Bava Kamma Bonus ~ What Is An Ox, and Why You Should Not Daven Close To One

As the Talmud addresses the responsibility for the injuries of one cow caused by another, today we will look at the dangers of praying too close to these usually gentle animals. Back in Masechet Berachot, there is a discussion of the circumstances under which a person may interrupt her prayers because of a threatened physical danger. Getting too close to snakes is not a good idea, but cows are a problem too.

ברכות לג, א

אָמַר רַבִּי יִצְחָק: רָאָה שְׁווֹרִים — פּוֹסֵק. דְּתָנֵי רַב הוֹשַׁעְיָה: מַרְחִיקִין מִשּׁוֹר תָּם — חֲמִשִּׁים אַמָּה, וּמִשּׁוֹר מוּעָד — כִּמְלוֹא עֵינָיו 

Rabbi Yitzchak said: One who saw oxen coming toward him, he interrupts his prayer, as Rav Hoshaya taught: One distances himself fifty cubits from an innocuous ox [shor tam], an ox with no history of causing damage with the intent to injure, and from a forewarned ox [shor muad], an ox whose owner was forewarned because his ox has gored three times already, one distances himself until it is beyond eyeshot.

So today we will discuss injuries from oxen and cows. But first, just what is an ox?

Just what is an ox?

The Hebrew word used in the Talmud is shor - (שור, rhymes with shore). Consider the following verse from Leviticus 22:27:

שור או כשב או עז כי יולד והיה שבעת ימים תחת אמו 

Here are some of the ways it is translated into English:

• When a bull or a goat is born, it shall be seven days under its mother... (Robert Alter. The Five Books of Moses. [Alter seems to have forgotten to translate the word כשב]).

• When an ox or a sheep or a goat is born, it shall be seven days under its mother...(S.R. Hirsch. The Pentateuch, translated into English by Isaac Levy.)

• When any of the herd, or a sheep, or a goat is brought forth, then it shall be seven days under its dam..(The Pentateuch, translated into English by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silberman.)

• When an ox or a sheep or a goat is born, it shall stay seven days with its mother...(The JPS Torah Commentary, ed. N. Sarna.)

• When a bullock or a sheep or a goat is brought forth, then it shall be seven days under its dam...(Koren Jerusalem Bible.)

• When a calf, a lamb or a goat is born, it is to remain with its mother for seven days...(New International Version.)

• When a bullock, or a sheep, or a goat, is brought forth, then it shall be seven days under the dam...(King James Bible)

There are more, but you get the point. The word shor (שור) has been translated as a bull, an ox, a calf, a bullock and as a collective, any of the herd.  The Koren Talmud and the Soncino Talmud translate it as ox.  The ArtScroll Schottenstein Talmud as a bull. Confused? Me too.

Here are some of The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary definitions of an ox:

1. The domestic bovine quadruped (sexually dist. as bull and cow); in common use, applied to the male castrated and used for draught purposes, or reared to serve as food.

2. Zool. Any beast of the bovine family of ruminants, including the domestic European species, the 'wild oxen' preserved in certain parks in Britain, the buffalo, bison, gaur, yak, musk-ox, etc.

In his late nineteenth century translation of the Jerusalem Talmud into French, Moise Schwab translated the word shor as "le bouef" (rather than "le teureau"). De Sola's English translation of the Mishnah, published in 1843, uses the word ox. So does the 1878 compendium by Joseph Barclay, and the first complete English translation of the Talmud, by Michael Rodkinson, published between 1896 and 1903.  The translation of shor as ox is goes back to these early translations, but the suggestion that the meaning of the word is a 'castrated male bovine quadraped' is certainly wrong. Jews are forbidden to castrate their animals, and a castrated bull would have been ineligible to use as a sacrifice. And so we must conclude that the best translation of the word shor (שור) is a bull (well done, ArtScroll!).  

The delightfully named lecturer Dr. Goodfriend from California State University recently published a lengthy paper (in this book) on the various terms for cattle in the Bible, and the question of whether a castrated bull (a gelding) could have been offered as a sacrifice in the Temple.  The good professor Goodfriend concludes that indeed the prohibition against the castration of animals "would have placed the Israelite farmer at a disadvantage as fewer suitable animals would have been available for his use." One possible way to overcome come this (other than to use cows for ploughing) would have been to import castrated bulls from those who lived outside of Israel.  

And having sorted that out, let’s turn to the fun topic of the day. Injuries from cows.

“Cow-related trauma is a common among farming communities and is a potentially serious mechanism of injury that appears to be under-reported in a hospital context. Bovine-related head-butt and trampling injuries should be considered akin to high-velocity trauma.”

