Tu B'Shavt ~ A New Year for Health

The opening Mishnah of Masechet Rosh Hashanah includes this:

ראש השנה ב ,א

באחד בשבט ראש השנה לאילן כדברי בית שמאי בית הלל אומרים בחמשה עשר בו

On the first of Shevat is the New Year for the tree; [the fruit of a tree that was formed prior to that date belong to the previous tithe year and cannot be tithed together with fruit that was formed after that date;] this ruling is in accordance with the statement of Beit Shammai. But Beit Hillel say: The New Year for trees is on the fifteenth of Shevat.

 Declaring different kinds of New Years goes back to the Talmud. But this practice was updated in a remarkable way by a Russian Jewish immigrant to the US in the early twentieth century. Tonight, we mark the fifteenth of Shvat, the date that, according to Bet Hillel, is the new year for the tithing of trees, and we will tell his remarkable - and overlooked - story, of it has everything to do with Tu B’Shvat.

“Twice a year on the fifteenth day of Shevat and on the eighteenth day of Iyar all the Jewish children from 3 to 13 years of age should undergo a thorough physical examination by the local Jewish physicians free of charge. ”

— Charles Spivak

Charles Spivak and the fight against tuberculosis

Hayyim Haykhl Spivakovski (1861-1927) immigrated to the US from Russia, where he became Charles Spivak. He graduated from Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia in 1890 (and his thesis, on talmudic theories of menstruation won a prize), and after his wife contracted tuberculosis in 1896 he moved with her to Denver. There she could take advantage of the high altitude which had been shown to help fight the disease. This began his life-long mission to fight the tuberculosis and improve the care of the many Jewish refugees from eastern Europe who contracted it. 

From here.

Spivak founded the Jewish Consumptives’ Relief Society (JCRS), which provided kosher food and a Sabbath atmosphere, but was open to anyone. “We have in our institution chasidim and agnostics,” he wrote in 1914, “Jews and Christians, republicans and progressives, socialists and anarchists, men of all kinds of religious, political and economic options.” Spivak’s personal philosophy was informed by “a unique blend of Yiddishkeit [Jewish values], secularism and socialism” and his approach to the distribution of funds was sometimes at odds with bureaucratic and impersonal ways that some Jewish charities functioned. “We may not be able to return him [the patient] to his family as a useful working unit,” he reminded his benefactors, “we may actually waste money without any hope for any return, nevertheless, we feel that he or she must receive our care and attention, that whole-souled and whole-hearted charity is, after all, the only true, pure and unalloyed charity.” He estimated that of among the 3.3 million Jews then living in the US about 4,600 died each year from the disease, and ten times that number were chronically infected, or as he put it, were “living tuberculous Jews.” It was therefore the duty of the Jewish community to support the fight for to prevent the spread of tuberculosis and search for a cure. 

Dr. Chales Spivak. From here.

In that opening Mishnah of Rosh Hashanah, we read that are several different dates that mark the beginning of different new years. The first day of the Spring month of Nissan is the new year for kings, which is used to date legal documents. The new year for trees is marked in the late winter month Shevat, which is used to count tithes, and first day of the late summer month of Tishrei is used to count the number of years since creation. In December 1918, Spivak updated this list and gave it a thoroughly modern twist. Writing in the Journal Jewish Charities, he suggested that the rhythm of the Jewish calendar could be used to improve public health and reduce the toll from tuberculosis.

Twice a year on the fifteenth day of Shvat (New Years for Trees) and on the eighteenth day of Iyar (Lag B'Omar) all the Jewish children from 3 to 13 years of age should undergo a thorough physical examination by the local Jewish physicians free of charge.  

In the evening of the respective days all organized societies in the community should hold Health meetings at which the subject of how to maintain good health and prevent disease should be discussed by health officers and physicians.

 A custom should also be inaugurated that all adults should visit their family physicians during the months of Tishre and Nisson [sic] for the purpose of undergoing a physical examination.

