Bava Kamma 77b ~ Pig x Sheep

בבא קמא עז, ב – עח, א

ואמר רבא זה בנה אב כל מקום שנאמר שה אינו אלא להוציא את הכלאים ...אמר לך ר"א כי איתמר דרבא לטמא שנולד מן הטהור ועיבורו מן הטמא...וטהורה מטמאה מי מיעברא אין דקיי"ל דאיעבר מקלוט 

Rava said this establishes a model and teaches that wherever the term שה [seh] is stated in the Bible, it is meant to exclude a hybrid... R. Eliezer would say to you  - when did Rava state his model?  With respect to a non-kosher animal that was born from a kosher mother and a non-kosher father...But can a kosher animal conceive from a non-kosher animal? Yes, for it has been established that this case refers to a kosher animal that was conceived from a [kosher mutant animal that was] born with uncloven hooves. (Bava Kamma 77b-78a)

A pig in sheep's clothing? Nope. Just a pig.

In toady's page of Talmud we read of a debate regarding the crossbreeding of different species, and the possibility that a non-kosher animal (say, a pig) could fertilize a kosher animal (like a sheep). Here the Talmud seems to suggest that this could not happen, and that when this possibility is raised, it refers to a kosher animal that is breeding with another kosher animal but which looks non-kosher because of a mutation that causes it to have non-cloven hooves. Here is that case:

k= kosher; m= mutant, born with non-cloven hooves

This debate is part of a larger one found in another tractate of the Talmud, Bechorot. Here is part of that discussion:

בכורות ז, א

והאמר ר' יהושע בן לוי לעולם אין מתעברת לא טמאה מן הטהור ולא טהורה מן הטמא ולא גסה מן הדקה ולא דקה מן הגסה ולא בהמה מן חיה ולא חיה מן בהמה חוץ מר' אליעזר ומחלוקתו שהיו אומרים חיה מתעברת מבהמה וא"ר ירמיה דאיעבר מקלוט בן פרה ואליבא דרבי שמעון

...R. Yehoshua ben Levi said: A non-kosher female can never conceive from a kosher male, nor a kosher female from a non-kosher male, nor a large animal from a small animal, nor a small animal from a large animal, nor a domesticated animal from a non-domesticated animal, nor a non-domesticated animal from a domesticated animal, except for R. Eliezer and his disputant [in Chulin 79b], who claimed that a non-domesticated animal can conceive from a domesticated animal...(Bechorot 7a)

Which leads to the question of the day: Can a kosher animal indeed successfully breed with a non-kosher animal? Let's take a look.

When a pig loves a sheep

Pigs have been known to act, well, like pigs, and copulate with sheep. (There's even a video of it, if you are interested). But could this lead to a baby peep, or ship, or whatever you'd like to call it? There are pictures that suggest this may be so, but in actual fact this pig with wool is the rare Hungarian Mangalitza pig, and has no sheep ancestry.  

At the beginning of the twentieth century, Foster Dwight Coburn, a farmer who also served as the secretary of the Kansas Department of Agriculture published Swine in America; a text-book for Breeder, Feeder and Student, and on page 63 he made the following observation: 

There exists in some sections of Old Mexico a type of “hog” represented as the product of crossing a ram with a sow, and the term “Cuino” has been applied to this rather violent combination. The ram used as a sire to produce the Cuino is kept with the hogs from the time he is weaned. A resident of Mexico has given the following description of the Cuino: “The sow used to produce the Cuino belongs to any race, but as a rule to the Razor-Back family, which is the more numerous. There is never any difficulty with her accepting the ram when breeding time comes. The progeny is a pig—unmistakably a pig—with the form and all the characteristics of the pig, but he is entirely different from his dam if she is a Razor-Back. He is round-ribbed and blocky, his short legs cannot take him far from his sty, and his snout is too short to root with. His head is not unlike that of the Berkshire. His body is covered with long, thick, curly hair, not soft enough to be called wool, but which nevertheless he takes from his sire. His color is black, white-black, and white-brown and white. He is a good grazer and is mostly fed on grass with one or two ears of corn a day, and on these he fattens quickly. The Cuino reproduces itself, and is often crossed a second and third time with a ram. Be it what it may, the Cuino is the most popular breed of hogs in the state of Oaxaca, and became so on account of their propensity to fatten on little food.”

It may have been the most popular pig breed in Oxaca, but it was still rather an oddity in the US; newspapers found them interesting, as evidenced by two reports, from 1902 and 1908 about sheep-pig hybrids.  

The Minneapolis Journal, September 24, 1902, from here.

Los Angeles Herald. October 3, 1908, from here.

Species and interbreeding

Despite these reports, it would seem that the rule suggested by R. Yehoshua ben Levi is correct. Different species cannot successfully interbreed, because, well, because that's the definition of a species, as the Oxford English Dictionary makes clear:

A group of living organisms consisting of similar individuals capable of exchanging genes or interbreeding. The species is the principal natural taxonomic unit, ranking below a genus and denoted by a Latin binomial, e.g., Homo sapiens.

