Shabbat 109b ~ Curing Snakebites

The Palestinian Viper צפע ארצישראלי. Vipera palaestinae

Snake Bites Everywhere

Snake bites were a widespread fear in ancient Israel. The Talmud warns that snakes can be found in houses and records a snake attack that occurred in the toilet, so going to the bathroom was a risk to one’s life. (Snakes still appear to make relieving oneself in the Holy Land a dangerous enterprise, if this report is to be believed.)  There was also a great fear of drinking water into which a snake may have expelled some venom, and loyal Talmudology readers may recall that we previously examined this concern (and included a clip of a man safely drinking freshly expelled snake venom. Actually, if you remember, there is no danger, even in places where snakes are found. Snakes only discharge their venom when they intend to bite, not when stopping for a drink. And even if there was venom in the liquid, snake venom is not absorbed by the human gastrointestinal tract, so it would have absolutely no effect. But I digress.)

In tomorrow’s page of Talmud, the fear of snakes is taken to a whole new level, at least for women. What should a woman do if she thinks she is being being pursued by a particularly amorous snake? How can she get that snake to give up the chase? And finally, what can she do if the snake has already entered her is an act of carnal intimacy?

All this shows how dangerous snakes were, and so when they did not bite, it was considered to be miraculous. Hence the Mishnah (Avot 5:5) records that one of the ten miracles that occurred during the time of the Second Temple was that no person was ever injured by a snake.

In today’s page of Talmud, we focus on a cure for a snakebite:

שבת קט,ב

 האי מאן דטרקיה חיויא ליתי עוברא דחמרא חיורתא וליקרעיה ולותביה עילויה והני מילי דלא אישתכח טרפה ההוא

One who was bitten by a snake should have the fetus of a white donkey brought to him, and it should be torn open and placed on the snakebite.

At first the suggestion sounds ridiculous. Why on earth should a donkey’s fetus cure a snakebite, and what difference does the color of the mother donkey make? But we can begin to make sense of the suggestion by noting the Aramaic words for snake (chivyah) and white (chivrah). Say them out loud. There was a belief that “like cures like” and while we are still at a loss to describe why a donkey’s fetus might be used, we can at least make sense of the white aspect of the whole thing.

snake bites in Israel and around the world

The Talmudic concern for snakebites clearly reflected a reality: they are prevalent in the middle east, and were often deadly. Indeed snakebites remain a threat in Israel and beyond (though in my six years of working in Jerusalem as an emergency physician I recall treating only one victim; he was a handler at a private snake collection- who should have known better.)

In the US, venomous snakes are found in every state except Maine, Alaska and Hawaii, and each year in the US there are about 2,000 recorded venomous snakebites that result in about 6 deaths. The World Health Organization estimates that snakes kill between 20,000 and 94,000 people per year.

Kastururante A. et al. The Global Burden of Snakebite. PLOS Medicine 2008. 5:1591-1604

Snakes are such a problem for Israel and its neighbors that in 1998 the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and the Jordanian Armed Forces held a joint conference on the topic. Since snakes are cold blooded, they are virtually inactive in the winter months, and summer time can be too hot for them; hence they are most active in the spring and fall. Just as the Talmud described in Yevamot 116b, the IDF found that the peak incidence for snakebites is May (that is, harvest time). 

Snakebites in the IDF. Average incidence per month, 1993-1997. From Haviv, J, et al. Field treatment of snakebites in the Israel Defense Forces. Public Health Rev 1988; 26:24-256.

There are at least eight species of poisonous snake found in Israel, of which the most common is the Palestine Viper, (shown in the photo at the top of the page) which is found in all regions north of Be’er Sheva. It is this snake that is responsible for all the fatal snake bites in Israel, though the IDF reported not one fatality during its five year study period. 

sidebar: palestinian or israel viper?