 Spivak’s suggestion was of course dependent on a working knowledge of the Jewish calendar, but the dates he suggested would help. The fifteenth of Shevat was often celebrated in schools, and Lag B’Omer, the thirty-third day of the period leading up to the festival of Shavuot was celebrated as a minor holiday; it marked the end of the pandemic deaths of the students of the talmudic giant Rabbi Akiva. Most Jewish adults, even those who had jettisoned traditional Jewish practice when they arrived in America, would be aware of the timing of the other two months.  The festival of Pesach (Passover) is celebrated in Nissan, and Rosh Hashanah, the start of the Jewish New Year that leads into Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement) is commemorated in Tishrei.

Helping others, even after his death

Spivak, a member of the Denver Hebrew Speaking Society, developed liver cancer and died in 1927 at the age of 68. His generous spirit is evident in his last will and testament, where he asked that

…my body be embalmed and shipped to the nearest medical college for an equal number of non-Jewish and Jewish students to carefully dissect. After my body has been dissected, the bones should be articulated by an expert and the skeleton shipped to the University of Jerusalem, with the request that the same be used for demonstration purposes in the department of anatomy.

Apparently his request was fulfilled, and somewhere on the campus of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem is his skeleton.

Denver’s National Jewish Hospital

Spivak was not the only Jew who helped Denver’s many “consumptives.” He had traveled to Denver because of its high altitude, and in there in the 1880s a woman by the name of Frances Wisebart Jacobs raised funds to open a new hospital to treat the many “consumptives” who had traveled to the mile high city. She found support from the Jewish community, which agreed to plan, fund and build a nonsectarian hospital for the treatment of respiratory diseases, primarily tuberculosis. That hospital opened in 1899 as The National Jewish Hospital for Consumptives, and after several name changes it is now known as National Jewish Health. Today, it remains a major center for the care of patients with lung and respiratory illnesses.

““…[Pain] knows no creed, so is this building the prototype of the grand idea of Judaism, which casts aside no stranger no matter of what race or blood. We consecrate this structure to humanity, to our suffering fellowman, regardless of creed.” ”

— Rabbi William Friedman at the laying of the cornerstone of the new hospital. From Tom Sherlock. Colorado's Healthcare Heritage: A Chronology of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Healthcare, volume 1, p374.

While the Talmud declared four kinds of new year, Spivak declared a fifth. His new year for health was to be commemorated together with Tu B’Shavt, the new year for trees. In this way, he tied it to the Jewish calendar, and his memory is a reminder of the importance of getting a routine physical exam from your doctor. It might save your life.

Bava Kamma 82a ~ Is Garlic Good for You?

     בבא קמא פב, א

...עשרה תקנות תיקן עזרא...אוכלין שום בערב שבת... משום עונה דכתיב אשר פריו יתן בעתו וא"ר יהודה... זה המשמש מטתו מערב שבת  לערב שבת. ת"ר חמשה דברים נאמרו בשום משביע ומשחין ומצהיל פנים ומרבה הזרע והורג כנים שבבני מעיים וי"א מכניס אהבה ומוציא את הקנאה

Ezra made ten regulations...That they eat garlic on the eve of Shabbat, on account of the mitzvah to have sexual relations. As it is written [Psalms 1:3]: “He shall be like a tree…that yields its fruit in its proper time,” and Rav Yehuda taught….this verse refers to a person who has sexual intercourse on every eve of Shabbat. The rabbis taught that garlic has five qualities: It satiates and warms the body and brightens the face, it increases semen, and it kills parasites in the intestines. Others add that it instills love and so eliminates jealousy (Bava Kamma 82a)

Many, many years ago I watched a rabbi liberally rubbing garlic into matzah at his home as part of Friday night Shabbat dinner. I thought it was because he liked the taste.  I may have been wrong.

