Pesachim 96 ~ Blood to Prevent Plague

The Mishnah outlines some of the differences between the very first Passover that was celebrated while the Jews were still in Egypt, and the Passovers that were celebrated in the Temple in Jerusalem in the centuries that followed.

פסחים צו, א

מַתְנִי׳ מָה בֵּין פֶּסַח מִצְרַיִם לְפֶסַח דּוֹרוֹת? פֶּסַח מִצְרַיִם מִקָּחוֹ מִבֶּעָשׂוֹר, וְטָעוּן הַזָּאָה בַּאֲגוּדַּת אֵזוֹב, וְעַל הַמַּשְׁקוֹף וְעַל שְׁתֵּי הַמְּזוּזוֹת, וְנֶאֱכָל בְּחִפָּזוֹן, בַּלַּיְלָה אֶחָד. וּפֶסַח דּוֹרוֹת נוֹהֵג כׇּל שִׁבְעָה 

Image from here.

MISHNA: What are the differences between the Paschal lamb that the Jewish people offered in Egypt and the Paschal lamb offered in all later generations? The Paschal lamb the Jewish people offered in Egypt had to be taken from the tenth of the month of Nisan and required the people to sprinkle its blood with a bundle of hyssop, unlike the Paschal lamb in all later years, and its blood was also sprinkled upon the lintel and the two doorposts, and it was eaten with haste; in addition, the Paschal lamb in Egypt was only on one night, whereas the Paschal lamb throughout the generations is observed for seven days. 

The Talmud spends several pages discussing the differences between that first Passover and all those that came later. As a rule, we don’t do much sprinkling of blood on our doorposts these days, but that was not always the case. Since we are still in the throes of a pandemic, let’s take a look at an overlooked custom that arose in Turkey during a pandemic there, and how it was connected to this Mishnah.

The BLoody Question

Rabbi Chaim Palagi (1788-1868) was an important rabbi and leader of the Jewish community in Izmir (Smyrna), Turkey, and his influence was felt far beyond. Among his many books (somewhere between seventy and eighty!) is a collection of responsa called Chaim Beyad (חיים ביד), in which he was asked the following question:

Come and listen and I will tell you about whether the custom to write God’s name [שם הוי׳ה ב׳ה] with the blood from a circumcision is appropriate. And if it is argued that it is indeed permitted, because it provides protection during an epidemic (heaven forbid), whether it is permitted to write God’s name in red or in any color other than in black ink…

So apparently the Jews of Izmir used to take the blood from a Jewish baby that had just been circumcised paint God’s ineffable name with it onto a flag or poster and presumably hang it somewhere for protection against a pandemic. (I know what you are thinking: why on earth was there so much blood? What exactly were they doing wrong? Fair questions, but let’s stay focussed.) This practice had its roots in that very first Passover, where the blood of a lamb painted on a doorpost signaled that there would be no death in the house, for it was under God’s protection.

Rabbi Palagi’s answer is technical and difficult to follow, but in the end he seems to allow the practice if the scribe is “a person of great learning and an expert in Kabbalah and there is a great need.” Moderns would, I am sure, find the whole practice quite distasteful, but it reminds us that when things are desperate and there aren’t a lot of options, prayer and folk magic are invoked in the face of a pandemic. Today there is no need to adopt this practice. We have a vaccine.

Pesachim 94 ~ The Orbit of the Sun around the Earth

Today we will discuss two passages that are well known and difficult to understand. They concern the movement of the stars and the orbit of the Sun around the Earth. Here is the first one:

פסחים צד,ב

תָּנוּ רַבָּנַן, חַכְמֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל אוֹמְרִים: גַּלְגַּל קָבוּעַ, וּמַזָּלוֹת חוֹזְרִין. וְחַכְמֵי אוּמּוֹת הָעוֹלָם אוֹמְרִים: גַּלְגַּל חוֹזֵר, וּמַזָּלוֹת קְבוּעִין. אָמַר רַבִּי: תְּשׁוּבָה לְדִבְרֵיהֶם — מֵעוֹלָם לֹא מָצִינוּ עֲגָלָה בַּדָּרוֹם וְעַקְרָב בַּצָּפוֹן

The Sages taught: The Jewish Sages say the celestial sphere [גלגל] of the zodiac is stationary, and the constellations revolve in their place within the sphere; and the sages of the nations of the world say the entire celestial sphere revolves, and the constellations are stationary within the sphere. Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi said: A refutation of their opinion [that the entire sphere moves] can be derived from the fact that we have never found the constellation of Ursa Major in the South or Scorpio in the North. [This indicates that it is the stars themselves that revolve in place and not the celestial sphere as a whole, because otherwise it would be impossible for Ursa Major to remain in the North and Scorpio to remain in the South].

