Yoma 10a ~ On the Origins of Nations

Today’s page of Talmud digresses into a discussion of where we come from.

יומא י, א

וּפָרְסָאֵי מְנָא לַן דְּמִיֶּפֶת קָאָתוּ, דִּכְתִיב: ״בְּנֵי יֶפֶת גּוֹמֶר וּמָגוֹג וּמָדַי וְיָוָן וְתוּבָל וּמֶשֶׁךְ וְתִירָס״. גּוֹמֶר — זֶה גֶּרְמַמְיָא, מָגוֹג — זוֹ קַנְדִּיָּא, מָדַי — זוֹ מַקֵדוֹנְיָא, יָוָן — כְּמַשְׁמָעוֹ, תּוּבָל — זֶה בֵּית אוּנַיְיקִי, מֶשֶׁךְ — זוֹ מוּסְיָא, תִּירָס, פְּלִיגִי בַּהּ רַבִּי סִימַאי וְרַבָּנַן, וְאָמְרִי לַהּ רַבִּי סִימוֹן וְרַבָּנַן, חַד אָמַר: זוֹ בֵּית תְּרַיְיקִי, וְחַד אָמַר: זוֹ פָּרַס. תָּנֵי רַב יוֹסֵף: תִּירָס — זוֹ פָּרַס

From where do we derive that the Persians descend from Japhet? The Gemara answers: As it is written: “The sons of Japheth were Gomer and Magog and Madai and Javan and Tuval and Meshech and Tiras” (Genesis 10:2). The Gemara explains: Gomer, that is Germamya; Magog, that is Kandiya; Madai, that is Macedonia; Javan, in accordance with its plain meaning, Greece; Tuval, that is the nation called Beit Unaiki; Meshech, that is Musya. With regard to Tiras, Rabbi Simai and the Rabbis disagree, and some say the dispute is between Rabbi Simon and the Rabbis: One said: That is Beit Teraiki, and one said: That is Persia. According to that approach, Persia is listed among the descendants of Japheth. Rav Yosef taught: Tiras is Persia.

So according to the Talmud, the Germans, the Cretans (inhabitants of Crete - Kandia in Hebrew and the largest and most populous of the Greek islands), the Macedonians, the Greeks, Macedonians and the Persians all descended from Japhet.

Where did the Indo-Europeans come from?

There are only a limited number of ways that we can reconstruct the origins of Indo-Europeans. One is through DNA testing of both the living and the dead, as we will return to this later. A second way is to look at language as a way of identifying common ancestry. It may not be as precise as DNA sequencing, but as David W. Anthony and Don Ringe pointed out in their 2015 paper The Indo-European Homeland from Linguistic and Archaeological Perspectives, it is possible to reconstruct a prehistoric language such as Proto- Indo-European (PIE), though with many qualifications. “Because the grammar fragment, phonological system, and lexemes that are reconstructible for PIE reveal a coherent, unremarkable human language…the PIE-speaking community might, given the correct integrative methods, be correlated with the reality recovered by archaeology.”

“One fact especially makes the connection of prehistoric languages with prehistoric material cultures worth pursuing. Some of the words that we can reconstruct for protolanguages have very specific meanings, and a few refer to technological developments that can be dated independently and correlated with the archaeological record. That is crucial because, in the absence of writing, archaeology yields no direct evidence for the language spoken by the people who made a particular group of artifacts. Under most circumstances, only the indirect correlation of datable artifacts and the words that refer to them can connect linguistic prehistory with archaeology. In this respect, too, PIE is a fortunate case.”

— David W. Anthony and Don Ringe. The Indo-European Homeland from Linguistic and Archaeological Perspectives. Annu. Rev. Linguist. 2015. 1:199–219

This linguistic archeology is a complicated business: There are at least ten groups of Indo-European (IE) languages, and, according to Anthony and Ringe, none are closely related to the others.

Determining the order in which they diverged from each other, called subgrouping, has proved surprisingly difficult but a consensus is emerging. It seems clear that the ancestor of the Anatolian subgroup (which includes Hittite) separated from the other dialects of PIE first, so from a cladistic point of view Anatolian is half the IE family. Within the non-Anatolian half, it appears that the ancestor of the Tocharian subgroup (whose attested languages were spoken in Xinjiang, today in western China, until approximately the tenth century CE) separated from the other dialects before the latter had diverged much. It follows that an item inherited by two or more of the daughter subgroups can be reconstructed for “early” PIE only if it is attested in at least one Anatolian language and at least one non-Anatolian language, and such an item can be reconstructed for the ancestor of the non-Anatolian subgroups only if it is attested in one or both of the Tocharian languages and in some other IE language.

The Case of the Word “Wheel”

Thanks to some solid carbon dating, we know that the invention of the wheel-and-axle principle, which first made wagons and carts possible, occurred around 4000–3500 BCE. So by looking at the words for axle and wheel it may be possible to reconstruct the origins of the word, and from there figure out the origins of the peoples themselves.

Wheel terms found in Indo-European language branches. From David W. Anthony and Don Ringe. The Indo-European Homeland from Linguistic and Archaeological Perspectives. Annu. Rev. Linguist. 2015. 1:199–219.