Today, the Talmud (Bava Kamma 82a) lists ten regulations enacted by Ezra when he led the return of the Jewish people from Babylonia to Israel. Some, like reading from the Torah on Mondays and Thursdays, you may have heard of. Others, never became quite so popular. Which brings us to enactment #5: to eat garlic on the eve of Shabbat. The Talmud explains why Ezra decreed (presumably to the men only) that garlic should be eaten on Friday night – because it increases male fertility and Friday night is the prescribed time to have intercourse.  So is the Talmud correct? Does garlic increase fertility? You’d be surprised…

The Medicinal Properties of Garlic

In a 2005 review article from Yeshiva University and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Ellen Tattleman noted that garlic has been used for medicinal purposes for thousands of years. Sanskrit records show that it has been in use as a medicine for at least 5,000 years, making the Chinese relative newcomers to the garlic industry, since they’ve only been using it for some 3,000 years. The Egyptians, Babylonians, Greeks, and Romans used garlic for healing purposes, and even the great Louis Pasteur noted garlic’s antibacterial activity, in 1858. In case you want to prepare this at home, it is the root bulb of the garlic plant (fresh, dehydrated, or as a steam-distilled oil) that you need to go for.  This bulb contains allicin which is formed when alliin, a sulfur-containing amino acid, comes into contact with the enzyme alliinase. This reaction happens whenever you chop, crush or chew raw garlic. The antimicrobial, lipid-lowering, antioxidant, and anti-clotting effects that have been attributed to garlic are thought to be related to this allicin and other breakdown products. We will return to these medicinal properties later, but for now let’s focus on the effect of garlic on male fertility; after all, that’s what today’s page of Talmud discusses.

Garlic and Sperm Production - in Mice

There is conflicting evidence about the role of garlic on sperm production.  Some studies have shown that it impairs the Leydig and Sertoli cells that are part of the machinery of sperm production – if you are a rat. Other studies have shown that garlic, or rather the allicin that garlic produces, can protect the testes against toxins -if you are a rat, being exposed to these testicular shriveling toxins. When it comes to the sperm themselves, again, the evidence is conflicting.  In mice, garlic has been shown both to increase and to decrease the production of sperm, and scientists have also noted conflicting results about the effect of garlic on testosterone levels.

In 2001 a group of Japanese researchers investigated the pharmacological activities of four garlic preparations, raw garlic juice, garlic powder, heated garlic juice and aged garlic extract, on testicular hypogonadism (hypospermatogenesis and impotence) induced by warm water treatment. The results showed that aged garlic extract at a 4 ml/kg  dose for a couple of weeks significantly enhanced spermatogenesis and improved impotence after warm water treatment of mice. In contrast, the other preparations were only slightly effective.  So perhaps infertile male mice should try garlic on Friday nights.

Overall, the effects of garlic on sperm production - on rodents -  are not clear.  A 2013 review in Andrologia of the impact of garlic on male fertility concludes with these remarks:

In traditional oriental medicine, garlic has been used to improve male sexual dysfunction and to recover testicular functions. But in the literature, there are very few studies about the potential effects of garlic on spermatogenesis (about ten studies), and their results are contradictory. These discrepancies could be related to three main factors (i) the type of preparations, (ii) the way of administration [sic] and (iii) the dose.

Garlic and the Quality of Human Sperm

So much for mice and rats; what about the effect of garlic on human sperm production? It turns out that you can buy a combination antioxidant widely touted to improve male fertility. It is called Menevit, and among other substances, each capsule apparently contains 333 micrograms of garlic oil.   But a 2009 study from Australia found that after three-months of therapy with Menevit® there was no significant change in sperm concentration, motility or morphology, although it did produce a significant reduction in sperm DNA fragmentation. Which is confusing because the same team reported that infertile men treated with Menevit® for the same period of time had an improvement in the levels of sperm global DNA methylation, though whether that is a marker of anything important is not clear.  If you are confused, so are the experts. Here is what one expert review concluded, in the excitingly titled Male Infertility: Contemporary Clinical Approaches:

The present body of evidence surrounding the treatment of male factor infertility with antioxidants is difficult to critically interpret because of less than ideal study design (not screening for oxidative stress at enrollment, sperm quality as a primary endpoint instead of pregnancy and a lack of concurrent placebo controls). Furthermore, the use of a large number of different types and dosages of antioxidant and the lack of adequately powered studies to analyse pregnancy outcomes precludes definitive conclusions being made… Firm conclusions relating to antioxidant therapies ability to improve sperm concentration, motility and morphology is presently impossible due to the abundance of contradictory results and inadequately controlled studies.

are there Other Benefits of Garlic?

So the evidence that garlic does anything useful to sperm production is, um, not great. But what about the other widely touted health benefits of garlic? For example, some claim that garlic lowers your lipids, and in a study published in the prestigious Journal of the American Medical Association, garlic appeared to be have a real, but modest effect on lowering cholesterol, when compared to placebo.  There is also a claim that garlic lowers your blood pressure. In a meta-analysis (which is an analysis of many trials lumped together) of 23 trials, only three showed a statistically significant reduction in diastolic blood pressure and one showed a statistically significant reduction in systolic blood pressure (approximately 3 percent) in patients treated with garlic compared with placebo. There are claims that garlic can prevent cancer, and slow the onset of atherosclerosis. Here is a summary from my colleagues at the National Center for Complementary in Integrative Medicine, part of the National Institutes of Health:

• Some evidence indicates that taking garlic can slightly lower blood cholesterol levels; studies have shown positive effects for short-term (1 to 3 months) use. However, an NCCIH-funded study on the safety and effectiveness of three garlic preparations (fresh garlic, dried powdered garlic tablets, and aged garlic extract tablets) for lowering blood cholesterol levels found no effect.

• Preliminary research suggests that taking garlic may slow the development of atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries), a condition that can lead to heart disease or stroke

• Evidence suggests that taking garlic may slightly lower blood pressure, particularly in people with high blood pressure. 

• Some studies suggest consuming garlic as a regular part of the diet may lower the risk of certain cancers. However, no clinical trials have examined this. A clinical trial on the long-term use of garlic supplements to prevent stomach cancer found no effect.

Antimicrobial properties (inhibition of growth or killing)of 30 spices. All spices inhibit some species of food-spoilage bacteria they have been tested on, and about half inhibit 75% of bacteria. From Billing J. and Sherman, P.W. Antimicrobial Functions of Spices: Why Some Like it Hot. The Quarterly Review of Biology, Mar., 1998, Vol. 73, No. 1 (Mar., 1998), pp. 3-49

And if you are tempted to take a garlic containing pill, because "why not, it can't do any harm" please bear in mind that although it appears to be safe for most adults:

• Side effects include breath and body odor, heartburn, upset stomach, and allergic reactions. These side effects are more common with raw garlic.

• Garlic can thin the blood (reduce the ability of blood to clot) in a manner similar to aspirin. This effect may be a problem during or after surgery. So use garlic with caution if you are planning to have surgery or dental work, or if you have a bleeding disorder.

• Garlic has been found to interfere with the effectiveness of  a drug used to treat HIV infection. Garlic may also interfere with other drugs, though this has not been well studied.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

In today's page of Talmud it was claimed that garlic does many different things: "It satiates and warms the body and brightens the face, it increases semen, and it kills parasites in the intestines, and it instills love and so eliminates jealousy." How strange then to note that today the supposed health effects of garlic are widely touted.  Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.  

Bava Kamma 81a ~ Open Defecation

On today’s page of Talmud we read about ten conditions which Joshua stipulated when he divided up the Land of Israel between the tribes. These include the right of all to pasture animals in a privately owned forest, the right of all to fish from the Kinneret (called then the “Tiberias”) using hooks, and the right to draw water from a new privately owned spring. But today we will discuss another of these conditions. The right to defecate in public.