The meaning of this passage is unclear, and as the late Isidore Twersky pointed out, it “has a long history of interpretation, reflecting various moods: embarrassment, perplexity, satisfaction, with some attempts at harmonization or reinterpretation or restricting the significance of the report.”

What could this passage mean?

Many different interpretations have been offered. One is that the galgal refers to the Sun, and the mazzalot refer to the planets; in this understanding, the sages of the Talmud anticipated the Copernican heliocentric system. However, this explanation must be rejected because in the very next line of the discussion, the Talmud makes it clear that the mazzalot contain the constellations Eglah (Taurus) and Akrav (Scorpio). It is therefore apparent that the mazzalot in this rabbinic passage are not to be identified with any of the planets. It is also clear that the system being described is not the Ptolemaic one in which the stars and planets revolve around the Earth, because the Earth is never referred to as galgal. The most likely explanation of this passage is that the galgal refers to a sphere and that, according to the Gentile sages, the constellations are fixed within a revolving sphere. The Jewish sages believed the sky to be both solid and immovable; according to them, the constellations—which are clearly seen to revolve, do so independently of the fixed heavens beneath them.

“We have never found Ursa Major in the SoutH”

According to Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi, the constellation known as Agalah is always found in the southern sky, and that known as Akrav is always found in the north. These two constellations should be easy to identify. Let’s start with the second one mentioned. The word Akrav עַקְרָב means a scorpion, and Scorpio is one of the twelve signs of the zodiac. Good. But what about the first constellation eglah or agalah (there is a big difference)? To what constellation might this refer? Agalah - עֲגָלָה means either a “wagon” or, when the same letters are vocalized as eglah, a “calf.” And then things really get interesting. So interesting that we did an entire post just on this topic. You can read it here.

Where does the sun go at night?

And now the second passage. Incidentally, it is also the text seen in the header on the landing page of Talmudology. It is from a manuscript of the Talmud held at the Jewish Theological Seminary MS Rab. 1623.

פסחים צד, ב

חכמי ישראל אומרים ביום חמה מהלכת למטה מן הרקיע ובלילה למעלה מן הרקיע וחכמי אומות העולם אומרים ביום חמה מהלכת למטה מן הרקיע ובלילה למטה מן הקרקע א"ר ונראין דבריהן מדברינו שביום מעינות צוננין ובלילה רותחין

The wise men of Israel say that during the day the Sun travels under the rakia, and at night it travels above the rakia. And Gentile wise men say: during the day the Sun travels under the rakia and at night under the Earth. Rabbi [Yehudah Hanasi] said: their view is more logical than ours for during the day springs are cold and at night they are warm.

The Path of the Sun, per the Talmud

In the talmudic view, the sky is completely opaque. As the Sun passes over the top of the sky at night, it is not in the slightest way visible. The rabbis of the Talmud also believed that the Earth was a flat disc, and that above the sky was an opaque covering called the rakia. During the day the Sun was visible under the rakia, and then at night it zipped back from where it set in the west to where it would rise again in the east by traveling over the rakia. Something like this: 

From Judah Landa. Torah and Science. Ktav 1991. p63

This orbit of sorts comes up again in another discussion, found in tractate Bava Basra: There is an argument whether at night the sun zips across the top of the opaque rakia, as Rabbi Eliezer believed, or zips behind it, as it were, which is what Rabbi Yehoshua believed.

בבא בתרא כה, א–ב

תניא ר"א אומר עולם לאכסדרה הוא דומה ורוח צפונית אינה מסובבת וכיון שהגיעה חמה אצל קרן מערבית צפונית נכפפת ועולה למעלה מן הרקיע ורבי יהושע אומר עולם לקובה הוא דומה ורוח צפונית מסובבת וכיון שחמה מגעת לקרן מערבית צפונית מקפת וחוזרת אחורי כיפה 

Rabbi Eliezer taught: The world is similar to a partially enclosed veranda [אכסדרה], [which is enclosed on three sides] and the northern side of the world is not enclosed with a partition like the other directions. When the sun reaches the northwestern corner it turns around and ascends throughout the night above the rakia [to the east side and does not pass the north side].

Rabbi Yehoshua says: The world is similar to a small tent [קובה], [and the north side is enclosed too,] and when the sun reaches the northwestern corner it orbits and passes behind the dome.

