Sukkah 56b ~ Abayye and the Fundamental Attribution Error

On the last page of this tractate of Talmud, Abayye teaches this:

סוכה נו, ב

אָמַר אַבָּיֵי: אוֹי לָרָשָׁע אוֹי לִשְׁכֵינוֹ, טוֹב לַצַּדִּיק טוֹב לִשְׁכֵינוֹ [שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: ״אִמְרוּ צַדִּיק כִּי טוֹב כִּי פְרִי מַעַלְלֵיהֶם יֹאכֵלוּ״]

Abayye said: Woe unto the wicked, woe unto his neighbor. Good for the righteous, good for his neighbor,

Abayye is teaching us not to associate with bad people, but rather to seek the company of those who are good. This advice is easy to understand and makes a lot of sense. But as we have only recently come to understand Abayye’s advice is more profound than that. Very much more. To understand why, we need to remind ourselves about the work of Professor Lee Ross, who brought us The Fundamental Attribution Error.

The Fundamental Attribution Error

Lee Ross, who died this June at the age of 78, was a psychologist who taught at Stanford for his entire career. His work, according to Harvard professor Daniel Gilbert, “came to dominate the field.” But really there was just one idea for which he was best known. It was what Ross called “the fundamental attribution error,” a term he coined in 1977 in a landmark paper. In it, he described how behavior that is caused by randomly assigned social roles struck those involved as arising instead from intrinsic character traits. Malcom Gladwell, whose work does much to popularize Ross’s ideas, explained in an interview that “almost all of my books are about the fundamental attribution error…It’s an idea I have never been able to shake.”

From here.

“If I had to pick only one scientific finding about how the human mind works and promulgate it in hopes of saving the world, I’d probably go with attribution error.”

— Ode to a World-Saving Idea. Nonzero Newsletter. June 22, 2021

Like many truly insightful findings, the basic idea can easily be understood. Here is how Robert Wright author of The Moral Animal, The Evolution of God, and, most recently, Why Buddhism is True, put it:

When we’re explaining the behavior of other people, we tend to put too much emphasis on “disposition”—on their character, their personality, their essential nature. And we tend to put too little emphasis on “situation”—on the circumstances they find themselves in.

Let’s say, Wright continues, that you see the face of a minister (or rabbi or imam) and then a picture of a prison inmate. You would likely assume that they have very different characters. But actually that is not correct. Ross, and his colleague Richard Nisbett explained what is really going on.

Clerics and criminals rarely face an identical or equivalent set of situational challenges. Rather, they place themselves, and are placed by others, in situations that differ precisely in ways that induce clergy to look, act, feel, and think rather consistently like clergy and that induce criminals to look, act, feel, and think like criminals.

The Fundamental Attribution Error (which is also known as correspondence bias or the attribution effect,) is our tendency to under-emphasize situational and environmental explanations for an individual's observed behavior while over-emphasizing dispositional and personality-based explanations. The truth of the matter, Ross claimed, is that behavior is less to do with personality and more to do with the situation or context. Here is another example:

If someone cuts us off while driving, our first thought might be “What a jerk!” instead of considering the possibility that the driver is rushing someone to the airport. On the flip side, when we cut someone off in traffic, we tend to convince ourselves that we had to do so. We focus on situational factors, like being late to a meeting, and ignore what our behavior might say about our own character.

…in one study when something bad happened to someone else, subjects blamed that person’s behavior or personality 65% of the time. But, when something bad happened to the subjects, they blamed themselves only 44% of the time, blaming the situation they were in much more often.

So the fundamental attribution error explains why we often judge others harshly while letting ourselves off the hook at the same time by rationalizing our own unethical behavior.

Exceptions to the Fundamental Attribution Error

There are times, however, that we actually ignore the Fundamental Attribution Error. This is when we see ethical behavior in our enemies, and unethical behavior in our friends. Here again is Robert Wright:

(1) If an enemy or rival does something good, we’re inclined to attribute the behavior to situation. (Granted, my rival for the affections of the woman I love did give money to a homeless man, but that was just to impress the woman I love, not because he’s actually a nice guy!) (2) If a friend or ally does something bad, we’re inclined to attribute the behavior to situation. (Yes, my golf buddy embezzled millions of dollars, but his wife was ill, and health care is expensive—plus, there was the mistress to support!)

