I am delighted to share that on Wednesday March 29th at noon I will be giving a public lecture at the Library of Congress. It will include several treasures from the Library’s collection that illustrate the hidden story of the Jewish People and Pandemics. If you are in the area come and say hello!
Public Lecture at the Library of Congress - The Eleventh Plague
From the Talmudology Purim Archives ~ Gender Fluidity, Male Lactation and Mordechai
Editor’s note: Unless you live in Australia, or New Zealand, or Jerusalem, today is the Jewish Festival of Purim, on which there is a tradition to create and recite spoofs called Purim Torah. These spoofs are usually very clever and witty, and may require a deep knowledge of rabbinic texts. But this post is not Purim Torah, although it may read as such if you have drunk a little too much alcohol. And drinking too much alcohol is definitely a Purim tradition. So drink up and read on…and I promise I am not making this stuff up.
Milk Producing Male Goats of The Talmud (MPMGOTT)
In the Talmud in tractate Chullin there is a discussion of about the prohibition of cooking meat and milk together. There are several teachings that are derived from the three places in the Torah where we read “You shall not cook a kid in its mother’s milk” (לא תְבַשֵּׁל גְּדִיח בַּחֲלֵב אִמּוֹ) Here is one of them, attributed to Shmuel:
חולין קיג, ב
בחלב אמו” ולא בחלב זכר”
“…In its mother’s milk” indicates that one is not liable for cooking meat in the milk of a male goat
A male goat that grows udders and produces milk? Here is how the great exegete Rashi (1040-1105) explains the Talmud:
ולא בחלב זכר - שהיה לו חלב מועט מן הדדים כגון אם נשתנה והיו לו דדים
“And not in the milk of a male goat”: This means that there was a small amount of milk from the udder. For example if the male goat changed and grew udders.
To understand what on earth is going on here, we need to take a detour into the strange world of biologic gender fluidity. So strap in and here we go.
Fish
In their helpful 2003 paper Group Sex, Sex Change, and Parasitic Males: Sexual Strategies Among the Fishes and Their Neurobiological Correlates (published, obviously, in the Annual Review of Sex Research) the authors note that there is “tremendous sexual diversity exhibited by fishes” Consider for example the clownfish, also known as the anemonefish. They are sequential hermaphrodites, and first develop into males. These colorful fish thrive unharmed in the poisonous tentacles of the sea anemone, and while several fish may live within the same anemone, there is only one pair that mate. Should the dominant egg-laying female die, one of the largest males steps up and does what needs to be done. He changes into a female. This male-to-female change is called protandry. Other fish, like the sea wrasse, are all born female, and as the need arises change into a male. This trick is carried out in at least 500 species of fish, and is called protogyny.
Birds
The male Northern Cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis) is a bright red color with a black mask over its beak and eyes. The female is a drab olive color, with a grey mask. In 2008 the ornithological world was rocked when a bird was sighted that was half-red and half-olive. Meaning it was half-male and half-female. The bird, sighted in the Black Hawk Forest Nature Preserve in northwestern Illinois, “was perched in a cockspur hawthorn tree.” Its right side was male, and its left, female. The cardinal evaded capture so it was not possible to analyze its genetic makeup. To be clear, this was not a bird that changed sex; it was one that appeared to be both sexes.
Humans
We all should have been taught in school that our gender is determined by which sex chromosomes we receive. If we get two female chromosomes -XX- (one from mom and one from dad) we are female, and if we get one X from mom and a Y from dad -XY- we are male. But like all things, it’s a little more complicated than that. In the 1980s, British researchers discovered the sex-determining gene on a tiny bit of the male Y chromosome and named it the sry gene. That gene tells the body to develop into a male or female appearing body. Sometimes the sry gene sneaks off of the Y gene and makes its way into the DNA of an XX female. As a result, she will develop male anatomy while genetically remaining an XX female. (Please read that sentence again, just to be sure you have understood it.) And sometimes the sry gene on an XY genetic male can mutate and not work. In that case, the genetic male appears to have the organs of a female, which is what occurs in Swyer syndrome. (You can hear more about the amazing sex-changing effects of sry in this fascinating podcast.)