From Judah Landa. Torah and Science. Ktav 1991. p66.

It is hardly news to point out that a long time ago people believed that the universe was different to the way that we understand it to be today. But the belief of the rabbis of the Talmud was standard until only very recently, by which I mean only a few hundred years ago. (And if you want to learn more about that comment “during the day springs are cold and at night they are warm” there is a recent Talmudology post that explains it. You can enjoy it here.)

Copernicus and his critics

When Nicolas Copernicus (d. 1543) proposed his heliocentric universe he did so for a number of mathematical reasons but without any evidence. The experimental evidence that supported his claim did not appear for over three hundred years, when in 1838 the first measurement of stellar parallax occurred. Without evidence to support the Copernican model, many rejected it.  For example, the famous Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe (1546–1601) rejected the Copernican model, and came up with one of his own in which all the planets orbited the sun, which in turn dragged them around a stationary earth. For about one hundred years after Copernicus, the universities of Oxford and Cambridge ignored the heliocentric model entirely, and the English philosopher, statesman, and member of Parliament Francis Bacon (1561–1626) rejected the Copernican model as having “too many and great inconveniences.”

Galileo and the Catholic Church

Galileo published his discovery of the four satellites of Jupiter in Sidereus Nuncius in 1610. This discovery did not prove that Copernicus was correct, but it lent a great deal of corroborative evidence to the Copernican model. In addition Galileo noted that Venus seemed to change shape, just as the Moon did, sometimes appearing almost (but never quite) full, sometimes as a semi-circle, and at other times as sickle-shaped. The best explanation was that Venus was not orbiting the earth, but that it was in fact orbiting the Sun. And that turned out to be correct too. But as we know, things didn't turn out too well for Galileo. The Catholic Church, which by now had placed Copernicus' book on its Index of Banned Books, also banned Galileo's Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems - the book in which he outlined his proofs that the earth orbited the sun. The works of the astronomer Johannes Kepler (d.1630) were also added to the Index.  

The Jesuit Edition of Newton's Principa

In 1687 the Copernican model found support with the publication of Newton’s Principa Mathematica. In that work, Newton described the universal laws of gravitation and motion that were behind the observations of Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler.  The book went through three Latin editions in Newton’s life-time, and an English edition was published two years after his death in 1727.  A new three-volume edition of the Principia was published in Geneva between 1739 and 1742. This edition contained a commentary on each of the book’s propositions by two Franciscan friars but was noteworthy for another reason. In its final volume, the “Jesuit edition”  contained a disclaimer by the friars distancing themselves from the heliocentric assumptions contained in the book:

Newton in this third book assumes the hypothesis of the motion of the Earth. The propositions of the author cannot be explained otherwise than by making the same hypothesis. Hence we have been obliged to put on a character not our own. But we profess obedience to the decrees promulgated by sovereign pontiffs against the motion of the Earth.

So it wasn't just the rabbis of the Talmud who believed the earth stood still. In fact they believed what (nearly) everyone else continued to believe for at least a thousand years. The sun certainly looked like it revolved around the earth, so the rabbis created a model of the universe in which it did so, either by circling under the earth at night, or by zig-zagging back across the top of the rakia. Neither model turned out to be correct. But in believing this, the rabbis were firmly in the majority.

***

[If you want more on this subject, I'm also told there's an excellent book on the Jewish reception of Copernican thought.]

Happy Birthday Galileo

Galileo Galilei in a 1636 portrait by Justus Sustermans.

Today, February 15th, is a special day. It is the birthday of Galileo Galilei, who was born in Pisa on that day in 1564. Among his many achievements were his careful observations of the Earth’s moon, the identification of four of Jupiter’s moons, and the discovery that Venus, when observed through a telescope, has phases, just like that of our own moon. The only reasonable explanation of this was that Venus orbited the Sun, and not the Earth. And just like that, the geocentric model of the universe in which everything revolved around the Earth, came to a grinding halt.

Galileo’s Jewish Connection

Galileo taught astronomy to anyone who would listen, including Jews, and his most important Jewish student was Joseph Solomon Delmedigo who was born in Candia on the Island of Crete in 1591. At the age of fifteen Delmedigo left for Italy, where he enrolled in the University of Padua. For seven years there he studied astronomy, mathematics, natural science and medicine, and was taught by none other than Galileo Galilei, who was soon to become famous for both his observations of the planets and his clash with the Church.

When Delmedigo graduated he traveled to Lublin, Vilna, and Livona, where he spent much of his time working as a physician. He ultimately settled in Amsterdam where he published his Sefer Elim, a long book (it runs over four hundred pages) that deals with philosophy, science, mathematics, and astronomy.