Or another example:

Yes, the Gazan gave aid to the Israeli, but he had to do so because he was being filmed; yes, the Israeli troops opened fire and there were civilian deaths, but what else could they do? They didn’t start the riot.

Do you see what is happening here? In the first case (an enemy, or at least not a good friend) we attribute good behavior to circumstance rather than character, and in the second (a friend) we attribute questionable behavior to circumstance. So we don’t always attribute good behavior to character. Sometimes we lean more towards the situation. And there are good reasons for doing so. It is important to keep our in-group in high esteem. Believing that members of our own tribe are highly reliable rule followers gives us a cohesiveness of purpose. In contrast, it is best to think of members of other, warring tribes, as morally bankrupt. That, after all, is why we are at war with them.

How to use the Fundamental Attribution Error

Once we are aware of the attribution error we can make our lives better by exercising cognitive empathy. Next time someone cuts in line in front of you at the airport, don’t think “How rude. What a selfish person.” Consider instead: “Maybe this person is late for a flight to visit his aunt who is dying and who has asked to see him one last time. “ Give more weight to a person’s situation, and less to their character.

BAck to Abayye

“Woe unto the wicked,” Abayye taught, “and woe unto their neighbor. Good for the righteous, good for their neighbor.” If you situate yourself with bad people (and yes, there still are bad people, even after accounting for the Fundamental Attribution Error) you are more likely to be pulled into a sphere of poor moral judgements and practice. That’s because, as the Fundamental Attribution Error teaches us, you are more influenced by your surroundings than you think. And if you situate yourself with good people, you are more likely to act in ways that reflect sound moral practice.

We like to think of ourselves as having a character that is not influenced by superficialities like who are our neighbors and friends. But as Abayye taught us and Professor Lee Ross verified, nothing could be further from the truth.

רמב׳ם הלכות דעות 6:1

דֶרֶךְ בְּרִיָּתוֹ שֶׁל אָדָם לִהְיוֹת נִמְשָׁךְ בְּדֵעוֹתָיו וּבְמַעֲשָׂיו אַחַר רֵעָיו וַחֲבֵרָיו וְנוֹהֵג כְּמִנְהַג אַנְשֵׁי מְדִינָתוֹ. לְפִיכָךְ צָרִיךְ אָדָם לְהִתְחַבֵּר לַצַּדִּיקִים וִלֵישֵׁב אֵצֵל הַחֲכָמִים תָּמִיד כִּדֵי שֵׁיִּלִמֹד מִמַּעֲשֵׂיהֵם. וִיִתִרַחֵק מִן הָרִשָׁעִים הַהוֹלְכִים בַּחשֶׁךְ כְּדֵי שֶׁלֹּא יִלְמֹד מִמַּעֲשֵׂיהֶם

It is a natural tendency of man to be influenced in his ideas and conduct by his fellows and associates, and to follow the usage of the people of his state. Because thereof, it is necessary for man to be in the company of the righteous, and to sit near the wise, in order to learn from their conduct, and to distance himself from the evil-doers who follow the path of darkness, in order not to learn from their conduct

תם ולא נשלם מסכת סוכה

Sukkah 56b ~ Cucumbers, Gourds and the Marshmallow Test

Small Gourds vs Big Gourds, or Cucumbers vs Gourds?

In a long discussion of how twelve special loaves of bread in the Temple were allocated to the Cohanim, Abayye makes this observation:

אָמַר אַבָּיֵי: בּוּצִינָא טָבָא מִקָּרָא

Abaye said: A ripe cucumber now is better than a gourd that has yet to ripen.

In other words, a small, immediate profit is preferable to a large, potential profit.

