Today’s page of Talmud continues with a scatological theme.
ברכות כב,ב
מֵיתִיבִי: הַמַּשְׁמִיעַ קוֹלוֹ בִּתְפִלָּתוֹ — הֲרֵי זֶה מִקְּטַנֵּי אֲמָנָה. הַמַּגְבִּיהַּ קוֹלוֹ בִּתְפִלָּתוֹ הֲרֵי זֶה מִנְּבִיאֵי הַשֶּׁקֶר מְגַהֵק וּמְפַהֵק — הֲרֵי זֶה מִגַּסֵּי הָרוּחַ. הַמִּתְעַטֵּשׁ בִּתְפִלָּתוֹ — סִימָן רַע לוֹ. וְיֵשׁ אוֹמְרִים: נִיכָּר שֶׁהוּא מְכוֹעָר. הָרָק בִּתְפִלָּתוֹ — כְּאִילּוּ רָק בִּפְנֵי הַמֶּלֶךְ
כָּאן מִלְּמַטָּה...
דְּאָמַר רַב זֵירָא: הָא מִילְּתָא אִבַּלְעָא לִי בֵּי רַב הַמְנוּנָא וּתְקִילָא לִי כִּי כּוּלֵּי תַּלְמוּדַאי: הַמִּתְעַטֵּשׁ בִּתְפִלָּתוֹ סִימָן יָפֶה לוֹ, כְּשֵׁם שֶׁעוֹשִׂים לוֹ נַחַת רוּחַ מִלְּמַטָּה, כָּךְ עוֹשִׂים לוֹ נַחַת רוּחַ מִלְּמַעְלָה
One who prays loudly during his Amida prayer is among those of little faith, (as he seems to believe that the Lord cannot hear his prayer when it is uttered silently). One who raises his voice during prayer is considered to be among the false prophets (as they too were wont to cry out and shout to their gods). One who belches and yawns while praying is surely among the uncouth. One who sneezes during his prayer, for him it is a bad omen. And some say: It is clear that he is repulsive. Also, one who spits during prayer, it is tantamount to spitting in the face of the king.
…here it is referring to sneezing from below, ie. flatulence.
And so today Talmudology will review flatulence.
Research into Flatulence
Here is Mary Roach, describing the origin of the scientific study of flatulence from her jolly book Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal. (WW Norton & Company 2013, 239-240.)
“One of the earliest flatus studies on record was carried out by the Parisian physician Francois Magendie. In 1816, Magendie published a paper entitled “Note on the Intestinal Gas of a Healthy Man.” The title is misleading, for although the man in question suffered no illness, he was dead and missing his head. “In Paris” Magendie wrote in Annales de Chime et de Physique, “the condemned ordinarily, one hour or two before their execution, have a light meal.” With red wine. So French! “Digestion is thus fully active at the moment of their death.” From 1814 to 1815, the city fathers of Paris, seeming also to have lost their heads, agreed to release the bodies of four guillotined men to Magendie’s lab for a study on the chemical makeup of flatus. One to four hours after the blade had dropped, Magendie extracted gas from four points along the digestive tract and measured what he could.
Somewhat less cruelly, in 1991 two British researchers somehow convinced ten “normal volunteers” to allow them to insert a tube into their rectums in order to collect twenty-four hours’ worth of intestinal gas, (though perhaps participating in such a study indicates anything but being considered normal). The study confirmed “the variability of flatus production; the total volumes of gas expelled by the volunteers are similar to values reported by other workers, which on normal or unspecified diets range from 200 to 2460ml/24h.”
If you think that was a weird study, there is more. In 1996 two gastroenterologists published a study with what is surely one of the all-time best titles for a medical paper: Factors Influencing Frequency of Flatus Emission by Healthy Subjects. Its purpose was “to measure the frequency of flatus emission by 25 healthy subjects and to determine if factors commonly thought to influence flatulence actually correlate with the frequency of gas passage.” They found 13 healthy women and 12 healthy men who apparently had a dedicated interest in this subject and asked them to monitor their flatulence. “Subjects scrupulously recorded the time of each passage of flatus by making a check mark at the appropriate time on a 24-hr scale.” The average number of episodes was 10, but it increased to 19 when 10g/day of lactulose was added. And despite what you may have experienced, men and women were equally gassy.
“
Flatulence generally has been the province of lay conjecture and scatological humor rather than serious scientific investigation. As a result, there is a paucity of simple, basic information concerning what constitutes normal with regard to flatulence”
The Origin of Flatulence
Gas gets into our intestines either by being swallowed, diffusing from the bloodstream or as a result of bacterial metabolism. It is removed either through the mouth by (burping, or eructation as doctors like to call it) the anus (as flatus) or by our gut bacteria that metabolize it. “The net of these processes proximal to a given site in the gut” wrote two gastroenterologists in a paper titled An Understanding of Excessive Intestinal Gas “determines the volume and composition of gas passing that site; the net of these processes throughout the entire gut determines the volume and mean composition of the entire gastrointestinal gas volume.”
Most of the gasses produced in the bowel from the breakdown of food have no odor. These are nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide and methane. Nitrogen is the predominant gas when air swallowing is the major source, whereas hydrogen, carbon dioxide and methane are predominant when most of the gas is derived from bacterial metabolism.The unpleasant smell is from trace gases that contain sulfur, such as hydrogen sulfide, methanethiol (CH3SH) and dimethylsulfide. And most of the gas is actually eructed away “even though many patients deny knowledge of even a single belch a day.” Only a minority escapes as flatulence.