So, for example, the words for wheel and cart/wagon/chariot take one of two common forms, which are thought to be linked with two PIE roots: the root kʷel- "move around" is the basis of the unique derivative kʷekʷlo- "wheel" which becomes hvél (wheel) in Old Icelandic, kolo (wheel, circle) in Old Church Slavonic, kãkla- (neck) in Lithuanian, kyklo- (wheel, circle) in Greek, cakka-/cakra- (wheel) in Pali and Sanskrit, and kukäl (wagon, chariot) in Tocharian A. The root ret(h)- becomes rad (wheel) in Old High German, rota (wheel) in Latin, rãtas (wheel) in Lithuanian, and ratha (wagon, chariot) in Sanskrit.

The Anatolian hypothesis suggests that speakers of PIE lived in Anatolia (mostly modern day Turkey) during the Neolithic period (10,000–4,500 BCE). From there, Indo-European languages spread into Europe and Asia minor around 7,000 BCE. They then split into three major clades: Indo-European languages in Europe, Dravidian languages in Pakistan and India, and Afroasiatic languages in the Arabian Peninsula and North Africa.

The DNA evidence

In a 2015 paper published in the prestigious journal Nature, a massive international team of researchers with backgrounds in evolutionary genetics, archeology, linguistics, evolutionary biology, history and anthropology analyzed the genetic material from 101 ancient humans from across Eurasia. They demonstrated that “the Bronze Age was a highly dynamic period involving large-scale population migrations and replacements, responsible for shaping major parts of present-day demographic structure in both Europe and Asia.” And importantly, they note that their findings “are consistent with the hypothesized spread of Indo-European languages during the Early Bronze Age.”

Our analyses support that migrations during the Early Bronze Age is a probable scenario for the spread of Indo-European languages, in line with reconstructions based on some archaeological and historical linguistic data... Importantly, however, although our results support a correspondence between cultural changes, migrations, and linguistic patterns, we caution that such relationships cannot always be expected but must be demonstrated case by case.

The Proto-Indo-European homeland, with migrations outward at about 4200 BCE (1), 3300 BCE (2), and 3000 BCE (3a and 3b). A tree diagram (inset) shows the pre-Germanic split as unresolved. From David W. Anthony and Don Ringe. The Indo-European Homeland from Linguistic and Archaeological Perspectives. Annu. Rev. Linguist. 2015. 1:199–219.

Today’s page of Talmud claims that peoples as diverse as the ancient Germans, Greeks, Macedonians and Persians originally came from a single shared ancestor: Japhet, third son of Noah. Studies from the modern disciplines as diverse as history, linguistics, genetics and anthropology have concluded that Europeans and Iranians shared a common origin in the steppes of Anatolia. Both origin stories remind us that whatever our national identities, we have much more in common with others than we could have ever imagined.

Yoma 8a ~ God's Name. Tattooed.

On a delightful sunny day in August 2012 I was enjoying a refreshing Coke with my family at a quiet coffee shop in Toledo, Spain, where we were on vacation. Near us was man enjoying his own refreshment, and I could not help notice the tattoo on his left arm.

And then I noticed the tattoo on his right arm. Eloheynu - “Our God.”

Unfortunately there was a language barrier that prevented us from having what would have been, I am sure, a most interesting little chat. I might even have shared with this nice man with a gentle smile the ruling from today’s page of Talmud:

יומא ח, א

הֲרֵי שֶׁהָיָה שֵׁם כָּתוּב עַל בְּשָׂרוֹ — הֲרֵי זֶה לֹא יִרְחַץ וְלֹא יָסוּךְ וְלֹא יַעֲמוֹד בִּמְקוֹם הַטִּנּוֹפֶת. נִזְדַּמְּנָה לוֹ טְבִילָה שֶׁל מִצְוָה — כּוֹרֵךְ עָלָיו גֶּמִי וְטוֹבֵל. רַבִּי יוֹסֵי אוֹמֵר: יוֹרֵד וְטוֹבֵל כְּדַרְכּוֹ, וּבִלְבַד שֶׁלֹּא יְשַׁפְשֵׁף

It was taught in a baraita: With regard to one who had a sacred name of God written on his flesh, he may neither bathe, nor smear oil on his flesh, nor stand in a place of filth. If an immersion by means of which he fulfills a mitzva happened to present itself to him, he wraps a reed over God’s name and then descends and immerses, allowing the water to penetrate so that there will be no interposition between him and the water. Rabbi Yossi says: Actually, he descends and immerses in his usual manner, and he need not wrap a reed over the name, provided that he does not rub the spot and erase the name.

Rabbi Yossi implies that the name of God was literally written on the skin, rather than tattooed. And this is how Rashi explains the Talmud:

לא ירחץ – שלא ימחקנו. ואזהרה למוחק את השם "ואבדתם את השם" וסמיך ליה "לא תעשון ן וגו'

He may not bathe - to prevent it from being erased…

This was codified by Maimonides in his Mishneh Torah:

רמב’ם משנה תורה הל׳ יסידי התורה 6:6

וְכֵן אִם הָיָה שֵׁם כָּתוּב עַל בְּשָׂרוֹ הֲרֵי זֶה לֹא יִרְחַץ וְלֹא יָסוּךְ וְלֹא יַעֲמֹד בִּמְקוֹם הַטִּנֹּפֶת. נִזְדַּמְּנָה לוֹ טְבִילָה שֶׁל מִצְוָה כּוֹרֵךְ עָלָיו גֶּמִי וְטוֹבֵל. וְאִם לֹא מָצָא גֶּמִי מְסַבֵּב בִּבְגָדָיו וְלֹא יְהַדֵּק כְּדֵי שֶׁלֹּא יָחֹץ. שֶׁלֹּא אָמְרוּ לִכְרֹךְ עָלָיו אֶלָּא מִפְּנֵי שֶׁאָסוּר לַעֲמֹד בִּפְנֵי הַשֵּׁם כְּשֶׁהוּא עָרֹם

…If one had a Name written upon his flesh, he shall not wash, anoint himself or remain in unclean places; if he must undergo a mandatory immersion, he shall cover it with a leaf or, when no leaf is to be found, with part of his garments, yet must he not fasten it lest it be obstructive to the immersion, because the only reason it was said to cover the tattoo is because it is forbidden to remain naked in the Presence of the God’s Name.