Let's re-read that last paragraph:

“There are at least eight other species of poisonous snake found in Israel, of which the most common is the Palestine Viper”

Is that its real name? Well, it depends who you ask, or perhaps, in what language you ask. The snake's Latin name is Vipera palaestinae, and its Hebrew name is...צפע ארצישראלי! The snake could have been given a Hebrew name that was transliterated from the Latin, i.e. צפע פלסטיני – but that's not what whoever chose the name decided to do.  Outside the case of the viper in the Jerusalem Zoo, this multiple naming is evident:

(It's not only snakes that have may have a crisis of identity. The chamomile flower, common in Israel, is called by its scientific name Anthemis palaestina, and in Hebrew it is קחוון ארצישראלי. Similarly the Terebinth; it is known to the scientific community as Pistacia palaestina, and in Hebrew as אלה ארץ-ישראלית. I could go on, but the point is made.)

One snake living happily, called two names by two peoples. There's a lesson there somewhere. But I digress.

the treatment of snake bites in the Talmud - and today

As we noted, today’s page of Talmud offers a remedy for the unfortunate person bitten by a snake (of either the Palestinian or Israeli variety. Not the person. The snake.)

If one is bitten by a snake, he should take an embryo of a white donkey, tear it open, and place it on the bite

How does this advice compare with the IDF field manual? Not very well, as you can see from this list of the field treatment do's and dont's from the Medical Corps of the IDF.  Embryos of white donkeys do not make it. (Donkey embryos as a therapy also fail to make a fascinating 1953 report of 65 cases of viper bite in Israel.)

Haviv, J, et al. Field treatment of snakebites in the Israel Defense Forces. Public Health Rev 1988; 26:24-256.

Snake venom produces its deadly effects by causing a coagulopathy, which is the general name for a breakdown in the normal way the blood clots.  When things get really bad, snake venom causes a consumption coagulopathy, in which (as its name implies),  all the vital bits that are needed for blood to clot are consumed, leaving the poor victim susceptible to life-threatening uncontrollable bleeding. Here's a chart of the clotting pathways that medical students have to learn (a process only slightly less painful than a snake bite itself,) with the bits that venom attacks shown in green.

Diagram of the clotting pathway showing the major clotting factors (blue) and their role in the activation of the pathway and clot formation. The four major groups of snake toxins that activated the clotting pathway are in green and the intermediate or incomplete products they form are indicated in dark red. There are four major types of prothrombin activators, which either convert thrombin to form the catalytically active meizothrombin (Group A and B) or to thrombin (Group C and D). From Maduwage K, Isbister GK. Current Treatment for Venom-Induced Consumption Coagulopathy Resulting from Snakebite. PLoS Negl Trop Dis 2014. 8(10): 1-13.

The standard treatment for snake envenomation is antivenom. (This is a technical term for something that is anti the venom.) In the 1950s  antivenom was already part of the standard  treatment of viper bites in Israel, though apparently it was then called by the far fancier name of "serum antivenimeux."  (If chemistry or immunology is your thing, you can read more about how viper antivenom was made in Israel here.) These antivenoms work in a number of ways, one of which is by blocking the toxin and preventing it from binding to its target (i.e. those green diamonds in the diagram above).

snakes that heal

Snakes aren't only associated with coma, convulsions and death.  They are - paradoxically -  often associated with those who heal.  Here is the cover of Fred Rosner's book; notice what looks like two snakes wrapped around a winged pole.  Compare that image with the insignia of the US Army Medical Corps below.

The lower image is the caduceus, the rod carried by the Greek god Hermes (known as Mercury when in Rome). But in fact this double-snake flying-rod has nothing to do with healing, and is erroneously -though very widely- used as a medical emblem.  But as an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association points out, the adoption of the double-snaked caduceus of Hermes - at least in the US - is likely due to its having been used as a watermark by the prolific medical publisher John Churchill.   

