In today’s page of Talmud we meet the great Rabbi Yochanan where you would have least expected him: sitting outside the mikveh (ritual bathhouse), waiting for the married women who used it to pass him by. And notice him.
ברכות כ,ב
רַבִּי יוֹחָנָן הֲוָה רְגִיל דַּהֲוָה קָא אָזֵיל וְיָתֵיב אַשַּׁעֲרֵי דִטְבִילָה. אֲמַר: כִּי סָלְקָן בְּנוֹת יִשְׂרָאֵל וְאָתְיָין מִטְּבִילָה, מִסְתַּכְּלָן בִּי, וְנֶהֱוֵי לְהוּ זַרְעָא דְּשַׁפִּירֵי כְּווֹתִי
Rabbi Yochanan would go and sit by the entrance to the ritual bath. He said to himself: When Jewish women come up from their immersion [after their menstruation,] they should see me first so that they have beautiful children like me
Rabbi Yochanan’s actions were not really as bizarre as it might first seem. He believed that what a mother sees around the time she conceives will affect her offspring. This belief is called maternal imprinting or psychic maternal impressions, or mental influence, or maternal imagination, or (my favorite) maternal fancy. It was widespread in the ancient world, and not uncommon in the early modern one. (Maternal imprinting also has a very modern use, when it refers to the way in which an individual phenotype is determined by the environment and genotype of its mother. But that’s most certainly not the phenomena alluded to in the Talmud.)
“A surprising large number of people, in different cultures and over many centuries, have believed that a woman who imagines or sees someone other than her sexual partner at the moment of conception may imprint that image upon her child- thus predetermining its appearance, character or both.”
OTHER Maternal Imprinting in jewish sources
The earliest mention of maternal imprinting is the story of Yaakov and his division of the goats he watched for his uncle Lavan (Gen 30:25-43, 31:1-12). Yaakov asked for all the speckled goats as wages, while Lavan would get to keep the plain ones. Yaakov then took several wooden rods from which he peeled the bark, and left these now speckled rods in front of a water trough. The female goats stared at the rods while they are drinking and mating, and this in turn caused them to give birth to speckled kids, all of which Yaakov got to keep. That's how maternal imprinting works. And that's what Rav Yochanan was doing.
The Midrash and Talmud are replete with examples of maternal imprinting. Here is another example, this one to do with cows.
The Parah Adumah
The Parah Adumah, the red heifer, was used in several ceremonies in the Temple. It was, however, a rare animal. In the Talmud (Avodah Zarah 24a) there is a discussion as to whether a red heifer born to an idol-worshipper could be used. The concern was that the heifer, or one of its ancestors, might have been used by the idol-worshipper for beastiality. Should this have happened, it was forbidden to use the red heifer as a sacrifice. The Talmud relates that in fact an idol-worshipper called Daba ben Natina had sold a red heifer to his Jewish neighbors. To insure that the heifer's mother had not been the object of beastiality, the pregnant cow had been watched "משעה שנוצרה" – from the moment it was impregnated. Then comes an obvious question: how could anyone be sure that the cow was indeed pregnant with a red calf which would warrant safeguarding her? Perhaps the calf would be born another color?
Here is the answer: "כוס אדום מעבירין לפניה בשעה שעולה עליה זכר" -"while the mother was copulating, the farmer would show her a red cup." That would insure that she would give birth to a little red calf that would grow into a bigger red heifer.