Ready for more? In a small community in the Dominican Republic there have been a number of cases in which little girls grow a penis and turn into little boys. (Again, please re-read that sentence.) These observations were first reported to the scientific community in 1974, and are caused by a deficiency of the steroid 5a-Reductase. Here is how the BBC explained what is going on when they reported about it in 2015.
When you are conceived you normally have a pair of X chromosomes if you are to become a girl and a set of XY chromosomes if you are destined to be male. For the first weeks of life in womb you are neither…Then, around eight weeks after conception, the sex hormones kick in. If you're genetically male the Y chromosome instructs your gonads to become testicles and sends testosterone to a structure called the tubercle, where it is converted into a more potent hormone called dihydro-testosterone. This in turn transforms the tubercle into a penis. If you're female and you don't make dihydro-testosterone then your tubercle becomes a clitoris…the reason [some genetic males] don't have male genitalia when they are born is because they are deficient in an enzyme called 5-alpha-reductase, which normally converts testosterone into dihydro-testosterone.
So the boys, despite having an XY chromosome, appear female when they are born. At puberty, like other boys, they get a second surge of testosterone. This time the body does respond and they sprout muscles, testes and a penis.
So there you have it. Little girls, brought up as little girls, turn into boys, who develop male genitalia, and live as men. You see, they were never really girls in the XX sense. They were XY boys whose lack of sex hormones caused them to look like girls. Which brings us back to that page in the Talmud and the strange case of…
That male goat that produced milk
We have seen that there is great deal of natural gender fluidity in the animal world (and if for no other reason, this should make us more sensitive and understanding of those people who want to change their birth gender). But what about that milk-producing male goat? Well according to the website dedicated to “Goat Milk Stuff,” as bizarre as it seems, “there have even been bucks that have been known to give milk (yes, all bucks have teats, and no, a milking buck is not normal).” This was not a case of a male-to-female transformation. It was a case of male lactation.
Writing in the 13th century in his classic commentary on the Talmud called Bet Habechirah, Menachem ben Solomon Meiri, known as the Meiri(1249–1306) wrote that he had seen examples of male milk-producing goats:
בית הבחירה. מכון התלמוד הישראלי השלם.ירושלים, תשל׳ד 432
“There are a few male [goats] in whom the works of creation are slightly changed and whose nipples become larger such that they produce a little milk. And we have seen them with our own eyes...”
So too, did Khalifa al Nuaimi, a shepherd in the United Arab Emirates: Here is the 2009 report from The National, a newspaper in the United Arab Emirates.
As one of his prized male goats trotted up for some feed, he noticed the animal had seemingly developed a large udder. While he could not quite believe his eyes, the luckless creature proceeded to produce milk on demand, much like his female companions in the pen.
The local farmer made the discovery four days ago at his goat pen in Masakin, a suburb of Al Ain, the government news agency, WAM, reported yesterday. The animal's male organs are said to have been pushed back by the udder, described as "big and bulky". Mr al Nuaimi got a half-litre of good-quality milk from the goat. Dr Martin Wyness, of the British Veterinary Centre in Abu Dhabi, said it was unusual but not unheard of for male mammals to produce milk. "It's absolutely possible," he said.
what may be happening
The structure of the cells involved in producing milk in the male goat has been studied using immunofluorescence and electron microscopy techniques. It turns out they are smaller but higher in number than those found in normal males, which suggests that the anterior pituitary gland, which controls their function is probably acting in a weird way.
Another explanation of the milk-producing male goats of the Talmud (MPMGOTT) is that it is linked to estrogen-like compounds in the plants upon which they were feeding.
“It is now known that more than 50 plant species contain estrogen mimics known as phytoestrogens. Although the mechanisms are not completely understood, several plant secondary metabolites…can mimic the effects of steroidal estrogens. These non-steroidal compounds have similar overall structures or active sites as natural steroidal estrogen and can compete for binding sites on estrogen receptor proteins. Thus, plant compounds can have effects similar to endogenous estrogens”
This comes from an intriguing 2008 paper, Male lactation: why, why not and is it care? published in Trends in Ecology and Evolution. It points out that there are other mammalian species in which the male has been known to lactate, including sheep, rats, free-ranging Dayak fruit bats in Malaysia and the masked flying fox bats of Papua New Guinea. Male lactation was also recorded “in World War II prisoner of war camps when malnourished detainees were later liberated and provided with adequate nutrition. During the period of limited food supply, the prisoners suffered liver, testicular and pituitary atrophy” which messed things up. Once fully nourished, the lactation quickly ended.