But it is also possible that the Talmud is referring to a more extreme form of writing on the skin: tattooing. On that sunny day in Spain I was surprised to find that God’s Hebrew name was something people would tattoo on themselves. But I should not have been. As today’s page of Talmud makes clear, people have been writing God’s name on themselves for a long time. And so here, for your viewing delight are some other examples of this phenomenon.

Let’s start with one that is not the name of God, but a common word associated with good luck. It is the Hebrew word חי chai, meaning life.

From here

Ok, the next one doesn’t count. It is a poor transliteration of the four letter name of God י–ה–ו–ה written in English as “Yahweh.”

From here.

But this one is unmistakably God’s ineffable name. Or it will be once the thing is finished and someone colors in the letters.

From here.

Not sure what is going on here. This Hebrew tattoo means “But God [Elohim].” But God what?

From here.

Here is another one using the word Elohim. (This image was rotated 90 degrees to enable you to read the words easily.)

It is a quote from Psalms 46:11 הַרְפּ֣וּ וּ֭דְעוּ כִּי־אָנֹכִ֣י אֱלֹהִ֑ים אָר֥וּם בַּ֝גּוֹיִ֗ם אָר֥וּם בָּאָֽרֶץ׃ “Desist! Realize that I am God! I dominate the nations; I dominate the earth.”

From here.

Same verse. Only smaller. And this one has the advantage that when immersing in a Mikveh [ritual bath], it may easily be covered with a sock.

From here.

Next, “God is King.” Possibly the winner in the category “Largest Hebrew Name-of God Tattoo.”

From here.

Another example of the four letter name of God tattooed. Twice. And another winner, this time in the category of “I forgot my prayer book - what are the words?” It is Psalm 23. All of it.

From here.

The Jewish Prohibition against Tattooing

Jews are forbidden to get a tattoo. The origin of this prohibition is found in the Torah (Lev. 19:28)

וְשֶׂ֣רֶט לָנֶ֗פֶשׁ לֹ֤א תִתְּנוּ֙ בִּבְשַׂרְכֶ֔ם וּכְתֹ֣בֶת קַֽעֲקַ֔ע לֹ֥א תִתְּנ֖וּ בָּכֶ֑ם אֲנִ֖י יְהוָֽה׃

You shall not make gashes in your flesh for the dead, or incise any marks on yourselves: I am the Lord.

Maimonides is clear:

משנה תורה, מצוות לא תעשה מ״א

שלא לכתוב בגוף כעובדי עבודה זרה, שנאמר "וכתובת קעקע, לא תיתנו בכם" (ויקרא יט,כח)

Mishneh Torah, Negative Mitzvot 41

Not to tattoo the body, like the idolaters, as it is said, “…. nor shall ye print any marks upon you” (Lev. 19:28).

And here is the Sefer HaChinuch, an important anonymous work written in Spain sometime in the 13th-century. It details the 613 commandments and explains the reasons behind them.

Sefer HaChinukh 253:1

That we not imprint an imprinted tattoo into our flesh:

To not imprint an imprinted tattoo into our flesh, as it is stated (Leviticus 19:28), "and an imprinted tattoo you shall not put into your flesh." And the content is like that which the Yishmaelites do today, as they imprint an imprint that is inscribed and stuck into their flesh, such that it is never erased. And the liability is only with an imprint that is inscribed and impressed with ink or blue dye or with other colors that make an impression. And so did they say in Makkot 21a, "[If] he tattooed, but did not imprint" - meaning to say, he did not make an impression with color - "[if] he imprinted, but did not tattoo" - meaning to say that he did make an impression [on] his flesh with a color, but he did not make a marking in his flesh - " he is not liable, until he imprints, and tattoos with ink, or with blue dye or with anything that makes an impression."

Still, the Torah ruling is specific: “You shall not make gashes in your flesh for the dead.” But what if the gashes are not made “for the dead”? As a 2008 article from the New York Times made clear, many contemporary Jews grapple with the prohibition.

Andy Abrams, a filmmaker, has spent five years making a documentary called “Tattoo Jew.” In his interviews with dozens of Jews with body art, he’s noticed the prevalence of Jewish-themed tattoos from Stars of David to elaborate Holocaust memorials, surprising since one reason Jewish culture opposes tattoos is that Jews were involuntarily marked in concentration camps.

And that thing you’ve heard that a Jew with a tattoo cannot be buried in a Jewish cemetery? Nonsense. An urban legend. As The New York Times noted:

But the edict [against a Jew with a tattoo being buried in a Jewish cemetery] isn’t true. The eight rabbinical scholars interviewed for this article, from institutions like the Jewish Theological Seminary and Yeshiva University, said it’s an urban legend, most likely started because a specific cemetery had a policy against tattoos. Jewish parents and grandparents picked up on it and over time, their distaste for tattoos was presented as scriptural doctrine.

