Talmudology on the Parsha, Shoftim ~ Prophecy and Mental Illness

This week’s Torah reading warns us not to be persuaded by a person who claims to be a prophet, which is to say, they claim to predict the future. There is, apparently a simple test: did the prediction come true? If it did, then that person is a real prophet.

דברים 18: 9-22

כִּי אַתָּה בָּא אֶל־הָאָרֶץ אֲשֶׁר־יְהֹוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ נֹתֵן לָךְ לֹא־תִלְמַד לַעֲשׂוֹת כְּתוֹעֲבֹת הַגּוֹיִם הָהֵם… וַיֹּאמֶר יְהֹוָה אֵלָי הֵיטִיבוּ אֲשֶׁר דִּבֵּרוּ׃ נָבִיא אָקִים לָהֶם מִקֶּרֶב אֲחֵיהֶם כָּמוֹךָ וְנָתַתִּי דְבָרַי בְּפִיו וְדִבֶּר אֲלֵיהֶם אֵת כל־אֲשֶׁר אֲצַוֶּנּוּ׃ וְהָיָה הָאִישׁ אֲשֶׁר לֹא־יִשְׁמַע אֶל־דְּבָרַי אֲשֶׁר יְדַבֵּר בִּשְׁמִי אָנֹכִי אֶדְרֹשׁ מֵעִמּוֹ׃ אַךְ הַנָּבִיא אֲשֶׁר יָזִיד לְדַבֵּר דָּבָר בִּשְׁמִי אֵת אֲשֶׁר לֹא־צִוִּיתִיו לְדַבֵּר וַאֲשֶׁר יְדַבֵּר בְּשֵׁם אֱלֹהִים אֲחֵרִים וּמֵת הַנָּבִיא הַהוּא׃ וְכִי תֹאמַר בִּלְבָבֶךָ אֵיכָה נֵדַע אֶת־הַדָּבָר אֲשֶׁר לֹא־דִבְּרוֹ יְהֹוָה׃ אֲשֶׁר יְדַבֵּר הַנָּבִיא בְּשֵׁם יְהֹוָה וְלֹא־יִהְיֶה הַדָּבָר וְלֹא יָבֹא הוּא הַדָּבָר אֲשֶׁר לֹא־דִבְּרוֹ יְהֹוָה בְּזָדוֹן דִּבְּרוֹ הַנָּבִיא לֹא תָגוּר מִמֶּנּוּ׃

When you enter the land that the LORD your God is giving you, you shall not learn to imitate the abhorrent practices of those nations…I will raise up a prophet for them from among their own people, like yourself: I will put My words in his mouth and he will speak to them all that I command him; and if anybody fails to heed the words he speaks in My name, I Myself will call him to account. But any prophet who presumes to speak in My name an oracle that I did not command him to utter, or who speaks in the name of other gods—that prophet shall die.” And should you ask yourselves, “How can we know that the oracle was not spoken by the LORD?” if the prophet speaks in the name of the LORD and the oracle does not come true, that oracle was not spoken by the LORD; the prophet has uttered it presumptuously: do not stand in dread of him.

In The Madhouse — Plate 8. From A Rake's Progress, William Hogarth, 1734.

In my professional career as an emergency physician in Washington DC, I met many prophets. Most were on their way to the White House with an urgent message for the President. Most ended up being committed to an in-patient psychiatric hospital where they could get help for their psychosis. Today, we often - and correctly - associate a claim of prophecy as being associated with a mental health disorder. And so this week on Talmudology on the Parsha we will examine the relationship between prophecy and mental illness.

בבא בתרא יב, ב 

א"ר יוחנן מיום שחרב בית המקדש ניטלה נבואה מן הנביאים וניתנה לשוטים ולתינוקות

Rabbi Yochanan said: "After the destruction of the Holy Temple the power of prophecy was taken from the prophets and given to the mentally ill and to children. 

In the tractate Bava Basra in the Babylonian Talmud, Rabbi Yochanan declares not that prophecy is dead, but that the kind of things once said by the prophets of the Bible will henceforth be said by those with mental illness (שוטים) and children.  Rabbi Yochanan may have been the first to see the overlap of mental illness and the kinds of things once said by prophets of the Bible, but today psychiatrists and others involved in the care of the mentally ill have noted this overlap too.

Abraham and Moses on the Psychiatrist's Couch

In 2012, three psychiatrists from the Harvard  Medical School asked a simple question: How does a psychiatrist today help a patient to understand that their psychotic symptoms are not caused by supernatural visitations, "when our civilization recognizes similar phenomena in revered religious figures?" So the psychiatrists set off to examine the way in which revelation of the divine was described in the Bible, "with the intent of promoting scholarly dialogue about the rational limits of human experience." All this was to "educate persons living with mental illness, healthcare providers, and the general public that persons with psychotic symptoms may have had a considerable influence on the development of Western civilization."