Rashi explains the meaning of this phrase:

בוצינא טבא מקרא - משל הדיוט הוא האומר לחבירו דלעת קטנה אני נותן לך במחובר אם תרצה לתולשה עכשיו תלוש ואם תרצה להניחה עד שתיגדל ותיעשה קרא הניחה ותגדל טוב לו ליטלה מיד שמא לאחר זמן יתחרט בו זה או שמא לא יצטרך זה לזה ה"נ גבי משמרות מי שראוי ליטול עכשיו לא ימתין לשבת הבאה

This is a well known aphorism: When a person says to his friend "you may take this small gourd that is still growing now or you can wait until it grows larger and then pick it it" it is better to take the small gourd immediately…

This is a fairly unremarkable observation, and it finds a similar expression in the adage "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush." The meaning is clear: it's better to have a small but certain gain rather than risk a larger one that is less certain (though see here for an interesting alternative origin of the expression). This is Rashi's explanation. But there is another way to explain the phrase (and this is followed by the Koren-Steinsaltz Talmud).  According to Tosafot (Ketuvot 83b)  cited in the name of Rabbenu Tam (d.1171), the proverb means the following:

ומשל הדיוט כך הוא שאדם אוהב הקישות יותר שיהנה בה מהרה ממה שהוא אוהב דלעת ולהמתינה אע"פ שהיא טובה יותר

This common saying means that a person would prefer [fast growing] cucumbers because he can enjoy them sooner, rather than gourds [which grow slowly and] which require waiting, even though they [taste] better. (Tosafot, בוצינא טב מקרא, Ketuvot 83b).

So according to the great Rabbenu Tam, this saying does not address any element of risk. Instead it is addressing the ability to have self-control and to plan for the future.  The larger reward is certain, but is only available if you can wait. In fact, Rabbenu Tam is describing the famous Marshmallow Test.

The Marshmallow Test

The man behind the Marshmallow Test was the psychologist Walter Mischel, who was born in Vienna and fled to the US in 1938. In September 2018 he died at the age of 88. Mischel was the emeritus chair of the Department of Psychology at Columbia University, and as his obituary in The New York Times noted, “his studies of delayed gratification in young children clarified the importance of self-control in human development, and…led to a broad reconsideration of how personality is understood.”

The Marshmallow Test is simple: give kindergarten children an option -one reward now (in the original experiments the children could choose any reward, not just a marshmallow) or two if you can sit and not touch the reward for fifteen minutes. The studies were performed at Stanford between 1968 and 1974 and involved some 550 children.  If you haven't already seen what the test looks like, grab a coffee and watch the video. It's quite wonderful.

There have been dozens and dozens of academic papers written on the Marshmallow test, since Mischel first published his findings in 1969.  But perhaps most surprisingly, the findings of the Marshmallow experiment on pre-schoolers seems to predict the future behaviors of the test subjects when they are adults. Here is Mischel summarizing his findings in his recent book called (predictably enough,) The Marshmallow Test: Mastering Self-Control.

“What the preschoolers did as they tried to keep waiting, and how they did or didn’t manage to delay gratification, unexpectedly turned out to predict much about their future lives. The more seconds they waited at age four or five, the higher their SAT sores and the better their rated social and cognitive functioning in adolescence. At age 27-32, those who had waited longer during the Marshmallow Test in preschool had a lower body mass index and better sense of self-worth, pursued their goals more effectively, and coped more adaptively with frustration and stress. At midlife, those who could consistently wait (“high delay”), versus those who couldn’t consistently wait (“low delay”), were characterized by distinctively different brain scans in areas linked to addictions and obesity.”

— Walter Mischel, The Marshmallow Test 2014, p5.

Wow. That's some test. But before you run out and test your preschool aged children (or grandchildren), remember that according to Tosafot, most people prefer a smaller instant reward to a larger but delayed reward. The classic Marshmallow Test measured how long young children could control their desires for an instant reward, but gives a new insight into  this daf. If you can hold out for slow growing gourds rather than go for the faster growing cucumbers, you might just do very well in later life.

 [Repost from Temurah 9.]