The correct mythological association is with the Staff  of Asklepios, the ancient Greco-Roman god of medicine. In one legend, a snake placed some herbs into the mouth of another serpent that Asklepios had killed, and the dead snake was restored to life.  As a mark of respect, Asklepios adopted as his emblem  a snake coiled around his staff.  While the US Army Medical Corps uses the caducues as its badge, on its regimental flag the US Army Medical Command uses the more appropriate single snaked staff. Oh, and a rooster.  

U.S. Army Medical Command Regimental Flag. Don't ask about the rooster...

Fortunately, the Israel Defense Forces clearly know a caduceus from an Asklepios. They adopted the correct Greco-Roman mythological symbol for the medical unit of the first Jewish army in 2,000 years.

The Greeks may have had their tradition, but we have ours. And in ours, it is never the snake that heals.

“עשה לך שרף ושים אותו על נס, והיה כל הנשוך וראה אותו וחי. וכי נחש ממית או נחש מחיה? אלא בזמן שישראל מסתכלין כלפי מעלה ומשעבדין את לבם לאביהן שבשמים היו מתרפאים, ואם לאו היו נימוקים...

”Make a fiery snake and place it on a pole, and it will be that anyone who is bitten will look at it and live” [Numbers 21:8] But is a snake the source of life and death? Rather, the verse means that when Israel looked up and submitted their heart to their Father in Heaven, they were healed, but if they did not do so, they perished.”

— Mishnah Rosh Hashanah 3:8

Shabbat 108-110 ~ Might Talmudic Medicines Really Work?

For the next couple of days, those who study the Talmud following the one-page-a-day Daf Yomi cycle will spend some time reading about cutting edge medical practices.  In Babylon. About 1,500 years ago. Here's a smattering of some of those practices:

For  a hand or foot wound

• Immerse the wound in wine (especially if you are from Mehoza). For injuries to the back of the hand, use vinegar instead (Shabbat 108b).

For liver worms

• Swallow some white cress. If that does not help, you should fast, and then take fatty meat and place it on coals and suck the bone and swallow vinegar. If that does not help, take the sawdust that was scraped from the shell of a thorn bush from top to bottom, (though not from bottom to top, since perhaps then the worms will come out through the mouth). Then boil the scrapings in beer at twilight and the next day close your nostrils and drink it. Then defecate on the trunk of a palm tree (Shabbat 109b).

For a snake bite

• Tear up the fetus of a white donkey. Apply to the wound (Shabbat 109b).

For a genital discharge

• Boil three pans of Persian onions in wine. Drink the mixture (Shabbat 110b). If the discharge persists, take a fistful of cumin, saffron, and fenugreek, cook them in wine, and give drink, while saying to the patient: “Stop emitting your discharge” (Shabbat 110b).

For jaundice

• Drink grasshopper brine. If your chemist lacks grasshopper brine, substitute with brine of small birds, enter a bathhouse, and smear yourself (Shabbat110b).

For toothache

• Swish with wine vinegar (Shabbat 111a).

We could go on but no doubt you've got the idea.  While I doubt there are many of us eager to look for a pregnant white donkey should we be bitten by a snake, some ancient remedies appear to have remarkable healing properties. Here, for example is a review of the healing properties of acetic acid, better known as vinegar, which today’s page of Talmud recommends for a number of different conditions. It was published in a paper earlier this year.

Vinegar is generally acknowledged to act as a mild disinfectant, and pure acetic acid has been shown to exhibit various bactericidal effects at concentrations similar to or lower than those typically found in vinegar. This includes the ability to kill cells of key opportunistic pathogens living as monospecies biofilms (clinical isolates of the Gram-negative species Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Acinetobacter baumannii, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Enterobacter cloacae, and Proteus mirabilis, plus the Gram-positive species Staphylococcus aureus. As a weak acid, it can readily cross cell membranes and collapse the cross-membrane proton gradient necessary for ATP synthesis; once inside the cell, acetic acid alters the cytoplasmic pH, and this can cause DNA damage and protein unfolding. A clinical trial into the effectiveness of acetic acid for treating burn wound infections is under way in the United Kingdom.