They analyzed four religious figures, including two from our tradition, from a behavioral, neurologic, and neuropsychiatric perspective. They found that, based on the text of the Bible, Abraham had no affective, neurological or medical conditions, and since he showed no evidence of disorganization, they doubted that Abraham had classic schizophrenia too.  But they raised the possibility of his having paranoid schizophrenia. This is a subtype of schizophrenia "that tends to manifest little or no disorganization, has preserved functional affect, and is associated with better occupational and social functioning." The psychiatrists based this diagnosis on the voices Abraham kept hearing, and "a very Abraham-centered worldview of dispensing universal blessings and curses based on one’s interactions with Abraham." Moses had "auditory and visual hallucinations of a grandiose nature with delusional thought content." He also exhibited "hyperreligiosity, grandiosity, delusions, paranoia, referential thinking, and phobia (about people viewing his face)." They were not certain though, if Moses displayed symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia, or if instead, he may have had a bipolar disorder.  Jesus also displayed auditory and visual hallucinations, "delusions, referential thinking, paranoid-type thought content, and hyperreligiosity"(!) The Harvard psychiatrists also note that the lifetime risk of suicide in schizophrenia is 5-10%, and that Jesus "appears to have deliberately placed himself in circumstances wherein he anticipated his execution." Finally Paul is analyzed. He seems to have had a large number of  auditory and visual perceptual experiences "that resemble grandiose hallucinations with delusional thought content." They reject the suggestion that he suffered from temporal lobe epilepsy, and they note that Paul wrote a great deal. This kind of productive writing, they claim, "tends to be more strongly associated with mood disorders than psychosis or epilepsy. This is persuasive toward Paul having a mood disorder, rather than schizophrenia or epilepsy."

Murray, E. Cunningham M. Price B . The Role of Psychotic Disorders in Religious History Considered. Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences 2012; 24:410–426

The point of all this analysis was not to test the the faith of those who believe in the prophetic abilities of Abraham, Moses, Jesus or Paul. Rather, it was to emphasize how those with what we today would describe as the florid symptoms of mental illness are revered as religious teachers. And one more thing.  They claimed not to have any disrespect for those with religious beliefs towards any of these four figures.

Discussion about a potential role for the supernatural is outside the scope of our article and is reserved for the communities of faithful, religious scholars, and theologians, with one exception. It is our opinion that a neuropsychiatric accounting of behavior need not be viewed as excluding a role for the supernatural. Herein, neuropsychiatric mechanisms have been proposed through which behaviors and actions might be understood. For those who believe in omnipotent and omniscient supernatural forces, this should pose no obstacle, but might rather serve as a mechanistic explanation of how events may have happened. No disrespect is intended toward anyone’s beliefs or these venerable figures.

Nocturnal Hallucinations in Israeli Ultra-Orthodox Jews

Since Rabbi Yochanan described prophecy as being given to those with mental illness, it might be worth looking at the content of some hallucinations in the Jewish mentally ill.  Is there anything in their hallucinations that we could perhaps interpret as prophecy? Let's turn to a helpful paper published in 2001, which described the nocturnal hallucinations in 122 ultra-orthodox Jewish Israeli men. The authors were two psychiatrists who noted that this symptom of nocturnal hallucinations only seemed to affect male members of the ultra-orthodox population.  The group who experienced these nocturnal hallucinations were younger than other patients with symptoms of mental illness, "and their visit was more often associated with a request for a psychiatric evaluation before receiving an exemption from compulsory army service." But let's put that rather disquieting fact aside, and move on. The majority of the hallucinations were frightening, and included figures of the sort that "may appear among the fears of ultra-orthodox men," including (and I'm not making this up) "policemen, soldiers [and] Sephardi men." 

From Greenberg D. Brome, D.  Nocturnal Hallucinations in Ultra-orthodox Jewish Israeli Men. Psychiatry 2001. 64 (1); 81-90.

Now you might be thinking that this group included a fair number of malingerers who were keen to avoid military service. The psychiatrists considered that possibility too, but noted that about 45% of the men came for more than one visit, and about 11% did not not request a recommendation letter for the army.  So they concluded that "the night hallucinations are a real clinical and culturally determined phenomenon, which in a minority of cases may have been misused and presented for purposes of gaining exemption from army service."  In any event, most ended up with a diagnosis of "subnormality and/or psychosis," with a generally good prognosis. But there is nothing that appears to be particularly prophetic in the thoughts of this group of mentally ill Jewish men.

“We suggest that some of civilization’s most significant religious figures may have had psychotic symptoms that contributed inspiration for their revelations. It is hoped that this analysis will engender scholarly dialogue about the rational limits of human experience and serve to educate the general public, persons living with mental illness, and healthcare providers about the possibility that persons with primary and mood disorder-associated psychotic-spectrum disorders have had a monumental influence on civilization.”