Sukkah 53 ~ Juggling Records

In a discussion of the joyous celebration that would take place in the Temple on the festival of Sukkot, we read this charming passage:

סוכה נג, א

תַּנְיָא: אָמְרוּ עָלָיו עַל רַבָּן שִׁמְעוֹן בֶּן גַּמְלִיאֵל, כְּשֶׁהָיָה שָׂמֵחַ שִׂמְחַת בֵּית הַשּׁוֹאֵבָה, הָיָה נוֹטֵל שְׁמֹנֶה אֲבוּקוֹת שֶׁל אוֹר, וְזוֹרֵק אַחַת וְנוֹטֵל אַחַת וְאֵין נוֹגְעוֹת זוֹ בָּזוֹ

They said about Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel that when he would rejoice at the Celebration of the Place of the Drawing of the Water, he would take eight flaming torches and toss one and catch another, juggling them, and, though all were in the air at the same time, they would not touch each other.

This might sound like a just another neat trick, but as a very amateur juggler, I can assure you that it is much more that that. It is almost impossibly difficult. Rabbi Shimon ben Gamliel must have spent hours and hours perfecting this juggling ability, but difficult as it most certainly is, it is entirely achievable.

world records for juggling clubs

To get a sense of how difficult this sort of thing is, let’s start with juggling “only” seven clubs. Here is American juggler Anthony Gatto juggling them for a world record four minutes (and 24 seconds). No need to watch the whole thing, though it is very magical.

Now here is Gatto juggling with eight clubs and setting a then world record in 2006. Watch the twelve second clip, and then imagine doing that with clubs that were on fire.

Finally, here is the current world record for juggling clubs. It was set by the Norwegian Eivind Dragsjø in 2016. He managed to juggle nine clubs for eleven catches.

Now, with knives

Today’s page of Talmud tells us of another rabbinic juggler by the name of Levi, actually out-juggled Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel:

לֵוִי הֲוָה מְטַיֵּיל קַמֵּיהּ דְּרַבִּי בְּתַמְנֵי סַכִּינֵי

Levi would walk before Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi juggling with eight knives.

Juggling knives is much harder than juggling balls or clubs, because, well, they are knives and have a sharp end. The current world record for juggling knives appears to be six. No-one today has yet juggled eight knives, or even seven for that matter. Oh, and by the way, if you are thinking of attempting to set this record, here is the small print:

WARNING: This record can be extremely dangerous. Please do not attempt this record unless you are above the age of 18 and trained as a professional juggler. We will not accept submissions in this category from minors.

A More Gentle Approach

Elsewhere in the Talmud we read of another sage who juggled, though he was criticized for his skill:

כתובות יז, א

אמרו עליו על רבי יהודה בר אילעאי שהיה נוטל בד של הדס ומרקד לפני הכלה ואומר כלה נאה וחסודה רב שמואל בר רב יצחק מרקד אתלת א"ר זירא קא מכסיף לן סבא כי נח נפשיה איפסיק עמודא דנורא בין דידיה לכולי עלמא וגמירי דלא אפסיק עמודא דנורא אלא אי לחד בדרא אי לתרי בדרא

The Sages said about Rabbi Yehuda bar Elai that he would take a myrtle branch and dance before the bride, and say: A fair and attractive bride. Rav Shmuel bar Rav Yitzchak would base his dance on three myrtle branches that he would juggle. Rabbi Zeira said: The old man is humiliating us, as through his conduct he is demeaning the Torah and the Torah scholars…

רש׳י שם

אתלת - שלש בדין זורק אחת ומקבל אחת

Three - he would take three branches, and toss them in the air and catch them

Another Sage WHo Juggled

So although Rabbi Yehudah juggled with myrtle branches, which are far safer than knives, he was criticized for conduct unbecoming a Talmudic sage. But that seems a bit harsh. In any event, we may no longer have juggling sages, but we do have juggling mathematicians, who are sages of a different order. The foremost of these was the late Ronald Graham (1935-2020) who was a quite brilliant mathematician; in 2003, he was awarded the American Mathematical Society's annual Leroy P. Steele Prize for Lifetime Achievement. Graham wrote six books and some 400 mathematical papers, many with the famous Hungarian mathematician Paul Erdos. But Graham was also a juggler; he began when he was 15, and was able to juggle six balls. In 1973 he was elected President of the International Jugglers’ Association. It should come as no surprise that he also wrote an important paper on the mathematics behind juggling drops and descents.

The acclaimed mathematician Ronald Graham juggling a four-ball fountain (1986).

Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel, Levi, and Rabbi Yehudah demonstrate that the rabbis of the Talmud had hobbies, that they worked to perfect them, at they became rather good at them. Ronald Graham was not a trailblazer; instead, and unbeknown to him, he was following an esteemed Talmudic tradition.

Sukkah 48b ~ The Uses of Human Skin

BUT FIRST, A WARNING

Over the past six years of Talmudology, we have had occasion to discuss many weird things. There was Herod’s proclivity for necrophilia (Bava Basra 3a); there was prosecuting animals for their criminal acts (Berachot 27a); and there was a unicorn that survived Noah’s Flood and ended up on a prehistoric cave painting (Zevachim 113b). But today’s topic gets an extreme R rating. For REALLY weird. So, as they say at the auction, this is “fair warning.” Read on at your own discretion.

It’s never a good thing to be a heretic and get into an argument with a sage of the Talmud. On today’s page of Talmud, Rabbi Abbahu, who lived in Caesarea around the year 300 C.E., took on a “heretic” by the name of Sasson, whose name, literally, means “joy.”

סוכה מח, ב

אֲמַר לֵיהּ הָהוּא מִינָא דִּשְׁמֵיהּ שָׂשׂוֹן לְרַבִּי אֲבָהוּ עֲתִידִיתוּ דִּתְמַלּוֹ לִי מַיִם לְעָלְמָא דְּאָתֵי דִּכְתִיב וּשְׁאַבְתֶּם מַיִם בְּשָׂשׂוֹן אֲמַר לֵיהּ אִי הֲוָה כְּתִיב לְשָׂשׂוֹן כִּדְקָאָמְרַתְּ הַשְׁתָּא דִּכְתִיב בִּשְׂשׂוֹן מַשְׁכֵּיהּ דְּהָהוּא גַּבְרָא מְשַׁוֵּינַן לֵיהּ גּוֹדָא וּמָלֵינַן בֵּיהּ מַיָּא

A certain heretic named Sasson [lit. joy] said to Rabbi Abbahu: You are all destined to draw water for me in the World-to-Come, as it is written: “With sasson you shall draw water.” Rabbi Abbahu said to him: If it had been written: “For sasson”, it would have been as you say. But now that it is written: “With sasson,” it means that your very skin will be rendered a wineskin, and we will draw water with it.

In his commentary on the aggadic sections of the Talmud, the Polish rabbi Shmuel Eliezer Edels, known as the Maharsha (1555 – 1631), thought it important to essentially repeat Rabbi Abbahu’s threat:

אבל משכא דידך יקחו במותך ומשוינן ליה לעתיד נוד ומלינן ליה מיא

After your death your skin will be used to make a canteen, and it will be used to draw water

Another use for human skin - as a saddle

This is not the only place in the Talmud in which human skin becomes a utensil. Here is the Talmud in tractate Niddah:

נדה נה, א

הא איתמר עלה אמר עולא דבר תורה עור אדם טהור ומאי טעמא אמרו טמא גזרה שמא יעשה אדם עורות אביו ואמו שטיחין לחמור

It was stated that Ulla said: By Torah law, the skin of a dead person is ritually pure. And what is the reason the Sages said that it is impure? It is a rabbinic decree lest a person should fashion rugs for a donkey out of the skins of his deceased father and mother.

Please read that last paragraph again to be sure you have grasped it. The sages of the Talmud declared that human skin is ritually impure to prevent people from turning the skins of their deceased parents into donkey saddles.

can this possiblY be true?

The French scholar Yom Tov ben Avraham Assevilli (c. 1260 – 1320), commonly known by the Hebrew acronym as the Ritva, questions why this ruling about ritual impurity was necessary in the first place. “Even the most wicked Gentile,” he wrote, “would not behave in this way. And certainly not a Jew!”