בבא קמא פא, א

וְנִפְנִין לַאֲחוֹרֵי הַגָּדֵר, וַאֲפִילּוּ בְּשָׂדֶה מְלֵיאָה כַּרְכּוֹם

And people shall have the right to relieve themselves outdoors behind a fence, even in a field that is full of saffron [karkom].

The Talmud then outlines the details of this public right:

בבא קמא פא, ב

אָמַר רַב אַחָא בַּר יַעֲקֹב לֹא נִצְרְכָה אֶלָּא לִיטּוֹל הֵימֶנּוּ צְרוֹר. אָמַר רַב חִסְדָּא: וַאֲפִילּוּ בְּשַׁבָּת. מָר זוּטְרָא חֲסִידָא שָׁקֵיל וּמַהְדַּר, וַאֲמַר לֵיהּ לְשַׁמָּעֵיהּ (לִמְחַר): זִיל שִׁירְקֵיה

Rav Aḥa bar Ya’akov said: It goes without saying that one may relieve himself when necessary; this stipulation is necessary only to permit the one relieving himself to take a stone out of a wall in the field with which to clean himself. Rav Chisda said: And it is permitted to remove a stone from a wall for this purpose even on Shabbat. Mar Zutra the Pious would take a stone in this manner on Shabbat and replace it in the wall, and say to his attendant after Shabbat: Go and plaster it over, so that it would fit securely back in the wall.

So the right even extended to using the stones from another person’s wall to as toilet paper, though for extra credit it should be replaced and plastered over. Thankfully, in rich, modern, liberal western democracies, open defecation is not something most of us need to think about. But it remains a reality for much of the world's population, even here in the US.

Elsewhere in the Talmud, open defecation is discussed, well, openly:

ברכות סב, ב

וְכֵן אָמַר לֵיהּ רַבִּי זֵירָא לְשַׁמָּעֵיהּ: חֲזִי מַאן דְּאִיכָּא אֲחוֹרֵי בֵּית חֶבְרַיָּא, דְּבָעֵינָא לְמִפְנֵי

Rabbi Zeira told his servant: See who is behind the study hall, as I need to defecate…

אָמַר עוּלָּא: אֲחוֹרֵי הַגָּדֵר — נִפְנֶה מִיָּד. וּבַבִּקְעָה, כל זְמַן שֶׁמִּתְעַטֵּשׁ וְאֵין חֲבֵרוֹ שׁוֹמֵעַ. אִיסִי בַּר נָתָן מַתְנֵי הָכִי: אֲחוֹרֵי הַגָּדֵר,כל זְמַן שֶׁמִּתְעַטֵּשׁ וְאֵין חֲבֵרוֹ שׁוֹמֵעַ, וּבַבִּקְעָה — כל זְמַן שֶׁאֵין חֲבֵרוֹ רוֹאֵהוּ 

With regard to where one may or may not go to defecate, Ulla said: Behind a fence, one need not distance himself from people and may defecate immediately. In a valley or open field, one must distance himself sufficiently so that if he passes wind, no one will hear him. Isi bar Natan taught as follows: Behind a fence one must distance himself sufficiently so that if he passes wind another does not hear him, and in a valley, one must distance himself sufficiently so that no one can see him.

During Talmudic times nearly everyone defecated outside. So let’s discuss…open defecation.

Open Defecation - a Worldwide Problem

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

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

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

— National Geographic Magazine, August 2017

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

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

— National Geographic Magazine August 2017.