— Murray, E. Cunningham M. Price B . The Role of Psychotic Disorders in Religious History Considered.Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences 2012; 24:410–426

On the origin of prophecy today

In his seventeenth century commentary on the Talmud, R. Samuel Eliezer ben R. Judah HaLevi Edels, better known as the Maharsha, suggests that there are different kinds of prophecy.

מהרש"א חידושי אגדות מסכת בבא בתרא דף יב עמוד ב 

וענין שנטלה מן הנביאים ונתנה לשוטים אין הנבואות שוות דנבואת נביאים ע"י הש"י או ע"י מלאכיו אבל נבואת השוטים ותינוקות אינו אלא ע"י שד דהכי מחלק בפרק הרואה בין החלומות שיש מהן ע"י המלאך ויש מהן ע"י שד

"Not all prophecy is the same. For the prophecy of the prophets was endowed by God, Blessed be He, or one of His angels, whereas the prophecy of the mentally ill and children is endowed by a demon..."

Which may only serve to scare the mentally ill even more. R. Yochanan's statement reminds us that the line between mental disease and religiously inspired hallucinations (or delusions) is very blurred, and that, whatever the source of their visions and hallucinations, the mentally ill deserve more than our pity or support. They deserve our respect. 

“If you hear a car backfire and you believe that it may be a pistol shot, that is an illusion. If you hear a pistol shot when there has been no sound (either of a pistol or a car backfiring), that is a hallucination. If you hear a pistol shot and believe that it is God firing a pistol at you because you [as a physician] have ordered inappropriate lab tests, that is a delusion. If [a physician] decides he is ordering too many laboratory tests in the absence of an external sensory stimulus, that is called enlightenment.”

— Joseph Sapira. The Art and Science of Bedside Diagnosis. Williams & Wilkins 1990. p518.

Talmudology on the Parsha, Re'eh ~ Gentile Music, Mordechai ben David and Dschinghis Khan

Every year, around Chanukah, our family sits at the Shabbat table and sings nearly every song from Tim Rice and Andrew Llyod Weber’s Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. If I get particularly lucky, sometimes in shul the chazzan will lead kedusha to a tune of Close Every Door to Me. The perfect (Gentile) tune to a perfect (Jewish) prayer. Which brings us to this week’s Torah reading, where we learn of the prohibition of, well, just what I described.

דברים 12:31

הִשָּׁמֶר לְךָ פֶּן־תִּנָּקֵשׁ אַחֲרֵיהֶם אַחֲרֵי הִשָּׁמְדָם מִפָּנֶיךָ וּפֶן־תִּדְרֹשׁ לֵאלֹהֵיהֶם לֵאמֹר אֵיכָה יַעַבְדוּ הַגּוֹיִם הָאֵלֶּה אֶת־אֱלֹהֵיהֶם וְאֶעֱשֶׂה־כֵּן גַּם־אָנִי׃

לֹא־תַעֲשֶׂה כֵן לַיהֹוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ כִּי כל־תּוֹעֲבַת יְהֹוָה אֲשֶׁר שָׂנֵא עָשׂוּ לֵאלֹהֵיהֶם כִּי גַם אֶת־בְּנֵיהֶם וְאֶת־בְּנֹתֵיהֶם יִשְׂרְפוּ בָאֵשׁ לֵאלֹהֵיהֶם׃

ּBeware of being lured into their ways after they have been wiped out before you! Do not inquire about their gods, saying, “How did those nations worship their gods? I too will follow those practices.” You shall not act thus toward the Lord your God, for they perform for their gods every abhorrent act that the Lord detests; they even offer up their sons and daughters in fire to their gods.

Commenting on this verse, the thirteenth-century Chezekiah bar Manoah, known as the Chizkuni wrote

אשר שנא אפילו אתה עובד הקב’ה באותה עבודה שהם עובדים את אלהיהם אתה מכעיסו

אשר שנא– “which He hates;” Even if you were to serve God with the same service that they [idol-worshippers] serve their gods, this is repulsive

The suggestion here is that even with the best of intentions, the Jewish People should not emulate the religious services of those outside of their own faith. This week on Talmudology on the Parsha we will take a brief look at the evolution of this prohibition, and the ways in which it has been ignored over the centuries.

The Permissive Bach

Let’s begin with Rabbi Yoel Sirkus (1561-1640), one of the most important poskim of the 16th-17th centuries, who is better known by the the acronym of one of his works, the Bayit Chadach - Bach (like the composer). He was asked whether it was permitted to borrow a Church tune for a Synagogue service. Yes, it was, he wrote, but only if the tune was not uniquely used in a non-Jewish religious service. אבל אם אינם מיוחדים נראה דאין בזה אוסיר -”but if it is not only used by them, there appears to be no prohibition.”

