blessing over the sun will be on Wednesday, 8 April 2037, (23 Nisan 5797). Let us all hope to be there.

Berachot 58 ~ Where, and What, is Kimah?

ברכות נח,ב

שְׁמוּאֵל רָמֵי. כְּתִיב ״עֹשֶׂה עָשׁ כְּסִיל וְכִימָה״, וּכְתִיב: ״עֹשֵׂה כִימָה וּכְסִיל״. הָא כֵּיצַד? אִלְמָלֵא חַמָּה שֶׁל כְּסִיל, לֹא נִתְקַיֵּים עוֹלָם מִפְּנֵי צִינָּה שֶׁל כִּימָה, וְאִלְמָלֵא צִינָּה שֶׁל כִּימָה — לֹא נִתְקַיֵּים עוֹלָם מִפְּנֵי חַמָּה שֶׁל כְּסִיל

On the subject of stars, the Gemara notes that Shmuel raised a contradiction between the implications of two verses with regard to constellations. On the one hand it is written: “Who makes Ursa Major, Orion, and Pleiades, and the chambers of the south” (Job 9:9); Orion precedes Pleiades. And on the other hand it is written: “He Who makes Pleiades and Orion” (Amos 5:8); Pleiades precedes Orion. So how is this reconciled? The Gemara replies: Were it not for Orion’s heat, the universe could not exist because of the cold of Pleiades; and conversely, were it not for the cold of Pleiades, the universe could not exist because of the heat of Orion.

 Which of course raises the question of what, precisely, he meant by the term Kimah.

A color-composite image of the Pleiades from the Digitized Sky Survey ...

...and now in Hebrew.

Just where, and what, is Kimah?

The term Kimah (כימה) appears three times in the Bible. Here they are, along with the JPS translation.

עמוס ה', ח

עֹשֵׂה כִימָה וּכְסִיל, וְהֹפֵךְ לַבֹּקֶר צַלְמָוֶת, וְיוֹם, לַיְלָה הֶחְשִׁיךְ

Him that maketh the Pleiades and Orion, And bringeth on the shadow of death in the morning, And darkeneth the day into night.

איוב ט', ט

עֹשֶׂה-עָשׁ, כְּסִיל וְכִימָה; וְחַדְרֵי תֵמָן

Who maketh the Bear, Orion, and the Pleiades, And the chambers of the south.
 

איוב ל"ח, ל"א-ל"ב

הַתְקַשֵּׁר, מַעֲדַנּוֹת כִּימָה; אוֹ-מֹשְׁכוֹת כְּסִיל תְּפַתֵּחַ 

Canst thou bind the chains of the Pleiades, Or loose the bands of Orion?
 

But none of these verses in their original help us understand where in the sky Kimah can be found. Back in 1982, Chaim Milikowski, now a professor of Talmud at Bar-Ilan University, published  a paper with the catchy title of Kima and the Flood in Seder 'Olam and B.T. Rosh Ha-Shana. Stellar Time-Reckoning and Uranography in Rabbinic Literature. Here's what he says about the word Kimah:

... there is no doubt that it refers to a star or configuration of stars. It is generally taken to be the Pleiades, but various scholars have also suggested Sirius, Scorpio and Draco. Unfortunately, in none of its occurrences can kima be identified on the basis of its context, nor does it appear in any contemporaneous cognate language. The identification of kima as Pleiades is based upon two considerations,neither conclusive.The Septuagint to Job 38:31 translates kima as Pleiades, as does also Symmachus and the Vulgate. However, at Amos 5:8, while Symmachus and Theodotion have Pleiades, Aquila and the Vulgate have no material contemporaneous ...but it does occasionally appear in the Babylonian Talmud and in the midrashim. A number of these passages support the identification of kima as the Pleiades….

From the statement of R. Papa (fourth-century Babylonian Amora) in B.T. Baba Mesi'a' 106b it follows that the position of kima at nightfall around February or March is the middle of the sky: this is roughly true of all astral bodies from the Pleiades to Sirius.