So although it is a tautology, you get the idea: a species by definition can only breed with other members of its own species. If a pig and a sheep could breed and have offspring, they'd be members of the same species. But they are not. Pigs belong to genus Sus, and the species Scrofa, whereas sheep belong to the genus Ovis and the species Aries. Pigs have 38 chromosomes, and sheep have 54.  So they cannot cross-breed.  (Lions and tigers both have 38 chromosomes, so they can cross breed, and produce a liger.)

But it's not as simple as that.  Even if you don't have the same number of chromosomes, you can still sometimes breed outside your species. Horses have 64 chromosomes and donkeys have 62. Yet they can cross breed, resulting in a mule (if mom was a horse) or a hinny (if mum was a donkey), although these are nearly always sterile. Horses belong to the genus Equus and the species ferus, and donkeys belong to the same genus but to a different species, africanus.  Yet they can interbreed.  Which raises the question: should a horse and a donkey be re-classified as belonging to the same species? But that would be odd, because they look so different and act in very different ways.

These kinds of questions  are perplexing, and have challenged the world of biology since the time of Carl Linnaeus (d. 1778) who gave the world a way of categorizing and naming all living things called binomial nomenclature. Briefly it goes like this: the grey wolf belongs to the genus Canis and the species lupus.  Dogs belong to the same genus, Canis, and are a subspecies of wolves, so their scientific name is Canis lupus familiaris (which I suppose makes it a trinomial nomenclature).  We belong to the genus Homo and the species sapiens, whereas chimpanzees belong to a different genus and species, Pan troglodytes. Anyway just what gets a creature into one species class or another is a really challenging question, one that is still being played out in the scientific literature. There's even a 320 page book from the University of California Press in which the author "provides a new perspective on the relationship between philosophical and biological approaches" to the concept of a species. For now, though, R. Yehoshua ben Levi's generalization found in Bechorot is pretty close to the Linnaean taxonomy we use today.  We can also conclude that the general rule of the Talmud from today's daf, that a kosher animal could not successfully breed with a non-kosher one, is a pretty good rule of thumb.

“Every living thing loves its like,
and every person his own sort.
All creatures flock together with their kind.”

— Ecclesiasticus, 13:15.

 Next time on Talmudology: Is garlic good for you? 

Talmudology on the Parsha, Bo: ~ The Length of the Lunar Month

שמות 12:2

הַחֹדֶשׁ הַזֶּה לָכֶם רֹאשׁ חֳדָשִׁים רִאשׁוֹן הוּא לָכֶם לְחָדְשֵׁי הַשָּׁנָה

Rashi, citing the Mechilta, explains that Moses received a lesson in lunar astronomy:

רש׳י, שם

החדש הזה. הֶרְאָהוּ לְבָנָה בְּחִדּוּשָׁהּ וְאָמַר לוֹ כְּשֶׁהַיָּרֵחַ מִתְחַדֵּשׁ יִהְיֶה לְךָ רֹאשׁ חֹדֶשׁ (מכילתא)

החדש הזה — He showed him the moon in the first stage of its renewal, and He said to him, “This stage of renewal (חדש) shall be the moment of beginning the months.”

Apparently, Moses was a visual learner, so God pointed out the way the moon would look at various times in the month:

רש׳י, שם

נִתְקַשָּׁה מֹשֶׁה עַל מוֹלַד הַלְּבָנָה, בְּאֵיזוֹ שִׁעוּר תֵּרָאֶה וְתִהְיֶה רְאוּיָה לְקַדֵּשׁ, וְהֶרְאָה לוֹ בְּאֶצְבַּע אֶת הַלְּבָנָה בָּרָקִיעַ וְאָמַר לוֹ כָּזֶה רְאֵה וְקַדֵּשׁ (שם). .. סָמוּךְ לִשְׁקִיעַת הַחַמָּה נֶאֶמְרָה לוֹ פָרָשָׁה זוֹ וְהֶרְאָהוּ עִם חֲשֵׁכָה

הזה THIS [STAGE OF RENEWAL] — Moses was in perplexity regarding the Molad of (the exact moment when begins) the new moon — how much of it must be visible before it is proper to consecrate it as new moon: He therefore pointed it out to him in the sky with the finger and said to him, “Behold it like this, and consecrate it” (i. e., when you see the moon in a stage of renewal similar to this which you now behold you may proclaim that a new month has begun). … This chapter was spoken to him close to sunset and He pointed it out to him at nightfall.

The moon is the defining celestial object for the Jewish People, dictating the rhythms of the calendar and its cycle of special events. This week on Talmudology, we will focus therefore on one crucial aspect of this calendar: how long is a Jewish lunar month?