שו׳ת הב׳ח ישנות ס׳קכז אות ה׳

The Prohibitive Ma’aseh Roke’ach

Rabbi Mas’od Chai Roke’ach (b. 1690) took a completely opposite view In a very lengthy responsum, he rejected the Bach as a “lone opinion” that was not to be relied upon:

The conclusion of this matter is that I see no reason for any shaliach tzibbur [prayer leader] to do this. Rather they should use the tunes that are used by all of Israel, each to their own dialect, Sephardim, Ashkenazim, and Italian Jews. For all of these are the words of the living God…

(Fun facts about Rabbi Mas’od: He was born in Izmir, Turkey in 1690 and settled in Israel in 1749. He then spent time in North Africa raising funds for the yishuv, after which he was appointed the Chief Rabbi of Tripoli, as in Libya. He died in 1768.)

The Normative Halakha (at least for Ashkenazim)

In the section in the Shulchan Aruch about “Who is Permitted to Lead Services (דין מי הראוי לירד לפני התיבה) the Polish decisor Rabbi Moshe Isserlis, known as the Rema, wrote the following:

רמ׳א אורח חיים 53:25

וש"צ המנבל פיו או שמרנן להבשירי הנכרים מוחין בידו שלא לעשות כן ואם אינו שומע מעבירין אותו

The shaliach tzibbur [prayer-leader] who fouls his mouth (ie. uses foul language) or sings non-Jewish songs, we warn him not to do this, and if he does not listen, we remove him

The seventeenth-century Polish rabbi Zechariah Mendel ben Aryeh Leib of Krakov wrote the Be’er Heitev, a halakhic commentary on the Shulchan Aruch. In his note to Orach Chaim 53:25 we find his ruling that this prohibition is to be thought of as normative:

בשירי העכו"ם. ר"ל בניגון שמנגן בו לע"א מ"א בשם ת"ה. וב"ח בתשובה ס"ס קכ"ז כ' דוקא ניגון שמיוחד בבית ע"ז.

The Baal Shem Tov and His Gentile Tunes

In his highly entertaining work Otzar Nifla’os Hatorah, Ze’ev Zickerman cites the story of the founder of Hasidism, the Baal Shem Tov, who was wont to appropriate non-Jewish tunes which “he elevated into holiness, and a number of these tunes are now widely sung among Jews.” As an example he cites the song גלות – Golus [Exile] which according to legend was composed by Rabbi Yitchak Isaac Taub of Kalov (1751-1821). He heard it being sung by a young shepherd “and he bought the tune from the shepherd and added his own words גלות גלות, ווי גרויס ביסטו - “Oh, exile, exile, how vast you are!”” (You can hear a version here, sung from his armchair by Moshe Laufer, and here is the original Hungarian tune Erdo erdo on which it was based.)

Zickerman also cites the current Rebbe of the hasidic Munkács dynasty, Moshe Leib Rabinovich who testified that his grandfather, Chaim Elazar Spira (1868 –1937) the Rebbe of (the currently Ukrainian town of) Munkács, would sing the davening on Yomim Nora’im to tunes that were based on the military songs of the Hungarian army.

“I, too, used non-Jewish melodies in my duties as a shliach tzibbur in my shul in XX, NJ, especially on Simchat Torah. Once, I used to the tune to Amazing Grace for Kedusha of Shacharit (try it... it fits perfectly). My Rav came up to me afterwards and told me he never heard such a beautiful Kedusha in his life. Then someone told him the origin of the tune.... after shul he came up to me and said, “As beautiful as it was, don’t you ever do that again!”. It was beautiful, and still is....”

— Talmudology Reader, name witheld.

The State of Contemporary Jewish Music

It doesn’t take long to find “traditional” Jewish tunes that are in fact taken from non-Jewish melodies. Consider, for example, this Yiddish song which I am sure you will recognize. Jewish? Nope. It the beautiful Greek song Misirlou, which was popularized outside the Greek-Armenian community by Dick Dale’s 1962 unforgettable rock version. (And you can learn more about the history of this song, and hear Jewish versions at this NPR piece from 2006.)

“A few years ago I gave a class on Zmirot and one of them was Yah Ribon by Israel Najara. He was a popular Hazan and teacher but did not escape controversy. ...
One thing that made Najara controversial was the fact that he was concerned that the youth of Turkey were listening to popular Turkish and Greek songs instead of Jewish ones. So he wrote Hebrew words to these popular songs, which made some people accuse him of abetting what he was claiming to address...
Of course by the time he wrote Yah Ribon nobody was speaking Aramaic, but I guess he wanted it to sound traditional. ”

— Another Talmudology Reader...