Melikowski ultimately concludes that Kimah is indeed the Pleiades, (at least it was for the authors of Seder Olam Rabbah). Identifying Kimah with the Pleiades is fairly common. The JPS translation of the Bible did it.  The Artscroll Complete Tisha B'Av Service (page 63) does so, as does Rabbi Avraham Rosenfeld in his Tisha B'Av Compendium (page 38) and Feldman in his 1931 Rabbinic Mathematics and Astronomy  (page 77). Lazarus Goldschmidt (d. 1950) who translated the Talmud into German, uses the word Siebengestirn, or the Seven-Star, which is Pleaides. The Soncino English Talmud translates Kimah as...Kimah, which is not very helpful, but in a footnote point out that Jastrow does not identify Kimah with the Pleiades.  Marcus Jastrow (d.1903) was a lone voice who did not agree with the general consensus. In his famous dictionary he wrote that Kimah was probably Draco and not Pleiades - though he did not elaborate.  So let's follow the majority and move on.

The Pleiades

The Pleiades are a cluster of hundreds of stars all about 400 light years from earth. They are often called the Seven Sisters, after their six brightest stars (go figure).  With the naked eye on a clear night you can see about six of them; with a really good pair of eyes you might get to see eleven. In In 1769, Charles Messier included the Pleiades as number 45 in his first list of comet-like objects, published in 1771, which is why the group is also referred to a M45.  You may not have noticed them in the sky, but I'm fairly sure you've noticed them on the front of a Subaru.

Rashi places this group in the tail of the constellation of Aires, based on his understanding of today’s Talmud (Berachot 58b). Most modern astronomy books place them in the shoulder of the constellation Taurus, but as you can see from the diagram below, there's nothing to drive this decision one way or the other.

Tomorrow we continue with the theme of astronomy, as we discuss the rarest blessing in Judaism. it is known as Birkat HaChammah “the Blessing over the Sun” and is recited only once every 28 years.

The Pleidas (M45) sits right in between Taurus and Aires...

“Samuel (third-centuryBabylonian Amora) gives an etymology of the name kima: like a hundred (keme’ah) stars. Though only six or seven stars are easily visible to the naked eye, the Pleiades consist of several hundred stars bunched closely together. Consequently, Samuel’s description is very applicable though it remains a question how he can have known this.”

— Chaim Milikowsky. "Kima" and the Flood in "Seder 'Olam" and B.T. Rosh Ha-Shana Stellar Time-Reckoning and Uranography in Rabbinic Literature. Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research, Vol. 50 (1983), pp. 105-132

“Many a night I saw the Pleiads, rising through the mellow shade,
Glitter like a swarm of fire-flies tangled in a silver braid.”

— Locksley Hall by Alfred Tennyson, 1835

Berachot 55~ Hemorrhoids. And Dreams.

Today’s long page of Talmud discusses lots of ideas. We will focus on two of them: Hemorrhoids and dreams. Rav Yehudah suggested that spending a long time in the lavatory promoted longevity. This prompts the following discussion:

ברכות נה, א

וְהַמַּאֲרִיךְ בְּבֵית הַכִּסֵּא: מְעַלְּיוּתָא הוּא? וְהָתַנְיָא: עֲשָׂרָה דְּבָרִים מְבִיאִין אֶת הָאָדָם לִידֵי תַּחְתּוֹנִיּוֹת: הָאוֹכֵל עֲלֵי קָנִים, וַעֲלֵי גְפָנִים, וְלוּלַבֵּי גְפָנִים, וּמוֹרִיגֵּי בְהֵמָה, וְשִׁדְרוֹ שֶׁל דָּג, וְדָג מָלִיחַ שֶׁאֵינוֹ מְבוּשָּׁל כׇּל צָרְכּוֹ, וְהַשּׁוֹתֶה שִׁמְרֵי יַיִן, וְהַמְקַנֵּחַ בְּסִיד וּבְחַרְסִית. וְהַמְקַנֵּחַ בִּצְרוֹר שֶׁקִּנַּח בּוֹ חֲבֵרוֹ, וְיֵשׁ אוֹמְרִים: אַף הַתּוֹלֶה עַצְמוֹ בְּבֵית הַכִּסֵּא יוֹתֵר מִדַּאי.

With regard to what Rav Yehuda said in praise of one who prolongs his time in the bathroom, the Gemara asks: Is that a virtue? Wasn’t it taught in a baraita: Ten things bring a person to suffer from hemorrhoids: One who eats the leaves of bulrushes, grape leaves, tendrils of grapevines, the palate and tongue of an animal, as well as any other part of the animal which is not smooth and which has protrusions, the spine of a fish, a salty fish that is not fully cooked, and one who drinks wine dregs, and one who wipes himself with lime and clay, the materials from which earthenware is made, and one who wipes himself with a stone with which another person wiped himself. And some say: One who suspends himself too much in the bathroom as well. This proves that prolonging one’s time in the bathroom is harmful.