— Murphy, CG. McGuire, CM. O’Malley, N. Harrington P. Cow-related trauma: A 10-year review of injuries admitted to a single institution. Injury 2010. 41: 548–550.

Injuries from Domestic bulls (and Cows too)

Mechanisms of injury from cows. From Murphy, CG. McGuire, CM. O’Malley, N. Harrington P. Cow-related trauma: A 10-year review of injuries admitted to a single institution. Injury 2010. 41: 548–550.

Much of the fourth chapter of the Talmud in Bava Kamma addresses injuries from domestic bulls and cows. In Masechet Berachot Rabbi Yitzchak reminded the devout not to get too lost in their prayers if there are cows (or bull or oxen) in the vicinity. It turns out that they cause all kinds of injuries even today. In 2009, orthopedists from Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Ireland published a fascinating paper entitled Cow-related trauma: A 10-year review of injuries admitted to a single institution. Over a decade, the hospital admitted 47 people with cow related trauma, most of whom sustained their injuries from kicking (unlike matadors, who suffer from horn related injuries). And next time you feel like walking across a field containing some gentle-looking cows, remember this: one of the patients was admitted with a head injury, a hip fracture and hypothermia after being trampled on by his herd of cattle in a field and found a number of hours later. (There are no details as to whether the injury occurred during shacharit or mincha).

“If a bull be a goring bull and it is shown that he is a gorer, and he does not bind his horns, or fasten the bull, and the bull gores a free-born man and kills him, the owner shall pay one-half a mina in money. If he kills a man’s slave, he shall pay one-third of a mina.””

— Code of Hammurabi, Articles 251–252.

In another paper - Blunt Bovine and Equine Trauma - from La Crosse Lutheran Hospital in Wisconsin, researchers provided this illustrative case:

A 57-year-old male was pinned to the ground by a 2,000 pound dairy bull and repeatedly knocked to the ground forcefully at least seven times before he was able to crawl from the pen…Examination revealed the following injuries: bilateral flail chest, 13 rib fractures, bilateral hemopneumothoraces, renal contusion, two forearm fractures, left shoulder dislocation, bilateral scapula fractures, and dental alveolar fractures. The patient was treated by...mechanical ventilation for 15 days…His hospital course was complicated by Klebsiella pneumonia and at 16-month followup he remained severely dyspneic, unable to perform his usual farm work.

Finally, we should note a report published a few months ago in The Times (of London) about Scottish farmer Derek Roan, who was killed by one of his cows. Roan, whose family had farmed in the area for some 125 years, born on the farm had also appeared in a BBC documentary series This Farming Life.

Sheriff Joanna McDonald, who conducted a fatal accident inquiry, wrote that Mr Roan had died

… from extensive thoracic injuries as a result of an accident involving a cow whilst working on the farm. His death is certified in the post-mortem report as having been primarily the result of severe chest trauma.

Mr Roan intended to move a cow and its calf to join the main herd. The cow, a black Galloway beef cow weighing around 550kg, along with her calf, had been separated from the main herd a few days earlier due to suckling issues with the calf, who was approximately a week old at the time of the accident.

The farm vet, Dr Graham Bell, stated that it was good husbandry to deal with this issue in the way that Mr Roan had, to ensure that the calf was managing. The cow, who was aged around ten to 12 years, had never shown any signs of aggression before.

Cattle look gentle, and for the most part, they are.  But they are large beasts with incredible strength. Hikers, (and farmers) beware. Please pray safely.

Talmudology on the Parsha, Miketz: Why Do We Dream?

בראשית 41:1

וַיְהִ֕י מִקֵּ֖ץ שְׁנָתַ֣יִם יָמִ֑ים וּפַרְעֹ֣ה חֹלֵ֔ם וְהִנֵּ֖ה עֹמֵ֥ד עַל־הַיְאֹֽר׃

And it came to pass at the end of two years, that Pharoh dreamed: and, behold, he stood by the River.

Dreams feature a great deal in the story of Joseph and his brothers. Joseph shares his dreams with his brothers, which was not a good idea. As a result, he ends up in a prison in Egypt, where he accurately interprets two sets of dreams, Consequently is brought to Pharoh he ends up interpreting Pharoh’s famous seven-fat-cow-seven-ears-of-corn dreams. That’s three sets of dreams all in a few chapters. But why, exactly, do we dream? Let’s start with the the Talmud,

Dreams in the Talmud

גיטין נב, א

אמר, דברי חלומות לא מעלין ולא מורידין

Rabbi Meir used to say: The content of dreams is inconsequential (Gittin 52a)

The Talmud contains many theories about the content of dreams.  In Berachot (10b) Rabbi Hanan taught that even if a dream appears to predict one's imminent death, the one who dreamed should pray for mercy. R. Hanan believed that dreams may contain a glimpse of the future, but that prayer is powerful enough to changes one's fate. Later in Berachot (55b), R. Yohanan suggested a different response to a distressing dream: let the dreamer find three people who will suggest that in fact the dream was a good one (a suggestion that is codified in שולחן ערוך יורה דעה 220:1).