“ A rich source of new antimicrobials potentially resides in medieval and early modern medical texts”

— Harrison F, Roberts AEL, Gabrilska R, Rumbaugh KP, Lee C, Diggle SP. 2015. A 1,000-year-old antimicrobial remedy with antistaphylococcal activity. mBio 6(4):e01129- 15.

A 1,000-Year-Old Antimicrobial Remedy

Bald’s eyesalve. A facsimile of the recipe, taken from the manuscript known as Bald’s Leechbook (London, British Library, Royal 12, D xvii).

I am not aware of any published descriptions of attempts to test these talmudic remedies. But a recent paper described something close. It was an attempt to reproduce a remedy described in Bald's Leechbook, an English medical text written in the tenth century. This text, which exists as a single copy in the British Library in London, contains a number of remedies, including those for what appear to be microbial infections.  Here's one of them:  

Make an eyesalve against a wen [a lump in the eye]: take equal amounts of cropleac [an Allium species] and garlic, pound well together, take equal amounts of wine and oxgall, mix with the alliums, put this in a brass vessel, let [the mixture] stand for nine nights in the brass vessel, wring through a cloth and clarify well, put in a horn and at night apply to the eye with a feather; the best medicine.

The most likely clinical condition that correlates with a wen is a hordeolum, or, in non-medical language, a sty. It's a bacterial infection of an eyelash follicle, caused by a common bacterium called Staph. Aureus. They are easily treated with antibiotic cream and warm compresses. A group of medical researchers (with the help of a historian from the School of English and Centre for the Study of the Viking Age at the University of Nottingham) tested the effect of Bald’s eyesalve on Staph. aureus. They wanted to to determine if it worked at all.  If it did, they wanted to see if its efficacy could be attributed to a single ingredient, or whether it only worked when all the ingredients were combined according to the instructions laid down by Bald.  

Of course the first thing the scientists needed to do was to figure out what some of ingredients were. For example, copleac might be an onion, or a leek. (Actually, they couldn't figure out which of the two it was, so they made two variants of the recipe.) Next, they took both the recipe, and controls, which were the individual ingredients alone, and after leaving them to stand for "nine nights" as the Leechbook requires (læt standan ni􏰍on niht) they applied them to colonies of Staph Aureus. Then they counted the number of colonies of the bacteria that remained.

Two hundred microliters of ES-Onion or ES-Leek (batch A, filled circles, and batch B, open circles) or of each individual ingredient preparation was added to five 1-day-old cultures of S. aureus growing at 37°C in a synthetic wound. After 24 h of further incubation, the collagen was dissolved to recover cells for agar plate counts. The control treatment was sterile distilled water left to stand for 9 days in the presence of brass, which was also present in all other preparations, to simulate the presence of a copper alloy vessel Asterisks denote treatments whose results were significantly different from those of the control. From Harrison F, Roberts AEL, Gabrilska R, Rumbaugh KP, Lee C, Diggle SP. 2015. A 1,000-year-old antimicrobial remedy with antistaphylococcal activity. mBio 6(4):e01129-15.

To their great delight they found the recipe was only effective when all the ingredients were present. They even tested whether it was necessary to wait for nine days and reported that "the number of viable cells left after treatment with either version...was [significantly] lower when the eyesalve had been left to stand for 9 days prior to use." In other words, the potion concocted only worked when the recipe was followed in its entirety; skipping any part decreased the efficacy.    

“What is the remedy for a boil? — Abaye said: [A mixture of] ginger and silver dross and sulphur and vinegar of wine and olive oil and white naphtha laid on with a goose’s quill.”