What is remarkable is today’s page of Talmud in which there is no comment made about how a Jewish person could ever be in the position of having to cover a tattoo. It just took it for granted that such a case could occur. Perhaps the person transgressed the prohibition, and now want to bathe in the cleansing waters of the ritual mikveh.

“It’s difficult to know exactly how many young Jews are being tattooed, because no organization tracks these numbers. But a pro-tattoo community is emerging online. Christopher Stedman, a 23-year-old student in Rohnert Park, Calif., started a MySpace group called “Jews with Tattoos” in 2004, after noticing more Jewish friends being tattooed. The group now has 839 members.”

— The New York Times, "For Some Jews, It Only Sounds Like ‘Taboo’." July 17, 2008.

Why Tattoo?

In his fascinating book Science Ink: Tattoos of the Science Obsessed, Carl Zimmer wrote that scientists get tattoos (and many of them do, judging from this book) “in order to mark themselves with an aspect of the world that has marked them deeply within. It is not simply the thing in the tattoo that matters…tattoos are a tribal marking: they display a membership with the universe itself.” And for those with the proclivity, what better way is there to remember the God who got the whole thing rolling than by tattooing of his name.

Two beautiful equations on the arms of Adam Simpson, who worked at the National Center for Computational Sciences. “I got the tattoos because it’s amazing to me how just a few characters can impact the world so much, and I want others to know that.” From Carl Zimmer, Science Ink; Tattoos of the Science Obsessed. New York. Sterling 2011. p28.

Yoma 4b ~ Colonic Purging

In the days before Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, the Cohen Gadol (High Priest) had to be sequestrated. The sages of the Talmud learn this requirement from Moses himself.

שקלים ד,א

מֹשֶׁה עָלָה בֶּעָנָן, וְנִתְכַּסָּה בֶּעָנָן, וְנִתְקַדֵּשׁ בֶּעָנָן, כְּדֵי לְקַבֵּל תּוֹרָה לְיִשְׂרָאֵל בִּקְדוּשָּׁה, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: ״וַיִּשְׁכּוֹן כְּבוֹד ה׳ עַל הַר סִינַי״

Moses ascended in the cloud, and was covered in the cloud, and was sanctified in the cloud, in order to receive the Torah for the Jewish people in sanctity, as it is stated: “And the glory of the Lord abode upon Mount Sinai and the cloud covered him six days, and He called to Moses on the seventh day from the midst of the cloud” (Exodus 24:16).

This verse was interpreted by Rabbi Yossi HaGelili as refering to a period of six days following the verbal giving of the Ten Commandments, during which time Moses prepared himself to receive the Tablets. He was covered by a cloud and sequestrated. It was in memory of that period that all future High Priests would sequestrate themselves in preparation for Yom Kippur.

While agreeing with this interpretation that Moses was sequestered, Rabbi Natan maintained that this verse is not the origin of the model that those who are to enter into the Holiest of Holies and speak with the Divine must be sequestrated. It was a unique requirement that Moses do so, in order that he undergo a rather awkward medical procedure that today is called colonic purging.

שקלים ד,ב

רַבִּי נָתָן אוֹמֵר: לֹא בָּא הַכָּתוּב אֶלָּא לְמָרֵק אֲכִילָה וּשְׁתִיָּה שֶׁבְּמֵעָיו, לְשׂוּמוֹ כְּמַלְאֲכֵי הַשָּׁרֵת

Rabbi Natan says: the verse comes only to purge the food and drink that was in his intestines, to render him like the ministering angels [who require neither food nor drink].

So today let’s talk about colonic purging.

A Brief history of the “Dangerous” colon

The idea that our bowels are full of dangerous matter that must be evacuated by means other than the body’s own natural rhythm have been around for a long time. The Egyptians believed that a noxious agent associated with feces was the cause of all disease, and purgatives were prescribed to rid the body of them. The ancient Greek Cnidian School of Medicine owed much to the Egyptians, and taught that disease was caused by food residues that were not properly digested. According to Euryphon who was among those who founded that medical school, “when the belly does not discharge the nutrient that has been taken, residues are produced, which then rise to the regions about the head and cause disease.” In their 1989 paper on the history of the concept of intestinal autointoxiation, the authors note that the second century Greek physician Galen extended the concept of putrefaction to involve not only the residues of food, but also those of bile, phlegm, and blood, incorporating them into their humoral theory of disease.

Among the modern contributors to the idea that a normally functioning colon needs our help was a Ukrainian Jewish immunologist named Élie Metchnikoff (1845-1916.) In 1908 Metchikoff won the Nobel Prize in Medicine for his work on innate immunity, and the discovery that some white blood cells could ingest and destroy harmful pathogens. Along with this, Metchikoff believed that the colon was the source of many of our microbial misfortunes. Here, read it for yourself in his 1906 work The Nature of Man: Studies in Optimistic Philosophy.

From here.

But the Nobel Prize winner was not correct. The presence of the large intestine in the human body is not the cause of a series of misfortunes, any more than the presence of the lungs causes pneumonia or the presence of the brain causes strokes.

“Metchnikoff could be considered an outsider throughout his life, due to his Jewish-Russian origins, his nonmedical training and also in his championing of phagocytosis rather than anti-sera as a primary agent of immunity. He had a prodigious memory and command of scientific literature, but could be paternalistic, sharing in several prejudices of his time. He had a volatile temperament and seemed to enjoy entering into polemics to defend his theories in the face of reasonable and unreasonable objections...”