He should say to them "I saw a good dream" and they should say to him "it is good and let it be good, and may God make it good. May heaven decree on you seven times that it will be good, and it will be good.

Shmuel, the Babylonian physician who died around 250 CE, had a unique approach to addressing the content of his own dreams. "When he had a bad dream, he would cite the verse 'And dreams speak falsely' [Zech. 10:2]. When he had a good dream he would say "are dreams false? Isn't it stated in the Torah [Numbers 12:6] 'I speak with him in a dream'?" (Berachot 55b).  In contrast, Rabbi Yonatan suggests that dreams do not predict the future: rather they reflect the subconscious (Freud would have been proud). "R. Yonatan said: a person is only shown in his dreams what he is thinking about in his heart..." (Berachot 55b).  And from today's page of Talmud, we learn that Rabbi Meir believed dreams were of no consequence whatsoever.  

“It is of interest that two millennia separated the first detailed description of the major peripheral characteristics of dreaming from the first contemporary experimental results of brain research in this field, while only about 60 years were necessary to establish relatively solid knowledge of the basic and higher integrated neurobiological processes underlying REM sleep.”

— Gottesmann, C. The development of the science of dreaming. International Review of Neurobiology 2010. 92: 16

What does Science have to Say?

Dreaming takes place during the REM (Rapid Eye Movement) stage of sleep, when there is brain activation similar to that found in waking, but muscle tone is inhibited and the eyes move rapidly. This type of sleep was only discovered in the 1950s, and since then it has been demonstrated in mammals and birds (but not yet in robots). Most adults have four or five periods of REM sleep per night, which mostly occur in 90 minute cycles. Individual REM periods may last from a few minutes to over an hour, with REM periods becoming longer the later it is in the night. 

Here are some theories about why we dream, all taken from this paper. (The author, J. Allan Hobson, directed the Laboratory of Neurophysiology at the Massachusetts Mental Health Center from 1968 to 2003. He also published more than 200 peer-reviewed articles and 10 books on sleep and dreaming. So he knows something about the physiology of sleep.) 

1. Sleep and dreaming are needed to regulate energy

Deprive a lab rat of all sleep and it will die. Deprive a lab rat of REM sleep so that it does not dream, and it too will die.  These sleep-and-dream deprived rats lost weight and showed heat seeking behavior. This suggests for animals which regulate their body temperature, sleep is needed to control both body temperature and weight. Importantly, only mammals and birds are homeothermic, and they are also the only animals which are known to have REM sleep.

2. Sleep deprivation and psychological equilibrium

Based on a number of experiments in healthy human volunteers, it has been shown that sleep and dreaming are essential to mental health. "The fact that sleep deprivation invariably causes psychological dysfunction" wrote Prof. Hobson in his review,  "supports the functional theory that the integrity of waking consciousness depends on the integrity of dream consciousness and that of the brain mechanisms of REM sleep." (When we studied Nedarim 15 we noted however, that eleven days of sleep deprivation seemed to have no ill effects in one man.) The relationship between dreaming and psychological health is rather more complicated though: monamine-oxidase inhibitors completely repress REM sleep, and yet are an effective class of anti-depressants.  There appears to be a relationship between dreaming and psychological well being, but its parameters require much more study.   

3. Sleep, Dreams and Learning

In 1966, it was first suggested that REM sleep is related to the brain organizing itself.  This suggestion was later supported by studies which showed that the ability of an animal to learn a new task is diminished their REM sleep is interrupted.  Other studies show that REM sleep in humans is increased following an intensive learning period. 

“...dreaming could represent a set of foreordained scripts or scenarios for the organization of our waking experience. According to this hypothesis, our brains are as much creative artists as they are copy editors.”

— Hobson, JA. REM sleep and dreaming: towards a theory of protoconsciousness. Nature Reviews 2009.807.