Rabbi Akiva and the King of Arabia
Here is another example, in which Rabbi Akiva used maternal imprinting to save a king from a rather embarrassing situation:
מדרש תנחומא נשה, ז
מַעֲשֶׂה בְּמֶלֶךְ הָעַרְבִים שֶׁשָּׁאַל אֶת רַבִּי עֲקִיבָא, אֲנִי כּוּשִׁי וְאִשְׁתִּי כּוּשִׁית וְיָלְדָה לִי בֵּן לָבָן, הוֹרְגָהּ אֲנִי, שֶׁזָּנְתָה תַּחְתַּי. אָמַר לוֹ: צוּרוֹת בֵּיתְךָ שְׁחֹרוֹת אוֹ לְבָנוֹת. אָמַר לוֹ: לְבָנוֹת. אָמַר לוֹ: כְּשֶׁהָיִיתָ עוֹסֵק עִמָּהּ, עֵינֶיהָ נָתְנָה בְּצוּרוֹת לְבָנוֹת וְיָלְדָה כַּיּוֹצֵא בָּהֶם. וְאִם תָּמֵהַּ אַתָּה בַּדָּבָר, לְמַד מִן צֹאנוֹ שֶׁל יַעֲקֹב, שֶׁמִּן הַמַּקְלוֹת הָיוּ מִתְיַחֲמוֹת, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: וְיִחֲמוּ הַצֹּאן אֶל הַמַּקְלוֹת (בראשית ל, לט). וְהוֹדָה מֶלֶךְ הָעַרְבִים וְשִׁבַּח לְרַבִּי עֲקִיבָא
A king of Arabia once asked Rabbi Akiva, “I am black and my wife is black, yet she gave birth to a white child. Shall I have her executed for infidelity?” Rabbi Akiva responded by inquiring if the statues in his house where white or black. He said to Rabbi Akiva that they were white. Rabbi Akiva explained to the king that during conception his wife's eyes were fixed on the white statues and so she bore a white child...the king agreed and praised Rabbi Akiva
Maternal Imprinting in Greek Thought, and Beyond
In 1998 Professors Wendy Doniger and Gregory Spinner published perhaps the most comprehensive review of imprinting, in a paper titled Misconceptions: Female Imaginations and Male Fantasies in Parental Imprinting. They noted Empedocles, who lived in the fifth century BCE, wrote that
the fetuses are shaped by the imagination of the women around the time of conception. For often women have fallen in love with statues of men, and with images, and have produced offspring which resemble them.
Soranus of Ephesus, another Greek physician who lived in Rome and Alexandria (and who was a contemporary of Rabbi Yochanan) firmly believed in imprinting, both for animal husbandry and in humans:
Some women, seeing monkeys during intercourse, have borne children resembling monkeys. The tyrant of the Cyprians, who was misshapen, compelled his wife to look at beautiful statues during intercourse and became the father of well-shaped children; and horse-breeders, during covering, place noble horses in front of the mares.
Jumping forward a millennium, in 1282 it was reported that an infant was born with hair and claws like a bear. The Pope at the time "straightway ordered the destruction of all pictures of bears in Rome." This story is from John Ballantyne, a Scottish physician who in 1897 published Teratogenesis: an Inquiry into the Causes of Monstrosities. According to Ballantyne, in the seventeenth century, the belief in maternal impressions "reigned supreme." Here is another example of the kind of thing it led to:
And then things get even weirder:
In 1726 the matter of maternal impressions was brought still more prominently before the profession and the public in England in connexion [sic] with the notorious case of an "Extraordinary Delivery of Rabbets" which was alleged to have occurred in the case of Maria Tofts of Godlyman in Surrey; she had a great longing for 'Rabbets"in early pregnancy.
Pregnancy and the fetus
Maternal imprinting is a rather extreme form of what we all know to be true; that what happens to a pregnant mother affects the fetus she is carrying. Here are two of the countless examples of this. If a mother drinks enough alcohol while pregnant, the fetus will be born with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. This syndrome includes facial abnormalities, growth delays, abnormal development of organs, and reduced immunity. If a mother is infected with measles (rubella) early in pregnancy, the baby will likely be born with congenital rubella syndrome, which includes cataracts, congenital heart disease and brain damage. But these examples do not imply that a woman who eats eggs will have children with large eyes or that a woman who eats an esrog will have fragrant children, as the Talmud (Ketuvot 60b) declares. Some things a pregnant mother does will have a huge effect on the fetus she carries. Some won't have any affect at all.