— Siamon Gordon. Elie Metchnikoff, the Man and the Myth. J Innate Immun 2016;8:223–227

What it colonic purging and how is it done?

Colonic purging is the idea that the bowels in general, and the large bowel - the colon - in particular contain toxins and particulate matter that should be artificially evacuated. Doing so, it is claimed, improves overall health. Here for example is how The International Register of Integrative Colon Hydrotherapists and Trainers (RICTAT, “Setting the standards in colonic hydrotherapy”) explains the purpose of a “colonic:”

1. Cleanse the Colon – Toxic material is broken down so it can no longer harm your body or inhibit assimilation and elimination.Debris that has built up over a long period is gently removed in the process of a series of treatments. Once impacted material is removed, your colon can begin to co-operate as it was intended to. In this very real sense, a colonic is a rejuvenation treatment.

2. It Exercises the Colon Muscles – The build-up of toxic debris weakens the colon and impairs its functioning. The gentle filling and emptying of the colon improves peristaltic (muscular contraction) activity by which the colon naturally moves material.

3. It Reshapes the Colon – When problem conditions exist in the colon, they tend to alter its shape which in turn causes more problems. The gentle action of the water, coupled with the massage techniques of the colon therapist helps to eliminate bulging pockets of waste and narrowed, spastic constrictions finally enabling the colon to resume its natural state.

4. It Stimulates Reflex Points – Every system and organ of the body is connected to the colon by reflex points, colonics stimulates these points, thereby affecting the corresponding body parts in a beneficial way.

Wow. Got all that? So a colonic (in this instance a water colonic) gets rid of toxins and debris, exercises the colon, reshapes the colon (whatever that means) and stimulates “reflex points.” In doing so it improves the health of all the various “corresponding body parts.” Lucky Moses!

Should you wish, you can achieve all the above with what RICTAT calls “a ‘Colonic’, ‘Colonic Lavage’, ‘Colonic Irrigation’ or ‘High Colonic’.” The organization claims that “colonic hydrotherapy is [a] safe, effective method for cleansing the colon of waste material by repeated, gentle flushing with water.”

There are a few ways of achieving this “cleansing.” You can, if you are so inclined, have a water enema: “After the gentle insertion of a small tube into the rectum, you are completely covered. Disposable tubing carries clean water in and waste out in a gravity pressured system. The mess and odour sometimes present during an enema simply do not exist with a colonic.” Good to know. Alternatively you can use herbs, laxatives and “dietary supplements” to get all the bad stuff out of your dangerous and nasty colon. Here are some of the more common oral cleansing preparation ingredients together with their proposed mechanisms of action

From Acosta and Cash. Clinical Effects of Colonic Cleansing for General Health Promotion: A Systematic Review Am J Gastroenterol 2009; 104:2830–2836.

Do colonics work?

In their helpful 2009 review of the messy business (sorry) of colonics, two gastroenterologists from the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland reviewed all the relevant medical articles they could find relevant articles about colonic cleansing that were published between January 1966 and January 2009. They found almost three hundred articles of potential interest, but only seventeen that met their inclusion criteria which were (i) randomization, (ii) concealed allocation, (iii) double blinding, (iv) complete follow-up of patients, and (v) data reporting in an intention-to-treat analysis. Of these seventeen finalists only two were clinical trials. The others were case reports, case series, and review articles. And none were judged to be of high methodological quality. They were unable to identify

…any published articles describing the effects of colonic hydrotherapy or enema therapy on the promotion of general health or well-being in humans. We were also unable to identify any published reports of the effects of orally administered colonic cleansing therapies for the same outcome. We did identify one study evaluating the effects of colonic cleansing on colonic transit time in patients with chronic constipation. No publications that evaluated the effects of colonic cleansing for any of the conditions previously cited such as hypertension, asthma, irritable bowel syndrome, ulcerative colitis, arthritis, alcoholism, or sinus congestion were identified.

Not one. In over forty years, not one paper in the literature! What a shanda. There was, however, one trial that evaluated the addition of colonic hydrotherapy to accepted medical therapy for the treatment of heroin addiction.

The investigators randomized 75 heroin addicts into two groups: one group was treated with combined dihydroetorphine and methadone therapy, whereas the other group received dihydroetorphine and methadone, as well as colon dialysis (hydrotherapy) with Chinese herbal medicine on days 3–8 of treatment. According to the authors, patients who received hydrotherapy had faster resolution of opiate withdrawal symptoms and achieved a higher rate of abstinence than did the group that did not undergo hydrotherapy. But the methodology of this study is unclear as only the abstract is published in English, and the authors based their conclusions regarding the benefit of hydrotherapy on the rate of cutaneous pigmentation changes, a questionable end point for the stated objectives of this trial.

The Dangers of colonic Cleansing

Are there any dangerous to colonic cleansing? You bet. Here are a few of the choice examples, from the same paper.

• There have been reports of deaths associated with electrolyte imbalances due to coffee enemas, and there are multiple reports of coffee enema-associated septicemia and colitis.