ריטב"א שם

שמא יעשה עורות אביו ואמו שטיחין …ומיהו עדין קשה והלא רשע שבגוים אינו עושה כן וכ״ש ישראל לכך הנכון כמו שפי׳ מורי הרב הר״א הלוי בשם רבו הרמב״ן ז״ל דשטיחין היינו שעשה מהן דבר חשוב ומעובד יפה לשטחן על גבי הכותל להתאבל עליהם ימים רבים או שיזכור מעשיהם הטובים והיינו דנקט לשון שטיחין ולשון אביו ואמו

Ritva’s explanation does not settle his question. “It means that people would make something of value to put on the wall in order to mourn over them for a long period of time, or as a reminder of their [parents’] good deeds.” So not skin. Except that is not what the Talmud says. It says people would take the skins of their deceased parents and turn them into donkey saddles.

The great leader of the Jewish communities of Poland Rabbi Moses Sofer (d. 1839) known as Chatam Sofer makes it clear to his own satisfaction that we are indeed talking about human skin. “We must conclude that we are discussing a case in which removing the skins is done to honor one’s parent, by preserving it and keeping it as a kind of memorial, on which to focus the mourning.” So yes. Skin.

נדה נה, א : חידושי חתם סופר

.. וצ"ל דמיירי באופן שהפשטת עור הוא לכבוד אביו [כגון] לחנוט אותו ולשמור העור לזכרון להרבות האבל וכ"כ הרמב"ן ור"ן בחידושיו כאן ע"ש

Now it may be argued that this form of mourning was extremely uncommon, but there are two pieces of evidence that make this unlikely. First, the Talmud is clear that the rabbis did not enact legislation for uncommon events. Thus we read for example in the next tractate, Beitzah (18a) that the rabbis did not make a certain vessel impure on Yom Tov, because it was an unusual occurrence.

טוּמְאָה בְּיוֹם טוֹב מִלְּתָא דְּלָא שְׁכִיחָא הִיא וּמִלְּתָא דְלָא שְׁכִיחָא לָא גְּזַרוּ בַּהּ רַבָּנַן

Secondly, the Mishnah (Yadayim 4:6) describes another rabbinic enactment that was made to prevent people fro using the body parts of their deceased parents. This time, it was turning bones into spoons. The rabbis decreed that human bones were ritually unclean, “so that nobody should make spoons out of the bones of his father or mother” (לְפִי חִבָּתָן הִיא טֻמְאָתָן, שֶׁלֹּא יַעֲשֶׂה אָדָם עַצְמוֹת אָבִיו וְאִמּוֹ תַּרְוָדוֹת).

Human skin as medicine

Rabbi Judah Rosanes (1657-1727) lived in Constantinople and wrote a lengthy work on Maimonides׳ Mishneh Torah called Mishneh Lemelekh which he published there in 1731. In a very lengthy section he discussed the use of the flesh of mummies as a medicine and whether a Cohen may use the skin for healing.

משנה למלך הל׳ אבל 3:1

נשאלתי על המומיי"א שמוכרין הכהנים אי שפיר למיעבד או לא. (א"ה עיין בספר גנת ורדים חי"ד כלל א' סימן ד'). והנה לפי מה ששמעתי מומי"א הלזו אין בה בשר כלל אלא עצמות ועור החופה אותם והם יבשים מאד ולא נשאר בהם לחלוחית של בשר כלל ושאלתי אם היו עצמות אלו נפרכים מאליהם או לא ואמרו לי שאינם נפרכים ובקושי הם משתברים ולפי זה נראה דאין כאן מקום לספק כלל דפשיטא דמטמא במגע ובמשא דהא קי"ל דעצם כשעורה מטמא במגע ובמשא וטומאתו מדין תורה וכמ"ש רבינו בפ"ב מהל' טומאת מת ומצד היותו יבש אין לטהרו שהרי כתב בפ"ג בשר המת שנפרך ונעשה כקמח טהור משמע מפשט דבריו דכל שלא נעשה כקמח אף במונח שאילו יפרך יעשה כקמח מטמא ואף לפי מ"ש מרן שם שכוונת רבינו היא לומר שיבש כל כך עד שאילו יפרך יעשה קמח ואף שעדיין לא נפרך טהור מ"מ אף לפי דברי מרן בעינן שאילו יפרך יעשה קמח אבל כל שאינו נעשה קמח עדיין בטומאתו עומד ולפי מה שכתבנו מומי"א זו שאנו דנין עליה מלבד שאינה נעשית קמח לא איפרוכי מיפרך ואדרבה בקושי היא משתברת באופן דאליבא דכ"ע מטמאה היא במגע ובמשא. ואף שיש להסתפק ולומר דמומי"א זו מעכו"ם נינהו ומלבד דכיון דרובא דעלמא עכו"ם נינהו איכא למימר דניזל בתר רובא זאת ועוד כי הגד הוגד לי שבמקומות אלו שנעשית המומי"א מעולם לא עבר שם רגל ישראל ולפי זה היה נראה להקל דהא קי"ל דעכו"ם אינם מטמאים,