— Gittin 86a

But the next experiments were no less remarkable. The researchers tested the potion on methicillin-resistant Staph. Aureus (MRSA) which is an entirely modern "superbug". Through the indiscriminate and widespread use of antiobiotics, this strain of Staph. Aureus has grown resistant to the usual antibiotics, and is very real health problem.  The researchers tested the onion (ES-O) and leek (ES-L) versions against a standard antibiotic used to treat MRSA, called vancomycin, using mice that had been infected with the superbug. Vancomycin, the standard modern therapy, did not cause significant reductions in viable bacteria, but "ES-O and ES-L caused statistically significant drops in the numbers of viable cells recovered from wounds." In fact when compared to our modern vancomycis, the Leechbook potions caused a ten-fold reduction in the number of viable MRSA cells recovered. Of course there's a long way between a single small study done on cell cultures and mice, and a drug that is safe and effective in humans. But this story reveals how come very old medical texts may contain treatments that work, and another analysis of an old Welsh medical text published in the Journal of Ethnopharmacology also found several ingredients with antimicrobial activity.

[For more on the the story of the discovery of Bald'eye remedy, listen to this wonderful podcast:]

Data Mining a Medieval Medical Text

Earlier this year a group of scientists took the Bald’s Leechbook idea to the next level. Perhaps medieval medical texts could be turned into electronic databases which could then be explored by a computer algorithm. This time the text was the 15th-century Lylye of Medicynes, which focuses on remedies to treat symptoms of microbial infection. (The book is a Middle English translation of Bernard of Gordon’s Lilium Medicinae, originally completed in the early 14th century. The text is extant in one manuscript, University of Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS. Ashmole 1505.)

The book has an amazing 3,548 ingredients (747 unique names) used to treat 124 unique disease names, of which 41 could be classified as potential skin, mouth, or eye infections. Then the team looked to see which ingredients were commonly used together, and built patterns of ingredients, like this:

Example of an ingredient network. The nodes in yellow are ingredients of a recipe for the treatment of fistula in lacrimali; those in blue are ingredients of a recipe for the treatment of pascionibus oris. Ingredients found in both recipes are colored both yellow and blue. Thicker links join pairs of ingredients that appear in both recipes.

In this way the group could identify which ingredients were core components. These were then tested for activity against two Gram-positive opportunistic soft tissue pathogens (Staphylococcus aureus and Enterococcus faecalis) and two Gram-negative opportunistic soft tissue pathogens (Escherichia coli and Pseudomonas aeruginosa).

As you can see in the table above, there are some interesting results. The combination of Aloe vera and breast milk could interfere with the killing effects of honey (for P. aeruginosa and E. coli) or those of frankincense plus sumac (for P. aeruginosa, E. coli and S. aureus); however, in the case of E. faecalis, combining bile with honey or combining frankincense-sumac with honey led to the synergistic emergence of bactericidal activity.

Perhaps, noted the authors, “the combinations of honey, acetic acid, bile, and frankincense and/or sumac may be worth investigation for their ability to potentiate each other’s antibacterial effects…”

“If medieval physicians really did use observation and experience to design effective antimicrobial
medicines, then this predates the generally accepted date for the adoption of a rational scientific method (the formation of the Royal Society in the mid-17th century) and the modern age of antibacterial medicine (Lister’s use of carbolic acid in the late 19th century) by several hundred years.”

— Harrison F, Roberts AEL, Gabrilska R, Rumbaugh KP, Lee C, Diggle SP. 2015. A 1,000-year-old antimicrobial remedy with antistaphylococcal activity. mBio 6(4):e01129-15

The 2015 Nobel Prize for an Ancient Remedy

“ ...take one bunch of Qinghao, soak in two sheng of water, wring it out to obtain the juice and ingest it in its entirety”

— Extract from The Handbook of Prescriptions for Emergency Treatments by Ge Hong (283–343 CE).