Nightmares and Fasting

We've all had dreams that frighten or upset us. The major code of Jewish law take bad dreams seriously. While fasting is absolutely forbidden on Shabbat, it is permitted in two instances: when Yom Kippur falls on Shabbat and when you've had a bad dream and need to undertake a fast "to tear up the heavenly decree." Here is the ruling:

שולחן ערוך אורח חיים הלכות שבת סימן רפח 

סעיף ד
 מותר להתענות בו תענית חלום כדי שיקרע גזר דינו. וצריך להתענות ביום ראשון, כדי שיתכפר לו מה שביטל עונג שבת 

It is permitted to fast on Shabbat because of a bad dream, in order for the bad ruling to be torn up. However he must then also fast on Sunday, in order to atone for the fact that he ruined his Shabbat enjoyment by fasting...  

There are several psychological definitions of a nightmare. One describes nightmares, as "characterized by awakenings primarily from REM sleep with clear recall of disturbing mentation." These bad dreams are common, occurring in 2-6% of the population at least once a week. They seem to be more prevalent in children and less prevalent in the elderly, but in all age groups women report having nightmares more often than men. Nightmares are also more frequent in patients with psychiatric disorders such as anxiety, neuroticism, schizophrenia, sociality and post traumatic stress disorder. And in all populations they are more frequently reported during episodes of stress.  

There are a number of psycho-analytical models of nightmare formation, but little empirical evidence to support any of them.  They are shown in the table below.

Psychoanalytic and neo-psychoanalytic models of nightmare formation
Authors	Core mechanism producing nightmares
Freud 1900	Transformation of libidinal urges into anxiety that punishes the self (masochism); analogous to the neurotic anxiety underlying phobias
Jones 1951	Expression of repressed, exclusively incestuous, impulses
Jung 1909-1945	Residues of unresolved psychological conflicts.Individuation or development of the personality
Fisher et al. 1970	Attempts to assimilate or control repressed anxiety stemming from past or present conflicts
Greenberg 1972	Failure in dream function of mastering traumatic experience
Lansky 1995	Transformation of shame into fear (post-traumatic nightmares only)
Solms 1997	Epileptiform (seizure) activity in the limbic system (recurring nightmares only). Activation of dopaminergic appetitive circuits in mediobasal forebrain and hallucinatory representation by occipito-temporal-parietal mechanisms (nonrecurring nightmares and normal dreaming)
From Nielsen T and Levin, R. Nightmares: A new neurocognitive mode. Sleep Medicine Reviews 2007:11 (4); 295-310.

A review paper from researchers in Montreal and Yeshiva University summarizes the research in this way:

In sum, although clinical and, to some extent, empirical evidence supports different psychoanalytic models of nightmare formation, for the most part such models have not been subjected to rigorous empirical scrutiny. Rather, their central tenets have been integrated with more recent nightmare models, where empirical evidence is less scarce.

These same researchers suggest that nightmares "result from dysfunction in a network of affective processes that, during normal dreaming, serves the adaptive function of fear memory extinction." Fear memory occurs when an innocuous stimulus (like a door bell ringing) is paired with an unpleasant experience (like an electric shock).  Fear memory may be useful if it saves the individual from repeating a dangerous error. Extinction memories override the original fear memories and allow the individual to hear that ringing door bell without fearing an electric shock. The suggestion is that nightmares occur when the brain does not properly process fear extinction memories, For this reason nightmares are more prevalent in those with stress or psychiatric disorders. It's an interesting theory, but one that has not yet gathered much empirical evidence for its support.  But there is no doubting the relationship between psychiatric disorders, stress, and nightmares, and we noted earlier that  R. Yonatan claimed "a person is only shown in his dreams what he is thinking about in his heart..." (Berachot 55b). Perhaps this is why it is permitted to fast on Shabbat after a nightmare.  

Interestingly the Shulchan Aruch records an opinion that such Shabbat fasting is not permitted for a nightmare that appears only once; rather it is only allowed if it appears three times or more ( י"א שאין להתענות תענית חלום בשבת אלא על חלום שראהו תלת זימני). This is now more readily understood in light of the relationships we have noted between nightmares and psychological wellbeing; a recurrent nightmare may be associated with a more deeply felt stressful situation, and so it is only these recurrent bad dreams that allow for a Shabbat fast. One-off nightmares are not reflective of this stress, and so fasting  on their account is not permitted on Shabbat.    

The Realism and Bizarreness of 365 Dreams
Category	Frequency (%)
Possible in waking life, everyday experiences	29
Possible in waking life, uncommon elements	50
One or two bizarre or impossible elements	27
Several bizarre elements	4
From M. Schredl, et al. Dream content and personality. Dreaming 1999. (9): 257–263

In Summary

At best, we can say that contemporary science has a poor understanding of why we dream.  Hobson concludes his review stating that dreaming is "the subjective experience of a brain state with phenomenological similarities to - and differences from - waking consciousness, which is itself associated with a distinctive brain state." Well thanks for that Professor.  But not very helpful.