So now the question is, what does modern medicine tell us about the cause of hemorrhoids?

The nature and etiology of hemorrhoids

Hemorrhoids are small grape-like bulges of blood vessels around the anus. They affect between 4 and 30% of the population, (though no one really knows). In most people they are completely painless and asymptomatic, and only a minority will require medical attention, though in my experience that attention was always expected in the emergency department at 4am. The most common symptoms are painless rectal bleeding or pain and swelling.

You would have thought that by now we knew for sure what causes hemorrhoids. But there is in fact some medical controversy about the whole thing. According to William Cirocco of the Department of Surgery at the University of Missouri, Galen, writing in the 2nd century, believed that that “unsound juices” were discharged from the body through hemorrhoids. “The anatomist Hyrtl noted that “the golden veins of the anus” were not mentioned before the 16th century...The name denotes the typical spontaneous bleeding which, in folklore, was believed to remedy the various maladies of the ages. This provided a cure without a visit to the doctor for medicinal bloodletting, thus saving the patient from the doctor’s customary fees—hence, the name “golden veins.”

Here they some of the suggested etiologies:

1. The Varicose Vein Theory

   Varicose veins are essentially tired and weakened veins, which bulge as a result. You may have noticed them (or even have some) on your legs or the legs of others. An increase in local venous pressure combined with a localized weakness in the vein wall were thought to result in hemorrhoidal disease. This leads to the medical advice to use stool softeners. These supposedly reduce the need for straining when defecating, and so reduce the pressure on those tired veins.

2. The Vascular Hyperplasia Theory

   Anatomists noted that there were communications between the veins and arterioles (little arteries) within the hemorrhoid. This should explain the bright red bleeding typical of symptomatic hemorrhoids rather than dark, venous bleeding which would otherwise be expected if this were purely venous disease.

3. The Infection/Inflammation Theory

   This was popular in the early nineteenth century, when it was suggested the “there is always an infectious process associated with hemorrhoids . . . a condition which may properly be termed ‘phlebitis’.” This infection was thought to “come from outside the lumen of the vessels” and weaken the venous walls. Today, it is not a widely held explanation.

4. The Sliding Anal Lining Theory

   This interestingly named theory, based on the microscopic pathology of hemorrhoids, suggested that they are caused by a  “giving away of the supportive structures rather than a weakening and thinning out of the vessel walls as the initial pathologic change.” This sliding anal lining theory held that the cause of hemorrhoids was due to the gradual reduction of supportive elastic tissues due to aging, and abetted by the daily trauma of straining at the time of a bowel movement.

“The year 1975 was a watershed year for studies regarding the origin and explanation of hemorrhoids.”

— William C. Cirocco. Why are hemorrhoids symptomatic? the pathophysiology and etiology of hemorrhoids. Seminars in Colon and Rectal Surgery 2018: 29; 160-166

Interestingly, eating “the spine of a fish, a salty fish that is not fully cooked” or drinking wine dregs, which are suggested as causes of hemorrhoids in today’s page of Talmud, have not been explored as possible etiologies. Neither has “wiping with a stone with which another person wiped himself,” though it’s probably a good idea to follow the Talmud’s suggestion on this one. Like many Talmudic medical theories, the suggestion here is that “like causes like”: so spiny fish cause the bulging of hemorrhoids, or grape leaves cause hemorrhoids - which may bulge out like little grapes. It’s an attractive theory, but like homeopathy itself has not a shred of evidence to support it. Now let's turn to dreams.