…

הכלל העולה דלדידן פשיטא לן מלתא דאסור ליגע במומי"א הלזו וכל כהן המחמיר עליו תבא ברכת טוב

According to what I have heard these mummies have no flesh but are made of bones and the skin that covers them…certainly there is no doubt that they impart ritual impurity…even though there is a question because the majority of mummies were Gentiles [whose remains do not impart the same degree of ritual impurity]…and I have been told that in places where mummies originated there had never been any Jews at all…but the legal conclusion is that it is forbidden to touch these mummies, and any Cohen who is strict on himself will be blessed for good.

So bad luck if you are a Cohen in need of mummified medicine. But what about a non-Cohen? May she use mummified flesh? Rabbi David ben Solomon ibn Zimra (1479–1589?) known as the Radvaz considered the question and concluded that yes, it was permitted for a Jew to use the desiccated skin of a mummy as medicine. Here is a sample:

III :978 תשובות הרדב׳ז

שאלת ממני אודיעך דעתי על מה סמכו העולם להתרפאות בבשר המת הנקרא מומ"יא ושלא במקום סכנה ובדרך הנאתו ולא עוד אלא שמסתחרין בו ונושאין ונותנין בו והוא מאיסורי הנאה דקייל"ן דבשר המת אסור בהנאה דכתיב ותמת שם מרים

You have asked me, and I will inform you of my opinion: Upon what does everyone rely to ingest the flesh of a corpse, called “mummy,” as a remedy, when there is no danger, and in the normal way of ingestion? Moreover, they trade it, engaging in its commerce, yet it is forbidden to derive benefit from it, for we maintain that it is forbidden to benefit from the flesh of a corpse, as Scripture states: “There died Miriam….”

הא למדת דמותר להתרפאות במומיא אפילו בדרך אכילה אפילו בחולי שאין בו סכנה ומותר לישא וליתן בו לעשות בו סחורה ומותר ליהנות בקברי העכו"ם ובתכריכיו ומיהו מטמאין במגע ובמשא ובטומאת אהל איכא פלוגתא והרמב"ם ז"ל ס"ל דאין מטמאין באהל

We have thus learned that one may use mummy as a remedy, even by eating it normally, even for a malady that is not dangerous. It is permitted to trade it and do business with it, and it is permitted to derive benefit from the graves and shrouds of gentiles…or it is permissible to derive benefit from mummy, since these are the corpses of idolaters from the times of the Egyptians.

Human skin as Book Covers

While the Talmud describes using human skin for water flasks and donkey saddles, there is another use to which these skins have been put. According to the author Megan Rosenbloom in her new book Dark Archives, there are about fifty books in public and private hands to date which are alleged to be covered in human skin. Rosenbloom (whose book is absolutely riveting) is also involved with The Anthropodermic Book Project which is “creating a census for the alleged anthropodermic books of the world and testing as many as possible to learn the historical truths behind the innuendo.”

“A book on the human soul merits that it be given human clothing”

— Ludovic Bouland, owner of a copy of Des Destiness de l'ame, on a handwritten note at the front of the book, held at the Houghton Library of Harvard University

Using the modern technique of peptide mass fingerprinting, about half of the books so far tested turn out to be made of real human skin. The largest collection of what are known as anthropodermic books is in the Historical Medical Society of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia. They own at least five books that have been confirmed to be covered in human skin. There are others in the collections of the Boston Athenaeum, Brown University (four!), the Grolier Club and the Cincinnati Public Library. Most of the books were commissioned by physicians, who may also have helped find the material used. Here is one of the books whose cover from human skin has been confirmed. It is Hans Holbein’s Dance of Death (1898), from Brown University’s John Hay Library.