Ghengis Kahn and Mordechai ben David

But perhaps the most surprising and egregious example of Jews using a non-Jewish tune is the Yiddish song Yidden sung by Mordechai ben David. Now of course this is a song to be sung at weddings and bar-mitzvahs, and it is not part of Jewish liturgy. As such, perhaps it falls outside of the prohibition that originates in this week’s parsha. But it is an example of how our tunes continue to be influenced by the wider culture that surrounds us. Here is Mordechai ben David, back in 1989 on a Chabad Telethon:

And here, for your delight, is the original, from where MbD either purchased or stole the tune. It is called Dschinghis Khan, and was performed by a German pop group of the same name. Rather remarkably, they were Germany’s official entry to the 1979 Eurovision Song Contest, which means that what you are about to see was the best that country had to offer. Be warned. There are several bare-chested men in this performance, one of whom has peyot and is wearing what appears to be a plastic Barbie crown. There is also much hoo-ing and haa-ing. Do not try this at home. Or in shul.

Talmudology on the Parsha, Ekev~Holding It In

דברים 7:14

בָּרוּךְ תִּהְיֶה מִכל־הָעַמִּים לֹא־יִהְיֶה בְךָ עָקָר וַעֲקָרָה וּבִבְהֶמְתֶּךָ׃

You shall be blessed above all other peoples: there shall be no sterile male or female among you or among your livestock.

In a passage in the Talmud (Bechorot 44b) that addresses public urination, we read this:

בכורות מד, ב

אמר ר"ל מאי דכתיב (דברים ז, יד) לא יהיה בך עקר ועקרה ובבהמתך אימתי לא יהיה בך עקר בזמן שבבהמתך

Reish Lakish says: What is the meaning of that which is written: “There shall not be male or female barren among you, or among your cattle” (Deuteronomy 7:14)? It means as follows: When will there not be a barren male among you? At a time that you act as among your cattle, [that is, you urinate when the need arises, without hesitation.]

It is a rather odd statement, and this week, Talmudology on the Parsha will help you unpack it.

Sefer Haredim and Sterility

Sefer Haredim was composed by the kabbalist and poet Rabbi Elazar ben Moshe Azikri (אלעזר בן משה אזכרי‎) (1533–1600) who lived in Safed. It has a unusual structure, written as an explanation of the 613 commandments, but arranged according to the human body, (but when that was not possible, he arranged them according to the time when they are observed). He cited this passage in full:

Sefer Haredim, chapter 32

An adult who holds in his need to urinate violates the prohibition of בל תשקצו – “You should not behave in a disgusting manner” (Lev. 11:43). A child who does the same violates two prohibitions: בל תשקצו and לא יהיה בך עקר ועקרה - “There shall not be male or female barren among you” (Deut. 7:14).

According to this early modern worldview, holding it in as a child was thought to somehow damage the urogenital system, and could result in sterility. This is based on a teaching of Rabbi Abba, found on the same passage of Talmud:

בכורות מד,ב

אמר רבי אבא בריה דרבי חייא בר אבא משתינין מים בפני רבים ואין שותין מים בפני רבים ותניא נמי הכי משתינין מים בפני רבים ואין שותין מים בפני רבים ומעשה באחד שביקש להשתין מים ולא השתין ונמצא כריסו צבה

Rabbi Abba, son of Rabbi Ḥiyya bar Abba, says that Torah scholars may urinate in public and they need not be concerned with issues of modesty, [because holding back from urinating causes bodily harm]. But they may not drink water in public, as such conduct is unbefitting a Torah scholar. And this is also taught in a baraita: Torah scholars may urinate in public, but they may not drink water in public. And there was an incident involving one who sought to urinate, and he did not urinate, and his belly was found to be swollen.

This is one of those delightful passages in which we learn that Talmudic manners were sometimes the very opposite of our modern ones. Because of the perceived dangers of not urinating when necessary, Torah scholars were permitted, or rather encouraged, to urinate whenever the urge arose, even in public. Drinking in public, however, was not allowed, since this was considered uncouth behavior. And then we read a couple of stories in which the urgent public urination of a Torah scholar is described.

שמואל איצטריך ליה בשבתא דרגלא נגדו ליה גלימא אתא לקמיה דאבוה א"ל אתן לך ד' מאה זוזי וזיל אהדר עובדא את דאפשר לך דלא אפשר ליה ליסתכן

Shmuel needed to urinate on the Shabbat [when everyone came to hear halakhot relating to the impending Festival. In order to afford him privacy], they spread a sheet for him. Shmuel then came before his father, who said to him: I will give you four hundred dinars if you will go and retract this incident, [i.e., if you will state publicly that one may not hold back from urinating even at the expense of one’s privacy.] Since you are an important man, you can have others spread a sheet around you. But with regard to one who cannot have others spread a sheet for him, should he endanger himself by seeking privacy? You must therefore teach that no-one should hold back from urinating even in public.