Dreams and the Future

In today’s page of Talmud there is the beginning of a very long discussion of the nature of dreams. Here is Rav Chisda who had a lot to say on the topic:

וְאָמַר רַב חִסְדָּא: חֶלְמָא דְּלָא מְפַשַּׁר כְּאִגַּרְתָּא דְּלָא מִקַּרְיָא. וְאָמַר רַב חִסְדָּא: לָא חֶלְמָא טָבָא מִקַּיַּים כּוּלֵּיהּ וְלָא חֶלְמָא בִּישָׁא מִקַּיַּים כּוּלֵּיהּ. וְאָמַר רַב חִסְדָּא: חֶלְמָא בִּישָׁא עֲדִיף מֵחֶלְמָא טָבָא. וְאָמַר רַב חִסְדָּא: חֶלְמָא בִּישָׁא — עֲצִיבוּתֵיהּ מִסְתְּיֵיהּ, חֶלְמָא טָבָא — חֶדְוֵיהּ מִסְתְּיֵיהּ

Rav Chisda said: A dream not interpreted is like a letter not read. [As long as it is not interpreted it cannot be fulfilled; the interpretation of a dream creates its meaning.] And Rav Chisda said: A good dream is not entirely fulfilled and a bad dream is not entirely fulfilled. And Rav Chisda said: A bad dream is preferable to a good dream, as a bad dream causes one to feel remorse and to repent. And Rav Chisda said: A bad dream, his sadness is enough for him; a good dream, his joy is enough for him. [This means that the sadness or joy engendered by the dream renders the actual fulfillment of the dream superfluous.]

There is an ambivalence about the nature of the content of dreams. Some, like Rabbi Meir (Gittin 52a) thought they were inconsequential:

גיטין נב, א

אמר, דברי חלומות לא מעלין ולא מורידין

Rabbi Meir used to say: The content of dreams is inconsequential

Earlier in Berachot (10b) Rabbi Hanan taught that even if a dream appears to predict one's imminent death, the one who dreamed should pray for mercy. R. Hanan believed that dreams may contain a glimpse of the future, but that prayer is powerful enough to changes one's fate. Later in today’s page of Talmud (55b), R. Yohanan suggests a different response to a distressing dream: let the dreamer find three people who will suggest that in fact the dream was a good one (a suggestion that is codified in שולחן ערוך יורה דעה 220:1).

He should say to them "I saw a good dream" and they should say to him "it is good and let it be good, and may God make it good. May heaven decree on you seven times that it will be good, and it will be good.

Shmuel, the Babylonian physician who died around 250 CE, had a unique approach to addressing the content of his own dreams. "When he had a bad dream, he would cite the verse 'And dreams speak falsely' [Zech. 10:2]. When he had a good dream he would say "are dreams false? Isn't it stated in the Torah [Numbers 12:6] 'I speak with him in a dream'?" (Berachot 55b).  In contrast, Rabbi Yonatan suggests that dreams do not predict the future: rather they reflect the subconscious (Freud would have been proud). "R. Yonatan said: a person is only shown in his dreams what he is thinking about in his heart..." (Berachot 55b).  

“It is of interest that two millennia separated the first detailed description of the major peripheral characteristics of dreaming from the first contemporary experimental results of brain research in this field, while only about 60 years were necessary to establish relatively solid knowledge of the basic and higher integrated neurobiological processes underlying REM sleep.”

— Gottesmann, C. The development of the science of dreaming. International Review of Neurobiology 2010. 92: 16

why do we dream?

Dreaming takes place during the REM (Rapid Eye Movement) stage of sleep, when there is brain activation similar to that found in waking, but muscle tone is inhibited and the eyes move rapidly. This type of sleep was only discovered in the 1950s, and since then it has been demonstrated in mammals and birds (but not yet in robots). Most adults have four or five periods of REM sleep per night, which mostly occur in 90 minute cycles. Individual REM periods may last from a few minutes to over an hour, with REM periods becoming longer the later it is in the night. 

Here are some theories about why we dream, all taken from this paper. (The author, J. Allan Hobson, directed the Laboratory of Neurophysiology at the Massachusetts Mental Health Center from 1968 to 2003. He also published more than 200 peer-reviewed articles and 10 books on sleep and dreaming. So he knows something about the physiology of sleep.) 

1. Sleep and dreaming are needed to regulate energy

Deprive a lab rat of all sleep and it will die. Deprive a lab rat of REM sleep so that it does not dream, and it too will die.  These sleep-and-dream deprived rats lost weight and showed heat seeking behavior. This suggests for animals which regulate their body temperature, sleep is needed to control both body temperature and weight. Importantly, only mammals and birds are homeothermic, and they are also the only animals which are known to have REM sleep.