Bathrooms with locks - a Jewish gift to humanity

Here is a Mishnah that introduces a rather radical notion for the time: lockable latrine stalls:

משנה תמיד כו,א

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

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

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

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

More Advice on Hygiene

The Talmud has with more advice about what today we would call hygiene:

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

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

The Essenes and Hygiene

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

דברים 23:10

וְיָד֙ תִּהְיֶ֣ה לְךָ֔ מִח֖וּץ לַֽמַּחֲנֶ֑ה וְיָצָ֥אתָ שָׁ֖מָּה חֽוּץ׃ 

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

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

בְךָ֙ עֶרְוַ֣ת דָּבָ֔ר וְשָׁ֖ב מֵאַחֲרֶֽיךָ׃

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

How fortunate we are that we no-longer have to dig our own outside latrines, or hop behind a fence and use a stone for cleanliness. But much of the world is not as fortunate. The Gates Foundation has donated at least $200 million to fix the problem, and if you want to help, click here to donate to the World Toilet Organization. Tell them it’s in honor of Mar Zutra the Pious.

Bava Kamma 77b ~ Pig x Sheep

בבא קמא עז, ב – עח, א

ואמר רבא זה בנה אב כל מקום שנאמר שה אינו אלא להוציא את הכלאים ...אמר לך ר"א כי איתמר דרבא לטמא שנולד מן הטהור ועיבורו מן הטמא...וטהורה מטמאה מי מיעברא אין דקיי"ל דאיעבר מקלוט 

Rava said this establishes a model and teaches that wherever the term שה [seh] is stated in the Bible, it is meant to exclude a hybrid... R. Eliezer would say to you  - when did Rava state his model?  With respect to a non-kosher animal that was born from a kosher mother and a non-kosher father...But can a kosher animal conceive from a non-kosher animal? Yes, for it has been established that this case refers to a kosher animal that was conceived from a [kosher mutant animal that was] born with uncloven hooves. (Bava Kamma 77b-78a)

A pig in sheep's clothing? Nope. Just a pig.

In toady's page of Talmud we read of a debate regarding the crossbreeding of different species, and the possibility that a non-kosher animal (say, a pig) could fertilize a kosher animal (like a sheep). Here the Talmud seems to suggest that this could not happen, and that when this possibility is raised, it refers to a kosher animal that is breeding with another kosher animal but which looks non-kosher because of a mutation that causes it to have non-cloven hooves. Here is that case:

k= kosher; m= mutant, born with non-cloven hooves

This debate is part of a larger one found in another tractate of the Talmud, Bechorot. Here is part of that discussion:

בכורות ז, א

והאמר ר' יהושע בן לוי לעולם אין מתעברת לא טמאה מן הטהור ולא טהורה מן הטמא ולא גסה מן הדקה ולא דקה מן הגסה ולא בהמה מן חיה ולא חיה מן בהמה חוץ מר' אליעזר ומחלוקתו שהיו אומרים חיה מתעברת מבהמה וא"ר ירמיה דאיעבר מקלוט בן פרה ואליבא דרבי שמעון

...R. Yehoshua ben Levi said: A non-kosher female can never conceive from a kosher male, nor a kosher female from a non-kosher male, nor a large animal from a small animal, nor a small animal from a large animal, nor a domesticated animal from a non-domesticated animal, nor a non-domesticated animal from a domesticated animal, except for R. Eliezer and his disputant [in Chulin 79b], who claimed that a non-domesticated animal can conceive from a domesticated animal...(Bechorot 7a)

Which leads to the question of the day: Can a kosher animal indeed successfully breed with a non-kosher animal? Let's take a look.

When a pig loves a sheep

Pigs have been known to act, well, like pigs, and copulate with sheep. (There's even a video of it, if you are interested). But could this lead to a baby peep, or ship, or whatever you'd like to call it? There are pictures that suggest this may be so, but in actual fact this pig with wool is the rare Hungarian Mangalitza pig, and has no sheep ancestry.  