Dreams are very important to how we function as humans but we seem to have no idea how dreams serve to keep us from dying or getting very sick. That we must dream in order to function seems to be certain; but why we dream about what we do is far less known. And don't trust every scientific paper you read on the subject. Publication and peer review is no guarantee of veracity. Let's end with a good example of scientific nonsense from this paper published in the journal Sleep and Hypnosis, which seeks to explain why some dreams portend the future. (Well, um, actually they don't. But do go on.)  Just its title alone should make you run for the hills: Dreams, Time Distortion and the Experience of Future Events: A Relativistic, Neuroquantal Perspective. And it only gets better:

“If dreams and related altered states are actually the experiences of biophotons within the brain...then the temporal discrepancies between precognitive experiences and subsequent verified events may reflect the relativistic and quantum properties of minute differential velocities in electromagnetic phenomena. The average discrepancy of about two to three days between the experience and the event in actual cases supported this hypothesis.
The moderately strong correlation between the global geomagnetic activity at the time of precognitive experiences, primarily during dreams, and the geomagnetic activity during the two days before the event in those cases where the discrepancy is more than 6 days suggests a variant of entanglement between photons emitted during the event and those experienced before the event. The marked congruence of gravitational waves, geomagnetic activity, the Schumann resonance and the peak power of brain activity during different states, particularly when the sensitivity of the right hemisphere is considered, indicates a physical substrate by which prescience could occur.”

— Dotta BT. Persinger MA. Dreams, Time Distortion and the Experience of Future Events: A Relativistic, Neuroquantal Perspective. Sleep and Hypnosis 2009;11(2):29-39)

Rabbi Meir, the great sage of the Talmud, believed that the content of dreams was of no consequence whatsoever.  He may well said that same about some of the contemporary scientific explanations of dreaming.  

“אמרו לו בחלום מעשר שני של אביך שאתה מבקש הרי הוא במקום פלוני, אף ע”פ שמצא שם מה שנאמר לו אינו מעשר, דברי חלומות לא מעלין ולא מורידין

If a man was told in a dream that Ma’aser Sheni [a tithe on produce] belonging to his father was to be found in a certain location, even if he found some produce in that same location, it is not to be considered set aside for this tithe. For the content of dreams is of no consequence.”

— רמב"ם הלכות מעשר שני ונטע רבעי פרק ו הלכה ו

Bava Kamma 39a ~ Injuries from Bullfighting

Let's Run with the Bulls

Don't try this at home.  In fact, don't try this anywhere.

Every year in early July, the annual Running of the Bulls happens in Pamplona, Spain. This year’s event resulted in 35 injuries, but no (human) fatalities. Since records began in 1911, there have been 16 deaths. The last was in 2009 when a bull gored a 27-year-old Spaniard in the neck, heart and lungs.

It is with this background that we reach today’s remarkable passage in the Talmud that addresses the legal liabilities of bulls whose job was to gore people. Here is that passage from a Mishnah which we read in today's Daf Yomi:

 בבא קמא לט, א 

שור האצטדין אינו חייב מיתה שנאמר כי יגח ולא שיגיחוהו

A bull of the arena [that killed a person] is not liable to the death penalty, for the verse states [Ex. 21:28] "If an ox gores" - which implies that an ox that is compelled to gore [is exempt]. (Bava Kamma 39a.)

According to Rashi, bulls were trained to fight against each other (שמיוחד לנגיחות ומלמדין אותו לכך). Tosafot takes it up a notch; back on page 24b Tosafot noted that the bulls were trained to fight people. (לא דמי לשור האצטדין שהאדם נלחם עמו להורגו) In other words, we are describing a bullfight.

 A Jewish Bullfighter from the Upper West Side

Before we go further, let's frame this liability by watching a video. It is, I am fairly certain, the only video evidence of a lady Jewish bullfighter from New York's Upper West Side. Her name is Rachel Wolf, and her day job is to raise money for Shaare Zedek Hospital in Jerusalem. But here she is, in Peru in 2010, 'fighting' (kinda) a bull (kinda). Note: No Jews, matadors, or animals were harmed in the making of this video. Listen our for the screams of "Yay Rachel" over the rather cheesy background music.

Now imagine if the still sizable horns on that little bull had met, not the matador's cape, but the matador. Or worse still, Rachel. According to the Mishnah, the bull would not be subject to any penalty, since it was bred to gore, and so did not really do so of its own volition. Which seems rather fair to me. (Sorry, Rachel.)  