Correlation between age of subject and flatus frequency. From Furne J.K and Levitt M.D. Factors Influencing Frequency of Flatus Emission by Healthy Subjects. Digestive Diseases and Sciences, 1996: 41 (8). 1631-1635
Can you Pray inside a military tank?
Rav Yosef Zvi Rimon is the rabbi of Alon Shvut South in Israel and a lot else besides. He is the Rosh Yeshiva of the Jerusalem College of Technology, and has written several books on Jewish law, which are published through Sulamot, an educational non-profit organization that he spearheads. He also serves as a someone who rules in areas of Jewish law, known Hebrew as a posek. It was in this role that he was asked by a soldier serving in the tank corps of the Israel Defense Forces whether he could pray will inside his tank. It turns out that while cooped up inside a tank during a military operation, the crew must urinate (and more) inside a plastic bag, which is then set off to one side, until such time that the crew can safely leave. Given the smell, is it permissible for a soldier to pray in this setting?
Rav Rimon discussed this with an American colleague who suggested that since the soldier was engaged in the mitzvah of the preservation of life (פיקוח נפש), he was automatically exempt from the requirement to pray. Rav Rimon took an entirely different approach, one that reflects a sensitivity to the spiritual needs of a soldier on the front lines, and that was entirely missed by the American’s response:
מעולם לא פנה אלי חייל בבקשה שאפטור אותו מתפילה. להיפך, חיילים רוצים להתפלל, חיילים רוצים קשר נוסף ומיוחד עם הקב”ה. גם חיילים שאינם דתיים חיפשו דרכים להרבות בתפילה ובקיום מצוות במציאות זו
I have never told a soldier that he is exempt from the obligation to pray. On the contrary, soldiers want to pray, and desire an additional and unique connection to the Holy One, Blessed Be He. Even soldiers who are generally not religious look for opportunities to pray…
Yes, replied the rabbi, it was permitted to pray inside the tank so long as the excreta were covered properly. And if the smells in the tank were those that the soldiers eventually became accustomed to bearing, there would be no prohibition for them to pray - although an air freshener might be a preferable intervention.
“במקרה שלנו, כיוון שהחיילים התרגלו לריח, הרי שעבורם אין זה ריח רע, ויש מקום לדון האם היה ניתן להקל באופן זה אף ללא מטהר אוויר, וייתכן שבדוחק יש מקום להקל בכך, אם כי ייתכן שעדיף במקרה זה להתפלל בהרהור
:לסיכום
חיילים הנמצאים בטנק סגור, ובתוך הטנק יש צואה, ישימו את הצואה בתוך כלי סגור, וכך יוכלו להתפלל כאשר אין ריח רע. כיוון שהצואה נחשבת באופן זה כ”רשות אחרת” הרי שניתן לבטל את הריח על ידי מטהר אוויר (ובדוחק יש מקום אולי להקל, אם כל הנמצאים שם התרגלו לריח, ועבורם הוא לא משפיע).”
A Prayer after Flatulence
The great mathematician Paul Erdos who died in 1996 described mathematicians as “machines that turn coffee into theorems.” In a similar vein we could describe the sages of the Talmud as machines that turn everyday natural occurrences into moments of metaphysical meaning, and a perfect demonstration can be found in today’s page of Talmud. While most of us consider flatulence to be a target of boyish jokes or an occurrence best ignored, the rabbis took an entirely different tack. They used it as an opportunity to praise God, and left us with what is perhaps the only example in any religion of a prayer to be recited after passing wind.
אַשְׁכְּחֵיהּ לְתַנָּא דְּקָתָנֵי קַמֵּיהּ דְּרַב יְהוּדָה: הָיָה עוֹמֵד בִּתְפִלָּה וְנִתְעַטֵּשׁ — מַמְתִּין עַד שֶׁיִּכְלֶה הָרוּחַ וְחוֹזֵר וּמִתְפַּלֵּל. אִיכָּא דְאָמְרִי: הָיָה עוֹמֵד בִּתְפִלָּה וּבִיקֵּשׁ לְהִתְעַטֵּשׁ — מַרְחִיק לְאַחֲרָיו אַרְבַּע אַמּוֹת, וּמִתְעַטֵּשׁ, וּמַמְתִּין עַד שֶׁיִּכְלֶה הָרוּחַ, וְחוֹזֵר וּמִתְפַּלֵּל, וְאוֹמֵר:
״רִבּוֹנוֹ שֶׁל עוֹלָם, יְצַרְתָּנוּ נְקָבִים נְקָבִים חֲלוּלִים חֲלוּלִים, גָּלוּי וְיָדוּעַ לְפָנֶיךָ חֶרְפָּתֵנוּ וּכְלִימָּתֵנוּ בְּחַיֵּינוּ וּבְאַחֲרִיתֵנוּ רִמָּה וְתוֹלֵעָה״
אֲמַר לֵיהּ: אִילּוּ לֹא בָּאתִי אֶלָּא לִשְׁמוֹעַ דָּבָר זֶה — דַּיִּי
One who was standing in prayer and passed wind waits until the odor dissipates and resumes praying. Some say: One who was standing in prayer when he felt the need to pass wind, steps back four cubits, passes wind, waits until the odor dissipates and resumes praying. And before resuming his prayer, he says:
“Master of the universe, You have formed us with many orifices and cavities; our disgrace and shame in life are clear and evident before You, as is our destiny with maggots and worms, and so we should not be judged harshly.”
…Rabbi Abba said to him: Had I only come to the assembly of the Sages to hear this teaching, it would have been sufficient for me.