Another example of the medical wisdom of some ancient texts was acknowledged by the Nobel Prize Committee, no less. In 2015, the Nobel Prize in Medicine was shared by the Chinese physician Youyou Tu "for her discoveries concerning a novel therapy against Malaria." Professor Tu led a team that screened more than 2,000 traditional Chinese medical herbs for antimalarial activity. Extracts from a herb known locally as Qinghao, (Artemisia annua) inhibited the malarial parasite and was successfully tested on mice in 1971. Clinical studies in the 1980s established the efficacy of artemicinin (as it came to be called). This drug is now part of the standard treatment for malaria worldwide.  Yet it was first identified in a Chinese medical text from the third century CE. - the era of the Mishnah and early Talmud.

But do be careful…

Ancient texts certainly may contain efficacious treatment, though the odds are stacked against them. Today only a very tiny number of compounds that are screened for possible medical benefit ever make it to early trials, and of those most fail. It would take a lot of convincing to get Pfizer to test a "woodcock with its throat cut with a coin" for headache.  Until then, it is best to follow the words of another very old source of wisdom, Rav Sherira Gaon, who died around the year 1000 CE. (and so lived around the time of the composition of Bald's Leechbook). 

אוצר הגאונים, חלק התשובות, גיטין דף ס"ח ע"ב, סימן שע

צריכין אנן למימר לכון, דרבנן לאו אסותא אינון, ומילין בעלמא דחזונין בזמניהון...אמרונין, ולאו דברי מצוה אינון. הלכך לא תסמכון על אלין אסותא, וליכא דעביד מינהון מידעם, אלא בתר דמיבדיק וידע בודאי מחמת רופאים בקיאים, דההיא מילתא לא מעיקא לה וליכא דליתיה נפשיה לידי סכנה. והכין אגמרו יתנא ואמרו לנא אבות וסבי דילנא, דלא למעבד מן אילין אסותא אלא מאי דאיתיה

We must tell you that the rabbis were not physicians. Whatever they saw in their day, they addressed, but these matters are not mitzvot. Therefore, do not rely on these remedies. They must not be applied until they have been tested by expert physicians, who can be sure that the remedy will not cause harm or danger. This is what our ancestors have taught us. We should not apply these remedies unless they have been tested...

[A largely updated post originally published here.]

Shabbat 107b ~ Can the Leopard Change Its Spots?

In a discussion about the permanence of wounds and their ability to heal comes this:

בעא מיניה לוי מרבי מנין לחבורה שאינה חוזרת דכתיב היהפוך כושי עורו ונמר חברברתיו מאי חברברתיו אילימא דקאי ריקמי ריקמי האי ונמר חברברתיו נמר גווניו מבעי ליה אלא ככושי מה עורו דכושי אינה חוזרת אף חבורה אינה חוזרת 

Levi raised a dilemma before Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi: From where is it derived that a wound is defined as something irreversible? He answered him that it is derived as it is written: “Can a Cushite change his skin, or a leopard its spots [chavarburotav]?” (Jeremiah 13:23). The Gemara explains: What does chavarburotav mean? If you say that they are spotted marks on the leopard’s skin, that phrase: Or a leopard its spots, should have been: Or a leopard its colors. Rather, chavarburotav means wounds, and they are similar to the skin of a Cushite: Just like the skin of a Cushite will not change its color to white, so too a wound is something that does not reverse.

“Can a leopard change its spots?” It is a famous question from the Book of Jeremiah, asked rhetorically. The presumptive answer is “why no, a leopard cannot change its spots!” And with this in mind, God tells Jeremiah that because the Jewish people don’t change their wicked ways, He will punish them. And so in the next verse God announces that he will scatter the Jewish people “like straw that flies before the desert wind.”