John Ballantyne, the Scottish physician concluded his book noting, as we have, that of course there are some things a mother does that will affect fetal outcome. "To this extent" he wrote, "I believe in the old doctrine of maternal impressions; this is, I think, one grain of truth in an immense mass of fiction and accidental coincidence."
“The history of the belief in maternal impressions is one of great antiquity...it is also one of practically world-wide distribution. [It can be found in] such far apart lands as India, China, South America, Western Asia and East Africa..the Esquimaux, the Loango negros, and the old Japanese.”
More on Rabbi Yochanan’s Beauty
In tractate Bava Metziah (84a) the Talmud notes that Rabbi Yochanan was indeed a very handsome man - both by his own account, and that of others:
אמר רבי יוחנן אנא אישתיירי משפירי ירושלים האי מאן דבעי מחזי שופריה דרבי יוחנן נייתי כסא דכספא מבי סלקי ונמלייה פרצידיא דרומנא סומקא ונהדר ליה כלילא דוורדא סומקא לפומיה ונותביה בין שמשא לטולא ההוא זהרורי מעין שופריה דר' יוחנן
Rabbi Yochanan said: I alone remain of the beautiful people of Jerusalem.
The Gemara continues: One who wishes to see something resembling the beauty of Rabbi Yochanan should bring a new, shiny silver goblet from the smithy and fill it with red pomegranate seeds and place a diadem of red roses upon the lip of the goblet, and position it between the sunlight and shade. That luster is a semblance of Rabbi Yochanan’s beauty.
And never shying away from calling things as he saw them, Rav Pappa had this to say about another beautiful feature of Rav Yochanan
אמר רב פפא איבריה דרבי יוחנן כחמת בת חמשת קבין ואמרי לה בת שלשת קבין
The organ of Rabbi Yochanan was the size of a jug of five kav, and some say it was the size of a jug of three kav.
Well thanks for that. Rabbi Yochanan’s beauty was so great that it attracted Reish Lakish, then a highwayman, to abandon his ways and turn to the study of Torah.
יומא חד הוה קא סחי ר' יוחנן בירדנא חזייה ריש לקיש ושוור לירדנא אבתריה אמר ליה חילך לאורייתא אמר ליה שופרך לנשי א"ל אי הדרת בך יהיבנא לך אחותי דשפירא מינאי קביל עליה בעי למיהדר לאתויי מאניה ולא מצי הדר
The Gemara relates: One day, Rabbi Yochanan was bathing in the Jordan River. Reish Lakish saw him and jumped into the Jordan, pursuing him. At that time, Reish Lakish was the leader of a band of marauders. Rabbi Yochanan said to Reish Lakish: “Your strength is fit for Torah study.” Reish Lakish said to him: “Your beauty is fit for women.” Rabbi Yochanan said to him: “If you return to the pursuit of Torah, I will give you my sister in marriage, who is more beautiful than I am.”
Passing on what is really important
The story of Rabbi Yochanan sitting outside the mikveh doing some maternal imprinting is told twice in the Babylonian Talmud: once in today’s page of Talmud and a second time in Bava Metziah. In that second telling the Talmud adds an additional phrase, one not found in today’s passage.
בבא מציעא פד, א
ר' יוחנן הוה אזיל ויתיב אשערי טבילה אמר כי סלקן בנות ישראל מטבילת מצוה לפגעו בי כי היכי דלהוו להו בני שפירי כוותי גמירי אורייתא כוותי
Rabbi Yochanan would go and sit by the entrance to the ritual bath. He said to himself: When Jewish women come up from their immersion [after their menstruation,] they should see me first so that they have beautiful children like me, and as learned of the Torah as I am…
In this other version of the story, Rav Yochanan was not only interested in passing on his physical beauty. He was just as interested in passing on the Torah wisdom that he had accumulated. And despite what he and others believed, passing that on takes a lot more than a glancing look at a rabbi. However attractive he might have been.
[Special thanks to Rabbi Dr. Eddie Reichman, medical historian and Talmudology reader who has been researching maternal imprinting for years, and was kind enough to share his material. Mostly a repost from here.]