“Galileo my Teacher” from Delmedigo, Sefer Elim, Amsterdam 1629. 148.

In this book book Delmedigo outlined the reasons he accepted the Copernican model of the universe. In addition to explaining all of the theoretical support for the heliocentric model, he cited experimental evidence. If the planets revolved about the Sun and were illuminated by it, the amount of light that they reflect would depend on their location and distance from the Earth. And this is precisely what Delmedigo and his famous teacher had observed through the telescope. 

My teacher Galileo observed Mars when it lay close to the Earth. At this time its light was much brighter than that of Jupiter, even though Mars is much smaller. Indeed it appeared too bright to view through the telescope. I requested to look through the telescope, and Mars appeared to me to be elongated rather than round. (This is a result of its clarity and the movement of its rays of light.) In contrast, I found Jupiter to be round and Saturn to be egg-shaped.

This glorious passage reminds us that religiously observant Jews were sometimes at the very cutting edge of the new astronomy. How many could claim to have been instructed by the great Galileo himself?

But don’t get carried away

The historian Andre Neher (d. 1988) viewed Joseph Delmedigo as a fearless trailblazer whose goal was not only to influence his own community, but also the Catholic Church itself. In a paper published in 1977 he wrote:

When Delmedigo published Elim in 1629, he used the term “Rabbi” in speaking of his teacher Galileo. Rabbi Galileo! Was this not something of a challenge directed to the inquisitors in Rome who were then preoccupied with Galileo and who were not to let him go until his death in 1642? Free Galileo, Delmedigo seems to be saying, or release him to us; in the midst of our Jewish community, he will not be subjected to any trial, we shall not require him to make any retraction, we shall welcome him and honor him like a Rabbi in Israel!

Well, not quite. As I have written elsewhere, this account is linguistically, historically, and conjecturally incorrect. In the first place, although the term used by Delmedigo to describe Galileo was indeed the word rebbi, in this context, it means “my teacher,” and not “my rabbi.” By translating it in this way Neher was able to support his claim that the Jews were open, receptive, and respectful to new ideas emerging in astronomy; but the linguistic reality (and much else besides) does not bear this out.

Secondly, in the years prior to the publication of Sefer Elim in 1629, Galileo had not become the “preoccupation” of the Inquisition. The work that led to the trial by the Inquisition, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief Systems of the World, was not published until 1632. And so Neher’s claim that Delmedigo was writing a message to release Galileo is chronologically incorrect. Finally, the notion that the Jewish community would not punish one of their own for expressing antinomian views is inaccurate. It was, after all, in Amsterdam itself, the city in which Delmedigo’s books were published, that the Jewish community excommunicated Spinoza in 1656 on account of “the horrible heresies which he practiced and taught.” So I don’t think that Neher’s assessment of Delmedigo as challenging the Inquisition on behalf of Galileo was accurate. But he was certainly correct in noting the important role that Galileo must surely have played in the education of the young Jew Joseph Delmedigo from Crete, who grew up and became the first Jewish Copernican.

A selection from the Talmudology Library Galileo Collection

Pesachim 84a ~ Cartilage

In a Mishnah on this page of Talmud there is a discussion about which parts of the paschal offering may be eaten.

פסחים פד,א

כׇּל הַנֶּאֱכָל בְּשׁוֹר הַגָּדוֹל — יֵאָכֵל בִּגְדִי הָרַךְ, וְרָאשֵׁי כְנָפַיִם וְהַסְּחוּסִים

MISHNA: Anything that is fit to be eaten in an adult ox, [whose bones have fully hardened,] may be eaten in a young kid. And the soft ends of the ribs and the cartilage are soft enough to be considered edible and may therefore be eaten from the Paschal lamb.

What is Cartilage?

Cartilage comes in several different flavors other than roasted. There is articular cartilage, which acts as a solid lubricant. It covers the joint surfaces and ensures a frictionless movement of the surfaces of articulating joints, like your hips, knees and elbows. Then there is hyaline cartilage which acts like a more flexible versions of bone, and provides structural support. It is what gives your ears and nose their shape, and keeps your ribs attached to the breast bone. Finally fibrous cartilage is the stuff of which the menisci of your knees are made. These act as a cushion against the stress of walking, running and playing frisbee. When you tear a meniscus, you have torn fibrous cartilage.

We are not the only species to have cartilage. There is an entire class of fish known as the Chondrichthyes (from the Greek chondr meaning 'cartilage', and ichthys meaning 'fish,’) whose skeleton has no bone in it and is made from cartilage alone. This class includes sharks and sting rays.