Shmuel’s father was willing to pay him the massive sum of 400 dinars for Shmuel to clarify to the public that “one should not hold back from urinating even in public.” Then comes another story, (describing what must be one of the weirdest incidents in the Babylonian Talmud). While walking over a bridge, Mar Bar Rav Ashi had the urge to urinate. As he was micturating, he was told that his mother-in-law was on her way, which was presumably a suggestion to hurry up and finish. To which he replied, with a most memorable turn of phrase, emphasising just how important it was to urinate when the urge is felt: “I would have even urinated in her ear”(באודנה).

Delayed Micturition and Infertility

But what was it that the rabbis feared might happen if you delayed micturition? Infertility. They believed that failing to urinate frequently enough would render a person sterile. And they tell a chilling example of this happening in the tractate Yevamot.

יבמות סו, ב

רב גידל איעקר מפרקיה דרב הונא רבי חלבו איעקר מפרקיה דרב הונא רב ששת איעקר מפרקיה דרב הונא

Rav Gidel became sterile on account of Rav Huna’s lectures, Rav Chelbo became sterile on account of Rav Huna’s lectures and Rav Sheshet became sterile on account of Rav Huna’s lectures...

Rav Huna had a lot to answer for.  His lectures went on, and on, and on, and on and on and on.  Rashi (Yevamot 62b) explained the relationship between these lengthy classes and infertility:

איעקר מפרקיה דרב הונא.שהיה מאריך בדרשיו וצריכים למי רגלים ומעמידים עצמן ונעקרים כדתניא בבכורות 

Rav Huna would give lengthy sermons and [his students] would need to urinate. But they held it in, and as a result became sterile, as we read in Bechorot.

The suggestion here is that holding-it-in can lead to problems of fertility, and there is at least a theoretical scientific reason why Rav Huna's lengthy classes had the unintended consequence of lowering the reproductive rates of his students.  

Urinary tract infections and infertility - what do Urologists say?

As it turns out, there is a clear relationship between male infertility and repeated infections of the genitourinary tract. Here, for example, is  how one urology textbook opens its chapter on male genital tract infections and infertility:

Male Genital Tract Infections and Infertility. Neal, DE, Weinstein, SH. In Male Reproductive Dysfunction ed Kandeel FR. Informa Healthcare 2007.

Any male GU infection such as prostatitis, urethritis or epididymo-orchitis can reduce both sperm count and the quality of the seminal fluid. OK, but what does that have to do with not urinating when you feel the urge? Well here's the thing: that not-going-when-you-need-to is really not a good idea.

It's quite a challenge to determine scientifically the effect of holding-it-in (and hereafter referred to as delayed micturition, because it sounds nicer) on the risk of getting a urinary tract infection.  You can't very easily randomly assign one large group of healthy volunteers to urinating whenever they want, and a second to urinating only three times a day.

However, there are a couple of observational studies that may be able to tell us something about the risk of delayed micturition.  A 1968 study of 112 women with a documented UTI reported that further UTIs could be reduced by voiding  every two hours during the day (which sounds rather too good to be true). And a 1979 study from the (not-very-widely-read-but-it-really-is-a-journal) Scandinavian Journal of Urology and Nephrology reported that the frequency of UTI was significantly higher among women with three or less voidings per day compared with those who have to go four or more times per day. (Whether this is true for women outside of northern Jutland where the study was conducted remains unclear.)

So a decreased voiding frequency is associated with an increased number of infections, and urinary tract infections are associated with decreased fertility. Thus by the rule of transitive relations (or something clever like it) decreased voiding may indeed be associated in a causative way with decreased fertility.  

All this is highly speculative, and it would certainly be unusual for male sterility to directly result from delayed micturition.  But here's the weird thing: teachers are slightly more likely to suffer urinary tract infections when compared with the general population. Is that because they too, like their students, hold-it-in? (Yes, I know it didn't reach statistical significance, but the authors thought it was important to note, and so do I.)   

Kovess-Masféty, V. Do teachers have more health problems? Results from a French cross-sectional survey. BMC Public Health 20066:101;1-13.

Pity Rav Huna, talking on and on and on, and pity his miserable students who had to sit there with their legs crossed and could likely only think of only one thing. We will give the last word to Rav Acha bar Yaakov, another hapless student of Rav Huna. 

אמר רב אחא בר יעקב שיתין סבי הוינא וכולהו איעקור מפרקיה דרב הונא לבר מאנא

Rav Acha bar Yaakov said, we were a group of sixty students, and all of us became sterile because of Rav Huna's lectures - except me (Yevamot 64b).