But whatever the cause, Shmuel was neither drunk nor hallucinating when he claimed that male goats can produce milk. Because sometimes they do.
mordechai lactating on demand
Male lactation. It’s not just for goats and bats. Human males might do it too. Here is a story told in the Talmud (Shabbat 53b) and knowing what we now do, perhaps it not as fanciful as it might seem.
שבת נג,ב
מעשה באחד שמתה אשתו והניחה בן לינק ולא היה לו שכר מניקה ליתן ונעשה לו נס ונפתחו לו דדין כשני דדי אשה והניק את בנו
There was an incident where a man’s wife died, and she left him a son to nurse, and he did not have money to pay for a wet-nurse. And a miracle was performed on his behalf, and he developed breasts like the two breasts of a woman, and he nursed his son.
That’s a pretty impressive miracle, although it may seem a little less miraculous now that we understand so much about the role of the anterior pituitary gland. This father is not identified in the Talmud, but another lactating male is. And his name was Mordechai, the hero of the Purim story we read today. In the Book of Esther (2:7) we read וַיְהִ֨י אֹמֵ֜ן אֶת־הֲדַסָּ֗ה - that Mordechai “raised” or “sustained” Esther. Let’s pickup the story in Beresheet Rabbah (30:8), compiled between 300 and 500 CE.
מָרְדְּכַי זָן וּפִרְנֵס, אָמַר רַבִּי יוּדָן פַּעַם אַחַת חִזֵּר עַל כָּל הַמֵּנִיקוֹת וְלֹא מָצָא לְאֶסְתֵּר לְאַלְתָּר מֵינִיקָה, וְהָיָה מֵינִיקָהּ הוּא, רַבִּי בֶּרֶכְיָה וְרַבִּי אַבָּהוּ בְּשֵׁם רַבִּי אֱלִיעֶזֶר בָּא לוֹ חָלָב וְהָיָה מֵינִיקָהּ. כַּד דָּרַשׁ רַבִּי אַבָּהוּ בְּצִבּוּרָא גָּחוֹךְ צִבּוּרָא לְקָלֵיהּ,
But did Mordecai really feed and sustain Esther? R. Yudan said: On one occasion he went round to all the wet nurses but could not find one for Esther, so he himself suckled her. R. Berekiah and R. Abbahu said in the name of R. Eleazar: Milk came to him and he suckled her [and he never even tried to find a wet nurse]. When R. Abbahu taught this publicly, the congregation laughed…
They laughed. Of course they did. It sounded like Purim Torah. But it can happen. Just ask those lactating goats. Now that’s some real Purim Torah.
happy purim from Talmudology
Nazir 39 ~ Lice, and the Oldest Canaanite Sentence in the World
In today’s page of Talmud, we read of an important dispute: does hair grow from its roots, or its tips?
איבעיא להו האי מזיא מלתחת רבי או מלעיל למאי?... ת"ש מהא אינבא חיה דקאים בעיקבא דבינתא ואי סלקא דעתך מלתחת רבי ברישא דבינתא בעי למיקם. לעולם מלתחת רבי ואגב חיותא נחית ואזיל אינבא
ת"ש אינבא מתה ברישא דבינתא ואי סלקא דעתך מלעיל רבי בעיקבא דבינתא בעי למיקם התם נמי משום דלית בה חילא שרוגי שריגא ואזיל...
A question was asked: Does hair grow from the roots or the tips?...Let us suggest an answer from the live nit [or louse - meaning is not certain] which is found at the root of a strand [of hair]. Now if the hair grew from the root, shouldn't the nit be found at the tip? [The Talmud rejects this suggestion:] The growth may well be from the tip, but the nit, being alive, continually moves down [towards the root].
Let us suggest an answer from the case of a dead nit [or louse, that is found] at the end of a strand [of hair]. If the hair grows from the end, shouldn't the dead nit be found near the root? [The Talmud rejects this suggestion too:] Perhaps the dead nit has no power [to grasp the hair] and so as the hair grows from the root, the nit slides.