Injuries from Bullfighting

Far from a theoretical ruling, the Mishnah addresses a real issue for those countries in which bullfighting is still a national pastime. (I'm talking about you, Spain. And Portugal. And you too, Mexico, Columbia, Ecuador, Venezuela and Peru.)  Not surprisingly, all countries in which bullfighting is practiced continue to see the nasty injuries that result. And I'm not talking about those of the bull. 

In May 2010 Julio Aparicio slipped while fighting this half-ton bull.  The horn of the animal tore into the bullfighter's throat and emerged through his mouth.  Aparicio underwent six hours of surgery; doctors performed an emergency tracheotomy and worked to reconstruct his throat, jaw, tongue and the roof of the mouth. But don't worry. He made a full recovery and returned to the bullfighting arena ten weeks after the goring.  

“A considerable risk of serious, life-threatening injuries is inherent to bullfighting. Penetrating inguinal and perineal trauma with injury to the femoral vessels represents a specific, potentially fatal injury. ”

— Rudloff, U. Gonzalez, V. Fernandez, E. et al. Chirurgica Taurina: A 10-Year Experience of Bullfight Injuries. Journal of Trauma. 2006; 61: 970–974.

In 2005 a group of surgeons published an enticingly titled paper: Chirurgica Taurina: A 10-Year Experience of Bullfight Injuries, based on data collected from the Plaza de Toros Nuevo Progreso, the second-largest bullfighting arena in Mexico. 

Over the ten year study period, 2,328 bullfights  were included. Seven hundred and fifty bull- fighters were identified, of which 68 -that's 9% - required emergency medical care by the surgical trauma service Not surprisingly, the most common site of injury was the lower extremity (55 of 99 injuries), followed by the upper extremity, the groin, the perineum, and the abdomen. And there were some really nasty injuries. "Of the seven perineal injuries" wrote the authors, 

all involved the scrotum with varying degrees of scrotal hematoma and avulsion of the scrotal skin leaving the testicle bare in one case. There was one case of rectal perforation requiring a diverting colostomy. Of the five abdominal injuries, two breached the peritoneum causing bleeding from the small bowel mesentery in one case, and prolapse of the omentum in the other. In two other cases the bullfighters had separate wounds of entry and exit caused by the horn which had passed tangentially through the layers of the abdominal wall...

Another paper, Bullhorn and Bullfighting Injuries, reported on fifteen bullfighting injuries. Here they are:

 From Garcia-Marin, A. Turegano-Fuentes, F.  Sanchez-Artega A et al.  Bullhorn and Bullfighting Injuries.  Eur J Trauma Emerg Surg (2014) 40:687–691. 

A Jewish Bullfighter from the Fifteenth Century

The fact that the Mishnah addresses the liability of a bull that injures or kills in the arena suggests that Jews were indeed involved in the business of bullfighting. But through the centuries this Jewish involvement seems to have been rare.  Evidence for this is found in a manuscript in the British Museum. It was written sometime in the fifteenth century, and it parodies a bullfight in which Jews appear as both spectators and participants.  In a paper analyzing the parody, Elena Lourie notes that the point of the poem was

clearly to ridicule the Jews and their cowardice when confronted by a brave and ferocious bull...Although fourteenth and early fifteenth-century records reveal the presence of three or four Jewish lion tamers in Saragossa and Pamplona, entrusted with the keeping of the king's lions...there can be no doubt that they were oddities and that the very notion of Jews engaged in bullfighting went against the canon of what was considered proper and was intended to strike the reader as a thing, in itself, ridiculous and grotesque.

...And one from the Twentieth Century

Aside from Rachel, I know of only one other Jew who entered the arena - the professional matador Sidney Franklin (1903-1976). Franklin, who wrote an autobiography Bullfighter from Brooklyn, left New York (and his orthodox Jewish upbringing) in 1922, and moved to Mexico City, where he started his career as a professional bullfighter.  Ernest Hemingway was rather impressed with the Jewish matador from Brooklyn; he wrote a chapter about Franklin in Death in the Afternoon, and included pictures of Franklin at work in the arena. Let's end with Hemingway's description of Franklin at work:

Franklin is brave with a cold, serene and intelligent valor but instead of being awkward and ignorant he is one of the most skillful, graceful and slow manipulators of a cape fighting today. His repertoire with the cape is enormous but he does not attempt by a varied repertoire to escape from the performance of the veronica as the base of his cape work and his veronicas are classical, very emotional, and beautifully timed and executed. You will find no Spaniard who ever saw him fight who will deny his artistry and excellence with the cape...He is a better, more scientific, more intelligent, and more finished matador than all but about six of the full matadors in Spain today and the bullfighters know it and have the utmost respect for him.