• The risk of rectal perforation from colonic irrigation and enema therapy was documented in several reports. One of these reports consisted of three cases of perforation of the rectum from colonic irrigation administered by alternative medicine practitioners in Australia. Each patient in this case series had undergone colonic irrigation to “cleanse” or “clear out stale feces.” None of the patients had primary colonic or rectal pathology. None of the three patients were warned about the complication of perforation. Importantly, one patient initially denied the use of colonic irrigation, even with direct inquiry, presumably because of embarrassment. Another report involved a perforation suffered after a man administered a retrograde enema with a garden hose directly attached to the water source. The patient who suffered a perforation with the garden hose-administered enema suffered from chronic constipation symptoms, although the methods used also raise questions regarding the psychological status of that individual. All of these cases of perforation required surgical intervention.

• In one of the most striking examples of the risks of colonic hydrotherapy, at least 36 cases of amebiasis occurred in individuals who had undergone colonic-irrigation therapy at a chiropractic clinic in Western Colorado from June 1978 through December 1980. In all, 10 of these patients required colectomy and 6 died.

Another peer reviewed paper by by three physicians from the Georgetown University School of Medicine in Washington, DC noted that there have been reported cases of and pelvic abscesses after colonic hydrotherapy, as well as “fatal aeroportia (gas accumulation in the mesenteric veins) with air emboli, rectal perforations, perineal gangrene, acute water intoxication, coffee enema-associated colitis and septicemia.”

“Available scientific evidence does not support the claims on which colon therapy is based. It is known that most digestive processes take place in the small intestine, where nutrients are absorbed into the body. What remains enters the large intestine, where it passes to the rectum for elimination after water and minerals are extracted. Available scientific evidence does not support the premise that toxins accumulate on intestinal walls or that toxicity results from poor elimination of waste from the colon.”

— American Cancer Society

The Torah was not given to angels- nor was the colon

Today we are just finally beginning to understand the importance of leaving the bowel alone, and not upsetting its fragile ecosystem with unnecessary antibiotics or silly colonic enemas. At the same time there is an appreciation that perhaps the gut plays a role in our health to a far greater degree than we once realized. (The ancient Egyptians would have been proud). In a 2019 review, researchers pointed out that the gut microbiome influences all sorts of things, including the central nervous system.

There is much to learn and the field is young, but even at this stage it is clear that the many bacteria, viruses, and fungi in the healthy gut live there in a careful balance. The less we upset that balance, the better. In several places in the Talmud, the rabbis reminded us that “The Torah was not given to angels” (לא ניתנה תורה למלאכי השרת). It might be a good time to remember that the colon was not given to angels either. Unlike angels, we need our colons intact and un-purged. Indeed, our lives depend on it.

From Mishori, R. The dangers of colon cleansing. The Journal of Family Practice. 2011: 60 (8):454-457.

Shekalim 14 ~ Love of The Other, The Drowned Duke, and Two People named Pinchas

On this page of Talmud we read about the miraculous recovery of a young lady who had drowned. It all begins with “a certain pious man who would dig pits, wells, and caves to collect water for passersby. Once his daughter was passing over a river for the purpose of marriage, and the river washed her away. And all the people came to console him, but he refused to accept their condolences.” The story continues:

שקלים יד, א

עָאַל רִבִּי פִינְחָס בֶּן יָאִיר לְגַבֵּיהּ בָּעֵי מְנַחַמְתֵּיהּ וְלָא קִבֵּל עֲלוֹי מִתְנַחֲמָה. אֲמַר לוֹן. דֵּין הִינּוֹ חָסִידֵיכוֹן. אָֽמְרִין לֵיהּ. רִבִּי. כָּךְ וְכָךְ הָיָה עוֹשֶׂה וְכָךְ וְכָךְ אִירַע

אָמַר. אֵיפְשַׁר שֶׁהָיָה מְכַבֵּד אֶת בּוֹרְאוֹ בַמַּיִם וְהוּא מְקַפְּחוֹ בַמַּיִם. מִיַּד נָֽפְלָה הֲבָרָה בָעִיר. בָּאָת בִּתּוֹ שֶׁלְאוֹתוֹ הָאִישׁ. אִית דְּאָֽמְרִין. בְּשׁוּכְתָּא אִיתְעֲרִײַת. וְאִית דְּאָֽמְרִין. מַלְאַךְ יָרַד כִּדְמוּת רִבִּי פִינְחָס בֶּן יָאִיר וְהִצִּילָהּ

Rabbi Pinchas ben Yair came to visit him to console him, but he refused to accept condolences even from Rabbi Pinchas. Rabbi Pinchas said to the people of that community: Is this your righteous man, who will not be consoled and accept God’s judgment? They said to him: Rabbi, he would perform such and such acts of righteousness, by supplying water, and yet such and such tragedy, the drowning of his daughter, occurred to him.

Rabbi Pinchas said: Is it possible that he honors his Creator with water, and yet his Creator strikes him with water? Immediately thereafter, a report spread throughout the city: The daughter of that righteous man has arrived, as she did not actually drown. Some say she grasped a branch and pulled herself out of the river, and some say an angel in the form of Rabbi Pinchas ben Yair descended from heaven and rescued her.

It is a sad story with a happy ending. God could never let the daughter of a righteous person die. That was inconceivable. And certainly not by drowning, since her father was charitable with water. Let’s put aside for now the questions this passage raises about theodicy. Instead, let’s turn to another drowning event that occurred fifteen-hundred years later. It too involves the drowning death of innocent person, and by a remarkable coincidence, also involved a person named Pinchas.