And it was not only the Victorians who were binding books in human skin. According to Rosenbloom (p108) an invoice “proves human skin bookbinding was taking place as late as 1934.”

The Lampshade made from Human Skin

In 2005 a lampshade purported to have been made out of human skin was sold at a yard sale in New Orleans. The lampshade was later sent to Mark Jacobson, then a contributing editor at New York magazine, who spent the next several years (and many thousands of dollars) trying to determine the origin of the lampshade and whether it was truly made of human skin. It was rumored to have come from the Buchenwald Concentration Camp and when a DNA test confirmed it was made of human skin, Jacobson tried to donate it to the United States Holocaust Museum in Washington DC. His offer was firmly rejected. Diane Saltzman, the former head of collections at the Museum, believed the story to be a myth. “This is a museum dealing with the Holocaust” she told him. “This object cannot be proved to legitimately be part of the Holocaust, so we cannot treat it as such. Sixty-odd years of research and it has never been proved that a thing like this was Nazi policy or practice.”

In his book The Lampshade, Jacobson wrote that at one time the working plan was to bury it in a Jewish cemetery in New Orleans in a service led by orthodox Rabbi Uri Topolosky “the energetic thirtysomething installed as the spiritual leader of the Beth Israel Temple in 2007.” But it never happened and since the publication of Jacobson’s book, a lab retested the shade and found it to have been made of cowhide. The sample that had been tested by the first lab had been contaminated with human DNA.

HUMAN SKIN TRANSPLANTS

We have come a long way since Rabbi Abbahu’s threat to the heretic Sasson. We can now use the skin of the recently dead not to make water bottles but to save the lives and appearance of the still living. In 1881 the first cadaver skin transplant was performed when skin from a suicide victim was used to treat a burn victim. But it is only in the last few decades that we have had fully functional skin banks that store and distribute the skin taken from deceased donors. The majority of transplants are used in wound management when they provide a temporary biologic cover for patients with extensive burns. They work as biologic dressings, reducing pain and adherence to the wound bed. This temporarily closes the wound and decreases water, electrolyte, and protein loss which is incredibly important since without an intact skin covering, burn patients quickly dehydrate. The temporary skin graft also prevents wound breakdown and provides a dermal matrix, which improves the outcomes of the final graft which is usually taken from another part of the patient’s own unburned skin.

Jewish Norms, Then and now

There are many, many pages of the Talmud to which modern practicing Jews can relate. Who cannot be proud of the discussions about the return of lost property, the rights of person to privacy, and the special place that Shabbat has in our hectic modern world. Then there are talmudic positions that we rightly reject today, like the ownership of others as chattel, the suggestion that the earth is the center of the universe, or the inability of women to be legal witnesses. But there is a third group of talmudic declarations which are not only pre-modern, but which are utterly foreign to us to the degree that we simply cannot imagine a Jewish world in which these descriptions reflected reality. Like using the skin of a deceased parent to make a donkey saddle in their honor. It makes us uncomfortable. But as the facts of anthropodermic books demonstrate, even in recent times people have been doing very ‘odd’ things with human skin. In addition, other cultures, like the Maori people of New Zealand, venerated their ancestors in ways not dissimilar to that described in tractate Niddah. “The tattooed heads of the deceased were dried and smoked in order to preserve them from decay,” wrote Christian Palmer and Mervyn Tano from the International Institute for Indigenous Resource Management in Denver, Colorado.

This honor was usually reserved for persons of importance and their loved ones, including women and children. The heads remained with the families of the deceased, who kept them in ornately carved boxes. They were protected by strict taboos and brought out only during sacred ceremonies…The children and widows of the deceased used the head to remind them of the deceased, but also to signify that to some extent the presence of the departed chief was still a part of tribal and family affairs. This kind of close kinship and identification with ancestors is an important part of Polynesian society.

Today, the ways in which Jews honor their dead reflect modern, predominantly western sentiments. They should not be confused with the way it was always done.