Talmudology on the Parsha Va'Etchanan~Jewish Astronomers

דברים 4:6

וּשְׁמַרְתֶּם וַעֲשִׂיתֶם כִּי הִוא חכְמַתְכֶם וּבִינַתְכֶם לְעֵינֵי הָעַמִּים אֲשֶׁר יִשְׁמְעוּן אֵת כל־הַחֻקִּים הָאֵלֶּה וְאָמְרוּ רַק עַם־חָכָם וְנָבוֹן הַגּוֹי הַגָּדוֹל הַזֶּה׃

Observe them faithfully, for that will be proof of your wisdom and discernment to other peoples, who on hearing of all these laws will say, “Surely, that great nation is a wise and discerning people.”

שבת עה,א

 אָמַר רַבִּי שְׁמוּאֵל בַּר נַחְמָנִי אָמַר רַבִּי יוֹחָנָן: מִנַּיִן שֶׁמִּצְוָה עַל הָאָדָם לְחַשֵּׁב תְּקוּפוֹת וּמַזָּלוֹת — שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: ״וּשְׁמַרְתֶּם וַעֲשִׂיתֶם כִּי הִיא חכְמַתְכֶם וּבִינַתְכֶם לְעֵינֵי הָעַמִּים״, אֵיזוֹ חָכְמָה וּבִינָה שֶׁהִיא לְעֵינֵי הָעַמִּים — הֱוֵי אוֹמֵר: זֶה חִישּׁוּב תְּקוּפוֹת וּמַזָּלוֹת

And Rabbi Shmuel bar Nahmani said that Rabbi Yochanan said: From where is it derived that there is a mitzva incumbent upon a person to calculate astronomical seasons and the movement of constellations? As it was stated: “And you shall guard and perform, for it is your wisdom and understanding in the eyes of the nations”(Deuteronomy 4:6). What wisdom and understanding is there in the Torah that is in the eyes of the nations, i.e., appreciated and recognized by all?  It is the calculation of astronomical seasons and the movement of constellations, as the calculation of experts is witnessed by all.

According to the great Rabbi Yochanan (or more likely Rabbi Yonatan, since he was Rabbi Shmuel’s teacher) it is a mitzvah for every person to calculate for herself the positions of the planets and constellations. This is also the position of the important work Sefer Mitzvot Gagdol (#47) complied by Moses ben Jacob of Coucy and completed in 1247. Moses gave two reasons for this mitzvah. The first is that by understanding astronomy, farmers will gain insight into the planting cycle. And secondly, a knowledge of astronomy and the passage of the seasons will help determine when additional months must be intercalated into the calendar so as to allow Pesach to be celebrated in the Spring. But Rabbi Yochanan’s prooftext “for it is your wisdom and understanding in the eyes of the nations” suggests that it is not just about an understanding of astronomy. That knowledge must be demonstrated to those outside of Judaism. And there is, in fact, a long tradition of Jews being astronomers, and sharing their knowledge far beyond the Jewish community. It started with the very first Jew: Abraham.

THE THREE Abraham the Astronomers

According to David Gans, Abraham, the first Jew, was also the first Jewish astronomer. Gans, who wrote his compendium on astronomy around 1612, believed that Abraham had obtained his own knowledge of the stars from none other than the primordial human, Adam.

Adam was an outstanding astronomer . . . and Josephus has written that when Abraham went down to Egypt because of the famine he taught them astronomy and mathematics and was praised by the Egyptians for his outstanding wisdom in these two disciplines....Abraham passed this knowledge to his son Isaac and grandson Jacob.

And so began our long tradition of taking a special interest in astronomy. It would be hard to call the early medieval practitioners astronomers in the modern sense of the word, since almost none actually sat around and looked at the motions of the heavens. Instead they translated works of astronomy into Hebrew, or drew up tables and charts of where the planets could be located, called ephemerides. One of the earliest was Sahl ibn Bishr al-Israili (c. 786–c. 845), also known as Haya al-Yahudi (Haya the Jew) who is believed to have been the first person to translate Ptolemy’s Almagest into Arabic, though not everyone believes that he was actually Jewish.

There is no doubt though that the famous exegete, grammarian and poet Abraham ibn Ezra (d.1167) was Jewish. And he was also a bit of an astronomer too. Actually what he did was mostly astrology, but hey, that’s what everyone did in the twelfth century. He was, according to Bernard Goldstein, “one of the foremost transmitters of Arabic scientific knowledge to the West,” and since Ibn Ezra was one of the first scholars to write on scientific subjects in Hebrew, he had to invent or adapt many Hebrew terms to represent the technical terminology of Arabic. Sadly, some of his translations and original works are no longer extant, but among his most famous works are Sefer Ha’Ibbur (The Book of Intercalation), about the calendar, and Sefer HaMeorot, on medical astrology.