At the beginning of the twentieth century, Foster Dwight Coburn, a farmer who also served as the secretary of the Kansas Department of Agriculture published Swine in America; a text-book for Breeder, Feeder and Student, and on page 63 he made the following observation: 

There exists in some sections of Old Mexico a type of “hog” represented as the product of crossing a ram with a sow, and the term “Cuino” has been applied to this rather violent combination. The ram used as a sire to produce the Cuino is kept with the hogs from the time he is weaned. A resident of Mexico has given the following description of the Cuino: “The sow used to produce the Cuino belongs to any race, but as a rule to the Razor-Back family, which is the more numerous. There is never any difficulty with her accepting the ram when breeding time comes. The progeny is a pig—unmistakably a pig—with the form and all the characteristics of the pig, but he is entirely different from his dam if she is a Razor-Back. He is round-ribbed and blocky, his short legs cannot take him far from his sty, and his snout is too short to root with. His head is not unlike that of the Berkshire. His body is covered with long, thick, curly hair, not soft enough to be called wool, but which nevertheless he takes from his sire. His color is black, white-black, and white-brown and white. He is a good grazer and is mostly fed on grass with one or two ears of corn a day, and on these he fattens quickly. The Cuino reproduces itself, and is often crossed a second and third time with a ram. Be it what it may, the Cuino is the most popular breed of hogs in the state of Oaxaca, and became so on account of their propensity to fatten on little food.”

It may have been the most popular pig breed in Oxaca, but it was still rather an oddity in the US; newspapers found them interesting, as evidenced by two reports, from 1902 and 1908 about sheep-pig hybrids.  

The Minneapolis Journal, September 24, 1902, from here.

Los Angeles Herald. October 3, 1908, from here.

Species and interbreeding

Despite these reports, it would seem that the rule suggested by R. Yehoshua ben Levi is correct. Different species cannot successfully interbreed, because, well, because that's the definition of a species, as the Oxford English Dictionary makes clear:

A group of living organisms consisting of similar individuals capable of exchanging genes or interbreeding. The species is the principal natural taxonomic unit, ranking below a genus and denoted by a Latin binomial, e.g., Homo sapiens.

So although it is a tautology, you get the idea: a species by definition can only breed with other members of its own species. If a pig and a sheep could breed and have offspring, they'd be members of the same species. But they are not. Pigs belong to genus Sus, and the species Scrofa, whereas sheep belong to the genus Ovis and the species Aries. Pigs have 38 chromosomes, and sheep have 54.  So they cannot cross-breed.  (Lions and tigers both have 38 chromosomes, so they can cross breed, and produce a liger.)

But it's not as simple as that.  Even if you don't have the same number of chromosomes, you can still sometimes breed outside your species. Horses have 64 chromosomes and donkeys have 62. Yet they can cross breed, resulting in a mule (if mom was a horse) or a hinny (if mum was a donkey), although these are nearly always sterile. Horses belong to the genus Equus and the species ferus, and donkeys belong to the same genus but to a different species, africanus.  Yet they can interbreed.  Which raises the question: should a horse and a donkey be re-classified as belonging to the same species? But that would be odd, because they look so different and act in very different ways.

These kinds of questions  are perplexing, and have challenged the world of biology since the time of Carl Linnaeus (d. 1778) who gave the world a way of categorizing and naming all living things called binomial nomenclature. Briefly it goes like this: the grey wolf belongs to the genus Canis and the species lupus.  Dogs belong to the same genus, Canis, and are a subspecies of wolves, so their scientific name is Canis lupus familiaris (which I suppose makes it a trinomial nomenclature).  We belong to the genus Homo and the species sapiens, whereas chimpanzees belong to a different genus and species, Pan troglodytes. Anyway just what gets a creature into one species class or another is a really challenging question, one that is still being played out in the scientific literature. There's even a 320 page book from the University of California Press in which the author "provides a new perspective on the relationship between philosophical and biological approaches" to the concept of a species. For now, though, R. Yehoshua ben Levi's generalization found in Bechorot is pretty close to the Linnaean taxonomy we use today.  We can also conclude that the general rule of the Talmud from today's daf, that a kosher animal could not successfully breed with a non-kosher one, is a pretty good rule of thumb.

“Every living thing loves its like,
and every person his own sort.
All creatures flock together with their kind.”

— Ecclesiasticus, 13:15.

 Next time on Talmudology: Is garlic good for you?