“שוורים שמשחקין בהן ומלמדין אותן ליגח זה את זה אינם מועדים זה לזה. ואפילו המיתו את האדם אינן חייבין מיתה שנאמר כי יגח לא שיגיחוהו
Bulls that are taught to gore one another and that are used in tournaments are not considered to be ‘warned.’ Even if such a bull kills a person it is not liable to the death penalty...”

— רמב"ם משנה תורה הל׳ נזיקי ממון פרק ו ,ה

Next time on Talmudology: Injuries from Cows.

Channukah ~ What Have the Maccabees Ever Done for Us?

Who could forget that classic scene from The Life of Brian, in which the Judean rebels ask, “What have the Romans ever done for us?”

After much debate, Reg, the rebel leader (played of course by the brilliant John Cleese) concludes “All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?”

We might have asked the same thing about the Maccabees, or as they are known in Hebrew, the Maccabim (spelled either מַכַּבִּים, or מַקַבִּים), the heroes of the story of Chanukah. They gave us Chanukah to be sure, and their name: Maccabi Games and Maccabi Tel Aviv Football Club,and Maccabi Haifa and Maccabi Petach Tikvah, and more. But really, aside from a stunning military victory, a few decades of peace, freedom to worship in the Temple, and some naming opportunities, what have the Maccabim ever done for us? Actually, a lot more than you might have thought. They might have given us everything.

CHANUKAH in a nutshell

As a reminder, Antiochus had set his sights on conquering Alexandria in Egypt but was prevented from doing so by the Romans, who ordered him to withdraw or consider himself to be at war with the Roman Republic. Recognizing when he was defeated, he turned his army north. According to the Second Book of Maccabees (5:11–14), here is what happened next:

Raging like a wild animal, [Antiochus] set out from Egypt and took Jerusalem by storm. He ordered his soldiers to cut down without mercy those whom they met and to slay those who took refuge in their houses. There was a massacre of young and old, a killing of women and children, a slaughter of virgins and infants. In the space of three days, eighty thousand were lost, forty thousand meeting a violent death, and the same number being sold into slavery.

As described by the Jewish historian Josephus (who was not an eyewitness, but lived about a century later), here is what caused the Jewish revolt:

Now Antiochus was not satisfied either with his unexpected taking the city (Jerusalem), or with its pillage, or with the great slaughter he had made there; but being overcome with his violent passions, and remembering what he had suffered during the siege, he compelled the Jews to dissolve the laws of their country, and to keep their infants uncircumcised, and to sacrifice swine's flesh upon the altar; against which they all opposed themselves, and the most approved among them were put to death.

The Maccabim, led by Mattathias (Mattisyahu) and his five sons, waged a guerilla campaign against their Greek oppressors, which culminated in a military victory and the re-dedication of the Temple in Jerusalem. Of course there may have been a miracle, something to do with oil (though the Rambam makes no mention of it, as we have discussed elsewhere), but the real miracle was the restoration of an independent Jewish state under the Hasmoneans, until civil war and an intervention by the Romans ended it all in 63 BCE.

By any account this would be enough for which to thank the Maccabim (well, not the civil war, but certainly the rest). But it turns out that perhaps we owe the Maccabim a great deal more than this.

a search for the terminus ante quem

Last year, the Israeli archeologist Jonathan Adler published The Origins of Judaism, in which he asked a simple question: what is the earliest archeological evidence for Jewish practice? Adler was not primarily interested in textual evidence (though he cites a fair amount), but with the lived experience of individuals, on their practice and not on their beliefs. Adler focussed on epigraphic and archeological discoveries, to arrive at a terminus ante quem, “the boundary of time when or before which the particular element of Judaism under examination must have first emerged.”

…the date of the earliest available evidence demonstrating that Judeans knew something resembling the Torah and were observing its laws will serve as the terminus ante quem for the earliest emergence of Judaism. That it to say, Judaism must have emerged at this time or earlier. Lacking further evidence, this is the most we can determine with any degree of confidence (18).

I know what you are thinking, and Adler addresses it:

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. It is possible, for example, that the Judeans commonly knew of the Torah and were observing its laws for decades or even centuries prior to our established terminus ante quem, and that for whatever reasons no evidence has survived (ibid).

Adler’s conclusion, based on a “data-driven analysis” is that “we possess no compelling evidence dating to any time prior to the middle of the second century BCE which suggests that the Judean masses knew of the Torah and were observing its laws in practice. This will establish the middle of the second century BCE as the overarching terminus ante quem for the initial emergence of Judaism.” Which is to say, the Hasmonean period. Here is just some of that data.