A third “Abraham the Astronomer” was the Spanish Abraham bar Hiyya (d. 1136) who was also an important mathematician. This Abraham wrote Tzurat Ha’aretz (The Form of the Earth) on the formation of the heavens and the earth, as well as Cheshbon Mahalach HaKochavim (Calculation of the Course of the Stars).

Levi ben Gershon

Measuring the height of a star with a Jacob's Staff. From John Sellers' Practical Navigation (1672).

Levi ben Gershon (d.1344) -the “Ralbag” - lived a century later and made an enormous contribution to astronomy. He is well known as a Jewish philosopher and the author of Sefer Milhamot Ha-Shem, (The Wars of the Lord), which took some twelve years to write. He also wrote Ma’aseh Choshev, a work on mathematics. It was not widely read outside of Jewish circles since it was never translated from the Hebrew, though it contains a number of very important theorems. But Levi was also an astronomer in the sense of the word used today. According to the late Yuval Ne’eman, “he personally remeasured everything, basing his models on his own observations only. In that, he is rather unique for that period. Levi writes "no argument can nullify the reality that is perceived by the senses, for true opinion must follow reality, but reality need not conform to opinion" - certainly not the usual position in the Middle Ages.” The Ralbag is also generally credited with the invention of an astronomical device called Jacob’s Staff. It measured the angles between heavenly bodies, and was also used by European sailors for navigation. Levi’s contributions to astronomy are recognized today; there is a crater on the moon named after him.

David Gans, Astronomer Extraordinaire

Another Jewish astronomer who actually did real astronomy was David Gans, who we mentioned above. Gans was born in 1541 in Germany though he spent most of his later life in Prague. While there, he frequented the observatory of Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler and learned his astronomy directly from what he saw. His description of the time he spent inside the observatory is perhaps the only one of its kind in rabbinic literature: It’s worth reading just for that:

I can recount how in the year 5360 (1600) our exalted lord Emperor Rudolf (may his glory be uplifted), a man of wisdom, full of general knowledge and expert in astronomy, who values and honors those who are learned, sent a mission to Denmark to invite the eminent scholar Tycho Brahe. He was a scientist and learned in astronomy, and a man who is a prince among his people. The Emperor installed him in a castle in Benatky (which is about five parsaot from the capital Prague), where he remained isolated. [Rudolf] gave him a yearly allowance of three thousand talars together with bread, wine and beer, not to mention other gifts. There he lived with twelve others, all of whom were experts in astrology [sic] and in the large instruments [for measuring,] the likes of which had never been seen. The Emperor Rudolf built thirteen consecutive rooms, and in each room were special instruments that enabled them to view the paths of the all the planets and most of the stars.

Throughout the year they would make and record daily observations of the Sun’s orbit, its latitude and longitude and its distance from the Earth. At night they would carefully do the same for each of the six planets and most of the stars, noting their latitude, longitude and distance from the Earth. I, your author, was there on three separate occasions, each lasting five consecutive days. I sat with them in their observatory, and I saw how they worked. They did amazing work, not just with the planets but also with the stars, recognizing each by its name. When each star would cross the meridian its position would be measured with three different instruments, each operated by two experts. This position would then immediately be transcribed into hours and minutes, for which purpose [Tycho] had an amazing clock. I can testify that none of our ancestors had ever seen or heard of such a device, and it has never been described in a book, whether written by a Jew or Gentile.

And a Famous Jewish Female Astronomer

There are dozens and dozens of other examples of famous medieval and modern astronomers that we cannot include because of space (though you can find a partial listing here). But let’s end with a Jewish astronomer who just had an observatory named in her honor - Vera Rubin (1928-2016). She was born to Jewish immigrants in Philadelphia, educated at Vassar, Cornell and Georgetown, and moved to the Carnegie Institution in Washington in the 1960s. She studied the rotation of galaxies, and discovered that something other than their matter must be holding them together. As her obituary in The New York Times noted, “her work helped usher in a Copernican-scale change in cosmic consciousness, namely the realization that what astronomers always saw and thought was the universe is just the visible tip of a lumbering iceberg of mystery.” Being a woman in a man’s field had tremendous challenges, and called for ingenuity:

…she still had to battle for access to a 200-inch telescope on Palomar Mountain in California jointly owned by Carnegie and Caltech. When she did get there, she found that there was no women’s restroom. …Dr. Rubin taped an outline of a woman’s skirt to the image of a man on a restroom door, making it a ladies’ room.

Vera Rubin was elected to the National Academy of Sciences, and in 2019 the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope was renamed the National Science Foundation Vera C. Rubin Observatory in recognition of her contributions to the study of dark matter and her outspoken advocacy for the equal treatment and representation of women in science. Despite her achievements she remained humble. “I’m sorry I know so little. I’m sorry we all know so little” she once said."But that’s kind of the fun, isn’t it?” Yes. It is.

The Vera C. Rubin Observatory and its target.