“Patients with cancer and chronic inflammatory disorders have used shark cartilage preparations for many years. Preclinical studies that support their beneficial effects are scanty, and reports of clinical trials have been anecdotal. ”

— D R Miller, G T Anderson, J J Stark, J L Granick, and D Richardson. Phase I/II trial of the safety and efficacy of shark cartilage in the treatment of advanced cancer. Journal of Clinical Oncology 1998 16:11, 3649-3655

Can Shark Cartilage Save your life?

In 1992 William Lane and Linda Comac published Sharks Don't Get Cancer: How Shark Cartilage Could Save Your Life. Let’s get one thing straight right away. Sharks do get cancer. But since they generally spend their time out at sea and far away from scientists, it’s been hard to determine the true incidence of shark cancer. Anyway the reason that shark cartilage was of interest to the medical community was the fact that in 1983 it had shown to inhibit the growth of blood vessels. Since cancerous growths need a blood supply, if you can inhibit that supply you can, in theory, keep the growth in check or perhaps kill it completely.

This finding launched an industry, and not in a good way. It also later came to light that the shark cartilage product that William Lane was promoting , Benefin, was manufactured by, you guessed it Lane Labs, a company run by his son. In 1999, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration pursued an injunction against the company for illegally promoting the product as a cancer treatment. Then in 2005 a study of shark cartilage in patients with advanced breast or colorectal cancer found no benefit or suggestion of efficacy.

The National Cancer Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health, has a webpage that reviews the use of cartilage (both bovine and shark) in cancer. In addition to the 2005 study that failed to show any clinical benefit, the site notes one trial of 60 patients with advanced cancer taking powdered cartilage by mouth. It is difficult to tease apart any effect of the cartilage since all but one patient had been treated with standard therapy before the trial. “The cancer stopped growing in 10 of the patients for 12 weeks or more and then began to grow again. The cancer did not shrink or go into remission in any of the patients.” So far, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has not approved cartilage as a treatment for cancer, but a number of cartilage products are sold in the United States as dietary supplements.

“...we have shown that several in vivo and in
vitro experimental studies have demonstrated that shark cartilage is a true source of biological compounds with antiangiogenic and antitumor properties. Unfortunately, those experimental findings have not been followed by reliable results in clinical trials, especially with cancer patients.”

— Gonzalez R.P. Leyva A. Moraes M.O. Shark Cartilage as Source of Antiangiogenic Compounds: From Basic to Clinical Research. Biol. Pharm. Bull. 24(10) 1097—1101 (2001)

Is Shark Cartilage Kosher?

There is no need to consume shark cartilage, cow cartilage or cartilage in any form. It. Doesn’t. Work. Not for cancer and not for arthritis. But it is hardly a surprise to learn that against all the evidence some people still want to take it. So is it kosher?

The Rabbinical Council of Chicago has a helpful page on its website addressing the use of glucosamine and chondroitin. These are sold as supplements, usually to treat arthritis and are commonly produced from the soft shells and cartilage of shells of crabs, lobsters and shellfish, and sometimes from the cartilage of sharks. These are “…flavorful enough to be given the status of the fish they come from, and are therefore non-kosher.” But they continue:

However, there have been some prominent Poskim who have suggested halachic rationales as to why the considerable processing done to the shells and cartilage, might do away with the non-kosher status as well. Some Poskim accept those rationales, but most are undecided or reject such claims. However, most of those who hold that the glucosamine and chondroitin are inherently non-kosher, agree that someone suffering from arthritis may take those items in pill form because:

It is generally accepted that non-chewable pills are considered inedible non-foods and therefore are not required to be kosher.

A person who is incapacitated is permitted to “eat” non-kosher medicine in an “atypical manner”, and (almost) everyone agrees that swallowing a pill is not considered eating in a typical manner. This line of reasoning would only permit the consumption of items which have a history of being effective at curing the said illness, and at this point it seems that glucosamine and chondroitin meet that standard as a cure/relief for the symptoms of arthritis.

We may quibble with the last line, but anyway, the Chicago rabbis concluded that “many hold that glucosamine and chondroitin are not kosher but they may still be taken in pill form, especially by those who suffer from arthritis, but most Rabbis would not permit the inclusion of glucosamine and chondroitin powders in regular foods.” You can find a similar approach on the website of the Orthodox Union, which also notes that vegetarian glucosamine is available. No sharks or crabs are harmed in its making. If only there were an alternative for those Paschal lambs.