1. Kashrut

   As we have discussed elsewhere on Talmudology, Adler analyzed the makeup of fish remains at 30 sites throughout the southern Levant from the Late Bronze Age through to the end of the Byzantine period (ca. 1550 BCE to 640 CE). They found that “the consumption of scaleless fish— especially catfish—was not uncommon at Judean sites throughout the Iron Age and Persian periods.” In other words, Judeans likely ate catfish, which are not kosher. [You can read a criticism of this claim from Bar Ilan’s Joshua Berman and Ari Zivotovsky here.] Pig remains suggest that by the Roman era, Judeans were not eating pork. “But here the trail of evidence ends. Prior to the second century BCE, there exists no surviving evidence, whether textual or archeological, which suggests that Judeans adhered to a set of food prohibitions or to a body of dietary restrictions of any kind…it is only from the Hasmonean period onward that we may claim to know of Judeans adhering to a set of dietary restrictions of any kind.” (49)

2. Ritual Purity

   Josephus describes two stories set in the second half of the first century BCE that relate to ritual purity. The Dead Sea Scrolls, composed some time in the second or first century BCE are of course full of laws that address this area. And they are mentioned in the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, dated to a similar time. The Maccabim themselves are described (2 Mac 12:38) as having purified themselves “according to the custom” before making camp for Shabbat. Beyond this, the Hebrew Bible provides “little evidence” that the laws of tumah and tahara were known before the second century BCE. For example, although the complex rituals around purification after touching a corpse (tuma’at met) or contracting a skin disease (tzara’at) are mentioned in the Torah, there is not “even one passing allusion to anyone putting these rites into practice elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible.” In addition, although there are many mikva’ot (ritual immersion pools) that date to the Hasmonean period, no stepped mikva’ot have yet been dated “to any time earlier than the late second century BCE” (82).

3. Visual Art

   There is a Torah ban on making a graven image, but the earliest imageless coins were minted in Judea in 131 BCE. In contrast, all the surviving coins minted in Judea in the fourth century BCE display human and animal images. The Persian era Judean authorities included figural images on all their minted coins and exhibited “no signs of regard for any such Pentateuchal prohibition.” Adler suggests that it was only from the Hasmonean era onward “that there is a never before seen aversion to figural art among Judeans” (111).

4. Tefillin and Mezuzah

   We have yet to unearth any tefillin and mezuzot artefacts that predate the second century BCE, though, to be fair, these objects are made of perishable organic material. (Remember, Adler is focussed on the lived experience of the Judeans, not what may have been written in the Torah. The latter certainly predates this.) Fun fact: perhaps the oldest archaeological witness to tefillin or mezuzah is the Nash Papyrus, dated to mid-second century to the mid-first century BCE. But there are many finds that demonstrate that by the first century CE tefillin and mezuzah existed as Judean ritual practices.

5. The Menorah

   “A single golden, seven-branched menorah as prescribed in the Pentateuch certainly stood in the temple prior to its destruction in 70 CE, and both texts and archaeological finds suggest that Judeans living in both the first century CE and the first century BCE were well aware of both its existence and its general appearance. Prior to the mid-first century BCE , not a single example has been found of a seven branched menorah depicted in Judean (or Israelite) art, and earlier texts that speak of either a single or multiple golden or silver lampstands in the temple provide little correspondence with Pentateuchal prescriptions” (167).

Menorot in Judean art only appear from the Hasmonean time onward. From here.

Judaism as a way of Life emerged during the Hasmonean Period

Adler provides more evidence, from the observance of Shabbat and Yom Kippur and Sukkot, to the establishment of the synagogue. You will have to read that for yourself, or listen to a talk in which he outlines his thesis.

Our resolute conclusion has been that some point around the middle of the second century [BCE] should be regarded as our terminus ante quem, the time during or before which we ought to seek the emergence of Judaism….we would be remiss not to regard as at least suggestive the fact that all of the many practices and prohibitions analyzed throughout this book first come into historical focus precisely during the course of the Hasmonean period. Is it possible that Judaism as a way of life followed by Judeans at large first emerged only around this time?

It turns out that the Maccabim have done a lot for us. Way more than you might have once thought. They either (i) left us with the earliest cultural artefacts that belong to a Judaism we might recognize as our own, or (ii) were the first to practice it. Either way,

…it would not be wrong to view Judaism as having emerged out of the crucible of Hellenism, which dominated the cultural landscape of the time. In a poetic way, it seems only fitting that our English word “Judaism” itself is the result of a Hebrew/Greek hybrid, rooted etymologically in the Greek rendering of the Hebrew “yehudayah” merged with the Greek suffix'“-ismos”. (236)

Now that is a something worth saying Hallel for.

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More Talmudology for Chanukah:

Rashi and Why Women Light the Menorah

Was there a Chanukah Miracle?