The louse nit (egg) with its adherent cylindrical sheath cemented to the hair shaft. The free distal end (arrow) would be directed towards the hair tip. The egg has a domed operculum (arrow) that contains air holes, allowing the maturing larvae to breath.From Burkhat el al. The adherent cylindrical nit structure and its chemical denaturation in vitro. Arch. Pediatric Adolescent Medicine 1988. 152; 711.
Pediculosis Humanus Capitas
Pediculosis Humanus capitas is the long scientific name of the tiny head louse. The female, less than 3mm long, lives for about a month, and in that time lays over three hundred eggs. The eggs are laid on a shaft of hair close to the scalp, where, warmed by the skin of their itchy host, they incubate for two weeks before hatching. The new lice emerge, grow for about 12 days, mate, and lay their eggs, and the cycle continues. Humans are the only known host of these lice, and somewhere in this cycle you as a parent may get a call to come and take your child out of school because they have been found to have head lice, or nits, the name given to their eggs. About 15% of school age children in the UK have head lice, while in the US estimates range from 6-12 million infestations per year. In the US, the cost to treat those millions of infestations is more than $350 million.
True story: Many years ago while working in an emergency department in Boston, I received a call from the (warm and loving Jewish) preschool my children then attended. My daughter had head lice, and so she could not attend class. I gently explained that I could not leave my shift in the ED to come and get her for as trivial a reason as head lice, but the school was adamant. She remained outside the classroom until arrangements to pick here up were made. I do hope the psychological damage was minimal.
Updated true story: That daughter, now herself a mother and a pediatrician, and living far from Boston, recently received a letter from a Jewish preschool informing parents that children in whom hair lice had been found would be sent home. She wrote a gentle email to the preschool director, pointing out that both the American Academy of Pediatrics and the National Association of School Nurses have produced clear, evidence based guidance that states the following:
Both the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the CDC advocate for the following practices to be discontinued:
- whole classroom screening,
- exclusion for nits or live lice,
- notification to others except for parents/guardians of students with head lice infestations
But her concerns fell on deaf early childhood learning ears. The preschool declined to change their policy. I suppose we should be happy that our preschools are following their mesorah, evidence be damned.
“The AAP states that head lice screening programs in schools have not been proven to have a significant effect over time on the incidence of head lice in the school setting, are not cost-effective, and may stigmatize children suspected of having head lice. ”
Head Lice in Antiquity
Head lice have been with us for a long, long time, as evidenced by the Talmud's clear acquaintance with them. Amazingly though, remains of a head louse have been identified on a louse comb from the Roman period that was discovered near the Dead Sea. (Even older remains have been found on the hair from Egyptian mummies, and nine-thousand year old lice eggs were found on human remains in Nahal Hemar near the Dead Sea.) "The comb was most probably used by inhabitants of the village of En Gedi, who were preparing a place of refuge in the cave, which would have been well equipped with food in baskets, storage jars and a large water pool before the end of the Bar Kokba Revolt in 135 CE."
Wooden comb found in the Cave of the Pool, near Nahal David in the Dead Sea region. It was discovered in 1961. From Mumcouglu and Hadas. Head Louse (Pediculus humanus capitis) Remains in a Louse Comb from the Roman Period Excavated in the Dead Sea Region. Israel Exploration Journal, Vol. 61, No. 2 (2011), pp. 223-229
“May this [ivory] tusk root out the lice of the hair and the beard”
In 2022 the Jerusalem Journal of Archeology published a paper that described the discovery in Lachish of an ivory comb with an inscription in early Canaanite script. It contains seventeen letters, in early pictographic style, which form seven words expressing a plea against lice. This makes it “by far the oldest alphabetic inscription that contains a full sentence.” It dates to around 1700 BCE - only a century after most scholars believe the alphabet was invented.
Here is how it was reported by the Biblical Archeology Society just four months ago:
So what does the oldest Canaanite sentence say? “May this [ivory] tusk root out the lice of the hair and the beard,” a fitting inscription to grace a comb. Remarkably, analysis of the comb provided evidence that this inscription, possibly termed a spell, was effective, as the remains of a louse were discovered on one of the comb’s teeth.
Crafted of elephant ivory, likely imported from Egypt, the comb would have been a prestige object, owned by a wealthy family. “It would have been like a diamond today, a crème de la crème luxury item. Others likely had lice combs too, but made of wood that would have decayed,” Yosef Garfinkel, Lachish excavator and a co-author of the study, told Haaretz. The tiny size of the comb (it measures just over an inch long) left little room for the 17 Proto-Canaanite letters written on it, which together make up seven words.