2. Sleep deprivation and psychological equilibrium

Based on a number of experiments in healthy human volunteers, it has been shown that sleep and dreaming are essential to mental health. "The fact that sleep deprivation invariably causes psychological dysfunction" wrote Prof. Hobson in his review,  "supports the functional theory that the integrity of waking consciousness depends on the integrity of dream consciousness and that of the brain mechanisms of REM sleep." (When we studied Nedarim 15 we noted however, that eleven days of sleep deprivation seemed to have no ill effects in one man.) The relationship between dreaming and psychological health is rather more complicated though: monamine-oxidase inhibitors completely repress REM sleep, and yet are an effective class of anti-depressants.  There appears to be a relationship between dreaming and psychological well being, but its parameters require much more study.   

3. Sleep, Dreams and Learning

In 1966, it was first suggested that REM sleep is related to the brain organizing itself.  This suggestion was later supported by studies which showed that the ability of an animal to learn a new task is diminished their REM sleep is interrupted.  Other studies show that REM sleep in humans is increased following an intensive learning period. 

“...dreaming could represent a set of foreordained scripts or scenarios for the organization of our waking experience. According to this hypothesis, our brains are as much creative artists as they are copy editors.”

— Hobson, JA. REM sleep and dreaming: towards a theory of protoconsciousness. Nature Reviews 2009.807.

Nightmares and Fasting

We've all had dreams that frighten or upset us. The major code of Jewish law take bad dreams seriously. While fasting is absolutely forbidden on Shabbat, it is permitted in two instances: when Yom Kippur falls on Shabbat and when you've had a bad dream and need to undertake a fast "to tear up the heavenly decree." Here is the ruling:

שולחן ערוך אורח חיים הלכות שבת סימן רפח 

סעיף ד
 מותר להתענות בו תענית חלום כדי שיקרע גזר דינו. וצריך להתענות ביום ראשון, כדי שיתכפר לו מה שביטל עונג שבת 

It is permitted to fast on Shabbat because of a bad dream, in order for the bad ruling to be torn up. However he must then also fast on Sunday, in order to atone for the fact that he ruined his Shabbat enjoyment by fasting...  

There are several psychological definitions of a nightmare. One describes nightmares, as "characterized by awakenings primarily from REM sleep with clear recall of disturbing mentation." These bad dreams are common, occurring in 2-6% of the population at least once a week. They seem to be more prevalent in children and less prevalent in the elderly, but in all age groups women report having nightmares more often than men. Nightmares are also more frequent in patients with psychiatric disorders such as anxiety, neuroticism, schizophrenia, sociality and post traumatic stress disorder. And in all populations they are more frequently reported during episodes of stress.  

There are a number of psycho-analytical models of nightmare formation, but little empirical evidence to support any of them.  They are shown in the table below.

Psychoanalytic and neo-psychoanalytic models of nightmare formation
Authors	Core mechanism producing nightmares
Freud 1900	Transformation of libidinal urges into anxiety that punishes the self (masochism); analogous to the neurotic anxiety underlying phobias
Jones 1951	Expression of repressed, exclusively incestuous, impulses
Jung 1909-1945	Residues of unresolved psychological conflicts.Individuation or development of the personality
Fisher et al. 1970	Attempts to assimilate or control repressed anxiety stemming from past or present conflicts
Greenberg 1972	Failure in dream function of mastering traumatic experience
Lansky 1995	Transformation of shame into fear (post-traumatic nightmares only)
Solms 1997	Epileptiform (seizure) activity in the limbic system (recurring nightmares only). Activation of dopaminergic appetitive circuits in mediobasal forebrain and hallucinatory representation by occipito-temporal-parietal mechanisms (nonrecurring nightmares and normal dreaming)
From Nielsen T and Levin, R. Nightmares: A new neurocognitive mode. Sleep Medicine Reviews 2007:11 (4); 295-310.

A recent review paper from researchers in Montreal and Yeshiva University summarizes the research in this way:

In sum, although clinical and, to some extent, empirical evidence supports different psychoanalytic models of nightmare formation, for the most part such models have not been subjected to rigorous empirical scrutiny. Rather, their central tenets have been integrated with more recent nightmare models, where empirical evidence is less scarce.

