On today’s page of Talmud we continue the discussion of pandemics, and one of Jewish responses to them, which is to fast. But in this passage of Talmud the victims of the pandemic are not human. They are pigs.
תענית כא, ב
אֲמַרוּ לֵיהּ לְרַב יְהוּדָה: אִיכָּא מוֹתָנָא בַּחֲזִירֵי. גְּזַר תַּעֲנִיתָא. נֵימָא קָסָבַר רַב יְהוּדָה מַכָּה מְשׁוּלַּחַת מִמִּין אֶחָד מְשׁוּלַּחַת מִכל הַמִּינִין? לָא, שָׁאנֵי חֲזִירֵי — דְּכמְיָין מְעַיְיהוּ לִבְנֵי אִינָשֵׁי
On one occasion, they said to Rav Yehuda: There is pestilence among the pigs. Rav Yehuda decreed a fast. The Gemara asks: Let us say that Rav Yehuda maintains that a plague affecting one species will come to affect all species, and that is why he decreed a fast. The Gemara answers: No, in other cases there is no cause for concern. However, pigs are different, as their intestines are similar to those of humans. Consequently, their disease might spread to people.
Rav Yehuda’s ruling became normative Jewish practice, and is codified in the Shulhan Arukh:
שולחן ערוך אורח חיים 576:2-3
היה דבר במדינה ושיירו' הולכו' ובאו' ממנה למדינה אחר' שתיהן מתענו' אע"פ שהן רחוקו' זו מזו
ואם היה דבר בחזירים מתענין מפני שמעיהם דומים לשל בני אדם וכל שכן אם היה דבר בעכו"ם ולא בישראל שמתענים
…If there was an outbreak in one area and those who escaped were able to flee to another, both places must fast, even though they may be far apart.
If there was an outbreak of disease among pigs, we declare a fast because their intestines are similar to those of humans, and certainly if there was an outbreak among idolators that spared Jews we must still declare a fast.
Influenza in Pigs and People
Jews are required to fast in response to an epidemic, regardless of whether it had spread in their own particular community. They also have to do so even if the disease remained within the animal reservoir.
This requirement was ominously prescient, because one strain of influenza, the A strain, infects not only humans, but several other mammalian species, as well as some birds. The animal strains may pass from one mammalian species to another, sometimes gaining virulence as they do so. The 1918 influenza pandemic, which killed at least 50 million people, is thought to have originated as a bird virus which then passed through a mammalian host, most likely pigs, before infecting humans. In 1975, swine flu threatened the US and led the federal government to undertake an enormous – and very controversial – mass vaccination program. And in 2009 there was another outbreak of swine flu, which originated in Mexico. The Jewish requirement to fast in response to an outbreak of swine flu, is, medically speaking, spot on.
A Jewish Prayer for cattle
This sensitivity to zoonotic infections was not just theoretical; there is at least one example of a prayer specifically composed to save animals during a pandemic. It is a beautifully printed prayer sheet titled “A Prayer to End an Outbreak of Disease among the Cattle” and may have been composed in Italy in the late eighteenth century., but there are no further details of its origins. I am grateful to Sharon Hurwitz and Ann Brener of the Library of Congress for bringing this remarkable document to my attention. (The reference to it is Library of Congress Hebrew Broadside Collection, Hebrew Cage no. 21.)
A Prayer to End an Outbreak of Disease among the Cattle. Library of Congress Hebrew Broadside Collection, Hebrew Cage no. 21
Here is a flavor of the prayer:
Master of the Universe, Creator of the heavens who spread them out in the celestial sky and over the land, who bestowed a soul in the people that dwell on land and a spirit in those who walk on it!
You created all the animals, beasts, creatures, and birds of flight. What is humanity that you should remember it? What are people that you should visit them, that your divinity should pity them, that your honor and glory should crown them?…
You have made him master over your handiwork, laying the world at his feet. Flocks in their thousands, God’s creatures, the birds of the skies and the fish in the oceans, so that the poor may have food and be satiated. Let all who seek God speak his praises, may their hearts endure forever.
As a result of our sins [these animals] were smitten, and our sins prevented good for them. The disease has started to attack animals and birds. How the animals sighed, how the flocks despaired, for God’s hand afflicted them and scattered a plague in their midst...
Grant a complete cure and healing to all all flesh through your goodness and through your mercy, as it is written God is good to all, his mercy extends over all his creations.We beseech you, let your mercy be stronger than your justice. See our poverty and our burden, and accept our repentance and our prayers with pity…
Please God, please heal all the creatures with a heart, heal, turn away your anger, annul all the evil decrees for us and for all Israel with abundant mercy, and end the plague that attacks all the animals and the beasts in the fields…
The Anglican and Catholic Churches Also Prayed for Cattle
Unusual though this prayer may seem at first, it was not a uniquely Jewish expression. As Alasdair Raffe noted in his excellent paper on the topic, in England the Anglican Church added a prayer for the relief of cattle mortality in 1748 which was used daily for the next eleven years. And when bovine disease recurred during an outbreak of cholera in 1865, three new prayers were composed for the Anglican service.
Still, these prayers could be controversial. “In 1754 a clerical correspondent of the London Evening Post complained that the prayer for the relief of disease in cattle had 'nothing of the Spirit of the Gospel in it’ and was an invitation to the congregation 'to be carnally minded,' though this probably says more about the state of mind of the correspondent than it does of the clerics who composed these prayers.
In 1866 Alexander Goss, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Liverpool wrote a series of prayers for cattle “whether presented to you in droves or in their stalls.”
Let us pray
O God, our refuge and strength, hear the pious prayers of thy church, thou, author of piety, and grant that we obtain speedily what we are asking for full of confidence. …
Let us pray
May these animals receive thy blessing, O Lord: may their bodies be saved and be delivered from all evil through the intercession of the blessed Antony. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Let us pray
We humbly beseech thy mercy, o Lord, and pray that thou mayst grant protection to these cattle and (other) animals from all the devil’s deception and power, as well as from any illness, through the power of the blessing with your name. Be thou, O Lord, their defense, their support in life and their remedy in illness, and multiply thy mercy and kindness, so that thy holy name will be glorified forever. Amen.[The priest then sprinkles holy water. ]
In Jewish law, we are to pray for others who are suffering in a pandemic, whether or not we ourselves are also affected. We are to pray for Jews, Gentiles, “idolators” and yes, even for pigs.