According to epigrapher Christopher Rollston of George Washington University, “Of course, this is also an object that was commissioned by, and owned by, a very wealthy family. After all, who else would have the money to commission a scribe to write an inscription on a hairbrush! The high caliber of the script and orthography, the fact that it is written on a prestige object, and the fact that it was found at a strategic military site, combine to make the most convincing conclusion that it was written by a trained, professional scribe.”
Although the teeth of the comb were broken off in antiquity, their bases remain. One side of the comb featured six thick teeth, used to untangle knots. The other side had 14 finer teeth, used to remove lice.
The ivory comb was uncovered during excavations of the famous site of Lachish in the Shephelah region of southern Israel. However, the comb itself was found in a secondary deposit. Because of this, it was not possible to date the comb according to other finds in the area. Instead, the comb’s date was determined through paleography (the form of the comb’s letters). According to the team, analysis of the script showed that it was very archaic, with several features that do not show up in later versions of the Canaanite script.
Remains of a head louse nymph between the teeth of the Lachish comb. From here.
chimen abramsky, IsAac Bashevis SINGER & Head Lice
In 2015, Sasha Abramsky published The House of Twenty Thousand Books, about the life and library of his grandfather Chimen Abramsky (1916-2010). Chimen (pronounced Shimon) was the son of the great Dayan Yechezkiel Abramsky, (1886-1976) who was head of the London Beth Din. Chimen, who eventually became a professor of Jewish Studies at University College London, was an expert on Jewish books and built a significant collection of his own, which is detailed in the book. Chimen also served as an advisor to Sotheby's and to the late Jack Lunzer, who built the greatest privately owned Jewish library in the world. Anyway, I came across this passage in the book, reminding us that presence of head lice was not just an annoyance - it was a way of life:
Infant and childhood mortality soared in these years [of the First World War] in part because of the prevalence of diseases such as typhus - which presumably explains why, in early photographs, the heads of Chimen and his brothers are shorn, to counter the typhus-carrying lice.[Ed. note: head lice do not carry typhus, but are certainly a nuisance.] Isaac Bashevis Singer, who was a few years older than Chimen, and like Chimen was brought up in a devout household...recalled having his sidelocks and head hair shaved off for this reason during the First World War...he wrote in his essay "The Book"..."I saw my red sidelocks fall and I knew this was the end of them. I wanted to get rid of them for a long time." (Sasha Abramsky. The House of Twenty Thousand Books. NYRB 2015. 57-58.)
For the Nazir, hair is a central part of his religious identity, and once that identity is no-longer needed, the hair is shaved off. Which is exactly what Isaac Bashevis Singer felt too.
Nazir 28 ~ The Not So Dead Sea
Over the last several pages the Talmud has ruled on the fate of various offerings (or money set aside to buy these offerings) that were designated to be brought to the Temple in Jerusalem, but which for one reason or another, could not in the end be donated. Consider for example a father who declared that his son would be a nazarite, and set aside money to bring the associated Temple offerings. However, the son decided he did not want the ascetic life thank you very much, and declined to become a nazarite. What then should become of the money set aside? If the father had set aside the money specifically for the purchase of a chatas - חטאת - a sin offering - he is rather out of luck. The Mishnah states that the money must be cast into the Dead Sea - that is, it cannot be used for any purpose. (This is because the הטאת can never be offered as a voluntary sacrifice, and since the son will not become a nazir, the money cannot be used for a voluntary sacrifice- or any other purpose.)
משנה נזיר כח, ב
היו לו מעות סתומין יפלו לנדבה מעות מפורשים דמי חטאת ילכו לים המלח
If he had set aside unspecified funds [for his son to bring as a nazir, and the son declined to follow through], they may be used for voluntary offerings. If he had set aside specified money [for a chatas sacrifice], the money is thrown into the Dead Sea...