These same researchers suggest that nightmares "result from dysfunction in a network of affective processes that, during normal dreaming, serves the adaptive function of fear memory extinction." Fear memory occurs when an innocuous stimulus (like a door bell ringing) is paired with an unpleasant experience (like an electric shock).  Fear memory may be useful if it saves the individual from repeating a dangerous error. Extinction memories override the original fear memories and allow the individual to hear that ringing door bell without fearing an electric shock. The suggestion is that nightmares occur when the brain does not properly process fear extinction memories, For this reason nightmares are more prevalent in those with stress or psychiatric disorders. It's an interesting theory, but one that has not yet gathered much empirical evidence for its support.  But there is no doubting the relationship between psychiatric disorders, stress, and nightmares, and we noted earlier that  R. Yonatan claimed "a person is only shown in his dreams what he is thinking about in his heart..." (Berachot 55b). Perhaps this is why it is permitted to fast on Shabbat after a nightmare.  

Interestingly the Shulchan Aruch records an opinion that such Shabbat fasting is not permitted for a nightmare that appears only once; rather it is only allowed if it appears three times or more ( י"א שאין להתענות תענית חלום בשבת אלא על חלום שראהו תלת זימני). This is now more readily understood in light of the relationships we have noted between nightmares and psychological wellbeing; a recurrent nightmare may be associated with a more deeply felt stressful situation, and so it is only these recurrent bad dreams that allow for a Shabbat fast. One-off nightmares are not reflective of this stress, and so fasting  on their account is not permitted on Shabbat.    

The Realism and Bizarreness of 365 Dreams
Category	Frequency (%)
Possible in waking life, everyday experiences	29
Possible in waking life, uncommon elements	50
One or two bizarre or impossible elements	27
Several bizarre elements	4
From M. Schredl, et al. Dream content and personality. Dreaming 1999. (9): 257–263

In Summary

At best, we can say that contemporary science has a poor understanding of why we dream.  Hobson concludes his review stating that dreaming is "the subjective experience of a brain state with phenomenological similarities to - and differences from - waking consciousness, which is itself associated with a distinctive brain state." Well thanks for that Professor.  But not very helpful.

Dreams are very important to how we function as humans but we seem to have no idea how dreams serve to keep us from dying or getting very sick. That we must dream in order to function seems to be certain; but why we dream about what we do is far less known. And don't trust every scientific paper you read on the subject. Publication and peer review is no guarantee of veracity. Let's end with a good example of scientific nonsense from this recently published paper in the journal Sleep and Hypnosis, which seeks to explain why some dreams portend the future. (Well, um, actually they don't. But do go on.)  Just its title alone should make you run for the hills: Dreams, Time Distortion and the Experience of Future Events: A Relativistic, Neuroquantal Perspective. And it only gets better:

“If dreams and related altered states are actually the experiences of biophotons within the brain...then the temporal discrepancies between precognitive experiences and subsequent verified events may reflect the relativistic and quantum properties of minute differential velocities in electromagnetic phenomena. The average discrepancy of about two to three days between the experience and the event in actual cases supported this hypothesis.
The moderately strong correlation between the global geomagnetic activity at the time of precognitive experiences, primarily during dreams, and the geomagnetic activity during the two days before the event in those cases where the discrepancy is more than 6 days suggests a variant of entanglement between photons emitted during the event and those experienced before the event. The marked congruence of gravitational waves, geomagnetic activity, the Schumann resonance and the peak power of brain activity during different states, particularly when the sensitivity of the right hemisphere is considered, indicates a physical substrate by which prescience could occur.”

— Dotta BT. Persinger MA. Dreams, Time Distortion and the Experience of Future Events: A Relativistic, Neuroquantal Perspective. Sleep and Hypnosis 2009;11(2):29-39)

Rabbi Meir, the great sage of the Talmud, believed that the content of dreams was of no consequence whatsoever.  He may well said that same about some of the contemporary scientific explanations of dreaming.  

“אמרו לו בחלום מעשר שני של אביך שאתה מבקש הרי הוא במקום פלוני, אף ע”פ שמצא שם מה שנאמר לו אינו מעשר, דברי חלומות לא מעלין ולא מורידין
If a man was told in a dream that Ma’aser Sheni [a tithe on produce] belonging to his father was to be found in a certain location, even if he found some produce in that same location, it is not to be considered set aside for this tithe. For the content of dreams is of no consequence.”

— רמב"ם הלכות מעשר שני ונטע רבעי פרק ו הלכה ו