The leopard and its spots is a great analogy, but it turns out to be rather more complicated than perhaps the great prophet first understood.

the origins of camouflage in Big Cats

In 2010 William Allen and colleagues published a review of the camouflage patterns in thirty-five different species of wild cats, including lions, panthers, and our leopards. After controlling for the effects of shared ancestry, they found that “the likelihood of patterning and pattern attributes, such as complexity and irregularity, were related to felids’ habitats, arboreality and nocturnality.” In other words, the markings on a wild cat are related to where it lives, how it hunts, and when it sleeps. Because the primary hunting strategy of all cats is to stalk prey until they are close enough to capture them with a pounce or quick rush, the hunts are more successful when an attack is initiated from shorter distances. So the cat must remain undetected for as long as possible and its camouflage helps achieve this. Allen concluded that evolution has generally paired plain cats with relatively uniformly colored, textured and illuminated environments, and patterned cats with environments that Rudyard Kipling described as “full of trees and bushes and stripy, speckly, patchy-blatchy shadows.”

Cats such as leopards – which live in dense habitats, among trees and are active at low light levels – are the most likely to be patterned, especially with irregular or complex shapes. Species that live in open grassland, such as lions, tend to have plainer coats. Allen’s research also explains why black leopards are common but black cheetahs unknown. Unlike cheetahs, leopards live in a wide range of habitats and have varied behavioural patterns. 

Leopards without any spots

In fact there are completely black leopards, which are more commonly called black panthers. (One was even kept in the Tower of London in the late eighteenth century.) This feature is called melanism, and according to a 2017 international survey of leopards, it occurs in about 11% of the species. That’s a lot of leopards without any spots.

A leopard that changed its spots. It happens in about 11% of the species. Don’t tell Jeremiah.

But Can People Change?

Despite the rather technical talmudic re-reading of Jeremiah’s verse, there is no doubt as to its original meaning. It was divine despair, as God gave up, as it were, on the ability of the Jewish people to ever meaningfully change its national character. Here, for example is the commentary of the Malbim, Rabbi Meir Leibush Wisser (1809-1879):

,הלא א"א שהנמר יהפך חברברותיו, שצבע עורו הוא טבע כולל בכל המין וכל הנמרים, כן אי אפשר שתוכלו להיטיבאתם למודי הרע שכבר נעשה הרע טבעי לך, ולכן ואפיצם כקש עובר

It is not possible for a leopard to change its spots, (for the color of its skin is its natural state in all of the leopard species,) so it is not possible to incline your natural inclination for the good, for evil has become natural to you. That is why I will scatter you as straw in the wind…

Can we change our characters to a meaningful degree? That is the question we ask each year on Yom Kippur, and the answer we are always given by our spiritual leaders is this: we can change, if we put in the effort that is required. Maimonides also believed that it is possible to change (Laws of Repentence 2:2):

וּמַה הִיא הַתְּשׁוּבָה. הוּא שֶׁיַּעֲזֹב הַחוֹטֵא חֶטְאוֹ וִיסִירוֹ מִמַּחֲשַׁבְתּוֹ וְיִגְמֹר בְּלִבּוֹ שֶׁלֹּא יַעֲשֵׂהוּ עוֹד

What is repentance? The sinner shall cease sinning, and remove sin from his thoughts, and wholeheartedly conclude not to revert back to it…

But are there limits to this belief in the religious ability to repent? Here is perhaps one of the most challenging questions ever seen asked in this context. What happens when a Nazi repents of his beliefs and actions, and asks to convert to Judaism? Must he be accepted, or are there limits, even when we believe that true repentance is possible? This question is found in a 1991 work about the laws of conversion, Chukkat Hager, by Rabbi Moshe Steinberg (1909-1993) who was the Chief Rabbi of the town of Kiryat Yam in Israel:

Regarding a gentile who was once a member of the Nazi Party, and it is likely that he himself took part in war crimes, and who now has repented and wishes to become Jewish, should we accept him?

What do you think? Assuming the former Nazi was indeed repentant, would you approve of his conversion to Judaism? If not, why not? Is it because a leopard cannot change its spots?

[If you want to read how Rabbi Steinberg ruled on the question, click here, but first formulate your own opinion…]