The Formation of the Dead Sea
The Dead Sea lies on a boundary between the Arabian tectonic plate and the Sinai sub-plate, which is part of the larger African tectonic plate. In 1996 Garfunkel and Ben-Avraham published a paper on The Structure of the Dead Sea basin. They note that the Dead Sea rift was formed when the two tectonic plates moved apart from each other, creating a hole in the middle. The Dead Sea is one of the most saline lakes in the world, containing more than 30% of dissolved salts, mostly sodium, calcium and magnesium, potassium and bromine; it is almost ten times more saline than the oceans. The lake lies about 400m below sea level, and in some places the lake is as deep as 300m (for those of you in the US, that is almost 1,000 feet). It is these salts that make the lake so seemingly inhospitable to life, and explain why the rabbis chose the Dead Sea as an example (perhaps the example) of the place to throw the money set aside for a sacrifice that could not be brought. Once the coins were thrown into the murky depths of the lake, they would sink into the silt, rust, and never be found. The Dead Sea is a metaphor for a place without life, which is probably why the Mishnah also rules that into it should be thrown any vessel on which there is an idolatrous images. They will simply never be found again.
עבודה זרה מב, ב
המוצא כלים ועליהם צורת חמה, צורת לבנה, צורת דרקון - יוליכם לים המלח
If one finds vessels on which is the likeness of the sun, the moon or a dragon [all of which were used for idolatry], the vessels should be thrown into the Dead Sea...
“The name “Dead Sea” is of relatively recent vintage. It was first introduced by Greek and Latin writers such as Pausanias (160-180 AD.) Galen (2nd century AD) and Trogus Pompeius 2nd century AD.)”
Life in the Dead Sea
It is fascinating to note that while we refer to the lake as the Dead Sea, it is not called this in the Hebrew Bible or the Talmud. Rather, it is the Salt Sea - ים המלח - with no reference to anything about it being dead. This choice turns out to have been a good one, for although the lake seems to be devoid of any life, there is life within it.
“The increased salinity and the elevated concentration of divalent ions make the Dead Sea an extreme environment that is not tolerated by most organisms. This is reflected in a generally low diversity and very low abundance of microorganisms.”
Microorganisms were first discovered in the Dead Sea in the 1930s, and since then bacteria have been isolated in both the sediment and the water, albeit at low concentrations. However a series of dives in June 2010 revealed a complex system of freshwater springs that feed the lake, and surrounding these springs are bacterial communities with much higher densities, and much greater cell diversity, than was previously known. (You can watch a two-minute video of divers at the bottom of the Dead Sea here. It is amazing to realize that they are the first humans to see the depths of the Dead Sea). An international team of researchers described the findings from these dives in a paper titled Microbial and Chemical Characterization of Underwater Freshwater Springs in the Dead Sea, that was published in 2012. The colonies of cells that surround the freshwater springs are up to 100 times more dense than those found in the ambient water of the Dead Sea, and include bacteria that consume sulfides, and those that metabolize iron and nitrates. The authors conclude that the underwater system of springs that feed the Dead Sea are an "unknown source of diversity and metabolic potential."
Graphical representation of the sequence frequency in the studied Dead Sea samples, showing major detected phyla and families of different functional groups of Bacteria. From Ionescu D, Siebert C, Polerecky L, Munwes YY, Lott C, et al. (2012) Microbial and Chemical Characterization of Underwater Fresh Water Springs in the Dead Sea. PLoS ONE 7(6): e38319.
Despite these findings of life, the Dead Sea is still in trouble. Its level is dropping at the rate of about three feet per year, and its surface area is now only 600 Km2, down from over 1,000 Km2 in the 1930s. The prophecy of Ezekiel (47:8-9) that the water of the Dead Sea would be replaced with fresh water in which great numbers of fish will live is still a long, long way off.
יחזקאל פרק מז, ח-ט
ויאמר אלי המים האלה יוצאים אל הגלילה הקדמונה וירדו על הערבה ובאו הימה אל הימה המוצאים ונרפאו ונרפו המים: והיה כל נפש חיה אשר ישרץ אל כל אשר יבוא שם נחלים יחיה והיה הדגה רבה מאד כי באו שמה המים האלה וירפאו וחי כל אשר יבוא שמה הנחל
He said to me, "This water flows toward the eastern region and goes down into the Arabah, where it enters the [Dead] Sea. When it empties into the sea, the salty water there becomes fresh.Swarms of living creatures will live wherever the river flows. There will be large numbers of fish, because this water flows there and makes the salt water fresh; so where the river flows everything will live...(Ez. 47:8-9)