Pinchas Hurewitz and his Sefer HaBerit

In 1797 a new Hebrew encyclopedia was published anonymously in Brno, which is now in the Czech Republic. It was called Sefer Haberit (The Book of the Covenant). It has a simple structure and is divided in two parts.  The first part, consisting of some two hundred and fifty pages, is a scientific encyclopedia, addressing what the author calls human wisdom (chochmat adam) and focuses on the material world. It deals with topics like geography, astronomy, biology and medicine. The second part, shorter than the first at only one hundred and thirty pages, is an analysis of divine wisdom (hochmat elohim), and focuses on the spiritual.  This part was written to explain a kabbalistic work called שערי קדושה (The Gates of Holiness) a mystical book written by the famous kabbalist Chaim Vital, who was himself a student of the even more famous Isaac Luria, known as the Ari.  

As we mentioned, the book was published anonymously, but in later editions the author revealed his name, though not much else. It was Pinchas Hurwitz, about whom few details are known. He appears to have been born in Vilna, Poland in 1765, and received a traditional Jewish education, but was forced to leave his studies at an early age as a result of both the dire economic situation and the physical threats then facing Polish Jewry.  He probably arrived in Frankfurt before his twentieth birthday and while there he met a number of maskilim and picked up a working knowledge of German. He then moved to Holland, where he must have endeared himself to many rabbinic leaders, before crossing to England, where again he met the leading Jewish religious intellectuals of the day. The most prominent of these was Eliakim Gottchalk Hart, an important Jewish intellectual and a wealthy jeweler, who provided financial support for Hurwitz during his time in England. Despite what appears to have been a comfortable time both physically and intellectually in London, for reasons that are not known Hurwitz returned to Poland, all the time working on his magnum opus.  In 1797 he finally published Sefer Haberit anonymously, and spent many years peddling his work from town to town.  It had taken a decade of travel and research, but Hurwitz understood the need of the hour and produced a work that was, and would remain, in great demand.

The Popularity of Sefer Haberit

In 1934, while studying at the famous yeshiva of the  Chofetz Chaim in Radon, Poland, a yeshiva bochur whose name is only known to us as Henech entered a competition in which he wrote an essay about his life. Here is part of what this twenty one year old student had to say:

I obtained a copy of the Book of the Covenant [Sefer Haberit]…and virtually committed it to memory, reading it in the bathroom for fear of being caught and confronted with a whole new series of accusations.  The Book of the Covenant gave me a sound foundation in anatomy, physics, geography and the like.  I had a weakness, however, for showing off my scientific learning to my friends (without telling them about its source). This led to my becoming known as a person of wide-ranging knowledge, and I was sought after by those who were drawn to the Haskalah.

Here then is testimony about the popularity Sefer Haberit as a work of science in pre-war Poland, over one hundred and thirty years after it was first published.  This book is still readily available modern Jerusalem. I bought my own modern edition of Sefer Haberit in a small bookshop in Meah Shearim in Jerusalem.  I had asked the owner if he might perhaps have a copy of the work.  Without moving from his position behind the counter he reached behind his shoulder and handed me a copy that had been published in Jerusalem in 1990. I not only appreciated the clear type and crisp pages of this modern edition, but was struck by the ease with which it had been obtained. 

In fact since it first appeared in 1797 Sefer Haberit has been published in over thirty editions. It was published in 1797, 1801 (twice, as bootlegged printings), 1807, and thirteen more times before the end of that century. It was published in 1900, 1904, 1911, 1913 (by three different publishers), 1920, 1960 and 1990. In addition it was published in Yiddish in 1898, 1929 and 1969, and in Ladino in 1847. This remarkable print run would be the envy of any modern author.

Isaac Bashevis Singer recalled that not only did he read Sefer Haberit as a child, but that his mother also was an avid reader of the work.

There were a number of holy books in my father’s bookcase in which I soulght answers to my questions.  One was The Book of the Covenant [Sefer Haberis] which I believe was already at that time a hundred years old and full of scientific facts.  It described the theories of Copernicus and Newton, and, it seems, the experiments of Benjamin Franklin as well.  There were accounts of savage tribes, strange animals, and explanations of what made a train run and a balloon fly.  In the special section dealing with religion were mentioned a number of philosophers. I recall that Kant already figured in there too.  The author, Reb Elijah of Vilna, a pious Jew, proved how inadequate the philosophers were in explaining the mystery of the world.  No research or inquiry, he wrote, could reveal the truth.  The author of The Book of the Covenant  spoke of nature too, but with the constant reminder that nature was something God had created, not a thing that existed of its own power.  I never tired of reading this book.

Sefer Haberit and LOve of the Other

Perhaps the most important section of this entire book is a long chapter – some 50 pages in all - called אהבת רעים – Ahavat Reim - The Love of Others.   In this section, Horowitz set out to re-teach a command that is, in his words עיקר דרך הקדוש ושורש כל התורה הקדושה - the entire point of attaining holiness and the foundation of the entire holy Torah.  In fact this section follows another called דרך הקדוש- The Way of Holiness, and was seen as the key to attaining religious heights that Horowitz had previously described. In this chapter he described a number of ways in which love of the other impacts our daily lives: in loving our families and in respecting the government, in being a model citizen and not cheating on our taxes, in treating our workers with the appreciation they deserve and by condemning domestic abuse, whether physical or verbal. 

The nature of loving others is for a person to love every kind of person, irrespective of their nationality or  language, but simply because the person is a human, formed in the image of God, and is someone involved in the development of humanity.  This involvement can be as a builder or farmer or businessman or merchant or or other kinds of job, like one who is an intellectual and investigate the world…for through these paths the world exists as it should, and is completed as God created it to be done, and as he made the Earth as “he saw that it was very good” for all of humanity…

 The Drowning Death of Prince Leopold

As any good teacher knows, stories have a far greater teaching impact than bland statements or impersonal statistics. So Horowtiz now gave an example of the importance of brotherly love. It was in fact the outstanding story of love of the other of his time, and it concerned the drowning death of Prince Leopold that had occurred in 1785. Here it is. Read it slowly. There is a lot to appreciate.

The question is whether we are naturally inclined to help others.  In answer to this, if we consider the nature of a person we will find that it is naturally inclined and desires to do good in the eyes of others, and tries to influence others to do so too; to have compassion on the poor, to rescue the oppressed, to release those who are imprisoned, to bandage the wounded , to heal the sick, to save those who are dying, share his knowledge with others, to teach students and instruct people in the correct way to behave and so on…

Experience has already demonstrated that on many occasions, even royalty and nobility have put themselves into mortal danger, battling fire and water in order to save others…as happened in Frankfurt on the Eder on the 17th of Iyyar 5545 (1785).

At that time the river bust its banks and swept away a number of villages and the houses in them.  In one village there were a number of wooden branches and window frames that were floating here and there, and a number of bodies of those who had drowned. Floating there was a tree trunk and on it was a person shouting to those on the shore to save him, but it was not possible to do so because of the strong current. 

When the nobleman Duke Leopold, Commandant of the city, noted this he immediately commanded any one who could do so to sail over to save the person. No one was able to reach the person, and they told the Duke it was not possible to reach him because of the strength of the current and the size of the waves.

And when the Duke heard this, he took it upon himself “I will sail over.” He put his life in his hands, and went over to save the life of that person. He had not reached half way across the river when his boat capsized and was swept away by the huge waves.  The righteous Duke was lost and could not be saved.  So we see that there is a natural inclination to help others.

The death of Prince Leopold gripped the imagination of Horowitz. It was the sine qua non of the love that one human being could and indeed should have for another.  Its importance was not only noticed by this Jewish author from Vilna. The great German poet Goethe wrote a poem about the incident:

Thou wert forcibly seized by the hoary lord of the river

Holding thee, even he shares with thee his streaming domain

Calmly sleepest thou near his urn as it silently trickles

Till thou to action art aroused, waked by the swift-rolling flood

Kindly to be to the people, as when thou still were a mortal

Perfecting that as a god, which thou didst fail in, as a man

And in the British Museum is this wonderful print called La Mort du Prince Leopold de Brunswick.

Remember we are talking about eighteenth century Europe, which was not exactly a paradise for the peasants.  The constitutional monarchy that had ruled France for three centuries had not yet just been challenged by the French Revolution, and the American War of Independence had ended barely two years earlier.   And yet here was a nobleman who, without hesitation, gave his life to save an unknown commoners. It was this example that led Horowitz to conclude that not only was Love of the Other a commandment from the Torah; it was also a חוב מצד הטבע, a natural law.

Horowitz not only learned from the action of this righteous Gentile.  He extended Love of the Other to include non-Jews in a radical re-interpretation of the word רעיך -the other.   Normally translated as your fellow, Horowitz took it to mean that all contemporary Gentiles were included in this description.  He ruled that Gentiles were not idol worshippers, and also reinterpreted the verse that we read from the book of Jeremiah towards the end of the Passover Seder: :  שפוך חמתך על הגוים אשר לא ידעוך -“Pour out your wrath on the nations who do not know you.”  On whom should God pour out his anger? Only on those “אשר לא ידעוך” - who do not know Him. 

Yes, all are created equal. or not

Having established this inclusivity, Horowitz wrote about the way in which we should behave:

     על כן איש מחוייב להתנהג עם כל אדם וכל משפחות האדמה בטוב וביושר ובאחוה 

And so every person is obligated to act towards every person and every group on earth with goodness, with honesty, and with friendship

Note this language-we are required – מחוייב – to extend our love to all of humanity, irrespective of their race or ethnicity. To see how different this approach is, let’s compare it to a Jewish text that was recently published in the USA, where the Declaration of Independence states as a self evident truth that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”  The contemporary Jewish book I am referring to is volume two of the Rennert edition of The Encyclopedia of Taryag Mitzvoth. This Encyclopedia has excluded anyone who is not Jewish from love of the other.

In doing so, the Rennert Encyclopedia was following one school of halakhic thought in which the phrase “your fellow” is interpreted as “your fellow - in observing the commandments.” But there are lots of Jewish texts available to explain the details of the biblical command to love the other. Why not choose one with a maximalist reading? Surely we would want that from other religious traditions? If so, we must demand it from our own.

We began with a story from the Talmud in which Rabbi Pinchas believed it was inconceivable that God could act in a way that was cruel or unjust. Today we know that cruelty and injustice are part and parcel of our fractured society. Racial and ethnic bias and discrimination are still all too common in a country in which all are supposed to have been created equal. We need more thinkers like the other Pinchas, Pinchas Hurwitz who read the command to love the other in a maximalist way. What better way to memorialize the death of Prince Leopold is there than follow this dictum:

     על כן איש מחוייב להתנהג עם כל אדם וכל משפחות האדמה בטוב וביושר ובאחוה 

And so every person is obligated to act towards every person and every group on earth with goodness, with honesty, and with friendship