The Talmud addresses this question in (where else but) Masechet Rosh Hashanah:

ראש השנה כה, א

תָּנוּ רַבָּנַן: פַּעַם אַחַת נִתְקַשְּׁרוּ שָׁמַיִם בְּעָבִים, וְנִרְאֵית דְּמוּת לְבָנָה בְּעֶשְׂרִים וְתִשְׁעָה לַחֹדֶשׁ. כִּסְבוּרִים הָעָם לוֹמַר רֹאשׁ חֹדֶשׁ, וּבִקְּשׁוּ בֵּית דִּין לְקַדְּשׁוֹ. אָמַר לָהֶם רַבָּן גַּמְלִיאֵל: כָּךְ מְקוּבְּלַנִי מִבֵּית אֲבִי אַבָּא — אֵין חִדּוּשָׁהּ שֶׁל לְבָנָה פְּחוּתָה מֵעֶשְׂרִים וְתִשְׁעָה יוֹם וּמֶחֱצָה וּשְׁנֵי שְׁלִישֵׁי שָׁעָה וְשִׁבְעִים וּשְׁלֹשָׁה חֲלָקִים

The Sages taught in a baraita: Once the sky was covered with clouds, and the form of the moon was visible on the twenty-ninth of the month. The people thought to say that the day was the New Moon, and the court sought to sanctify it. However, Rabban Gamliel said to them: This is the tradition that I received from the house of my father’s father: The monthly cycle of the renewal of the moon takes no less than twenty-nine and a half days, plus two-thirds of an hour, plus seventy-three of the 1,080 subsections of an hour.

Rabban Gamliel had a tradition that a lunar month cannot be shorter than 29 days, 12 hours and 792 chalakim (where one chelek is 1/1080 parts of an hour). Therefore, if witnesses claim to have seen a new moon before this time has elapsed after the previous new moon, they must be mistaken. But according to the medieval commentator Menachem ben Solomon (1249–1315) known as the Meiri, this period is also the longest period for a lunar month.

How the Lunar Month varies

The average length of a lunar month, that is, the period between two new moons, is 29.53059 days, which is 29 days 12 hours and 44 minutes. But this is an average, and the actual length of the month varies. This is because the moon’s rotation around the earth is not uniform. When the moon is closest to the earth (called the lunar perigee) it speeds up, and when it is furthest from the earth (at the lunar apogee) it slows down, though only by a little in each case.

From here.

Take a look at the lengths of the lunar months for this calendar year, 2024. Note the longest lunar month marked in red, and the shortest lunar month, shown in green. They differ by eight hours and fifty-seven minutes!

Lunar Calendar 2024
Lunar Month Start*	Lunar Month End*	Lunar Month Length
Jan 11, 11:57	Feb 9, 22:59	29 days, 11 hours, 2 min
Feb 9, 22:59	Mar 10, 09:00	29 days, 10 hours, 1 min
Mar 10, 09:00	Apr 8, 18:20	29 days, 9 hours, 20 min
Apr 8, 18:20	May 8, 03:21	29 days, 9 hours, 1 min
May 8, 03:21	Jun 6, 12:37	29 days, 9 hours, 16 min
Jun 6, 12:37	Jul 5, 22:57	29 days, 10 hours, 20 min
Jul 5, 22:57	Aug 4, 11:13	29 days, 12 hours, 16 min
Aug 4, 11:13	Sep 3, 01:55	29 days, 14 hours, 42 min
Sep 3, 01:55	Oct 2, 18:49	29 days, 16 hours, 54 min
Oct 2, 18:49	Nov 1, 12:47	29 days, 17 hours, 58 min
Nov 1, 12:47	Dec 1, 06:21	29 days, 17 hours, 34 min
Dec 1, 06:21	Dec 30, 22:26	29 days, 16 hours, 5 min
*all times are UTC, which may or may not be the same as GMT

The corrupted text in the Talmud

In his book Calendar and Community, the British scholar Sacha Stern pointed out that the period of the lunar moth, called a lunation, is exactly the same as in the present day rabbinic calendar. “However, the phrase אֵין חִדּוּשָׁהּ שֶׁל לְבָנָה פְּחוּתָה (‘not …less than’) which implies a minimal value, is inappropriate for what should represent a fixed value.” He continues:

Moreover, the mean lunation is totally out of context in this passage. The context of this passage is the Mishnaic, empirical calendar, which is based on the appearance of the new moon; calculation of the molad is therefore irrelevant. R. Gamliel was only establishing that the moon could not have been sighted before the 29th day of the previous month. All he could have stated, therefore, was the minimal number of days in an empirical lunar month.

Other scholars like David Gans (1743), Hayyim Slonimsky (1852) and Hayyim Yehiel Bornstein (1904) also recognized this problem. Stern therefore suggests that the text we have in our Talmud is a later addition.

Originally the text would have read: אֵין חִדּוּשָׁהּ שֶׁל לְבָנָה פְּחוּתָה מֵעֶשְׂרִים וְתִשְׁעָה יוֹם (‘not after less than 29 days’) - and no more. The interpolation שְׁנֵי שְׁלִישֵׁי שָׁעָה וְשִׁבְעִים וּשְׁלֹשָׁה חֲלָקִים (‘and a half, two-thirds of an hour and 73 parts’) would have been made by an editor who thought that the mean lunation - not the minimal number of days in the month - was meant in this passage. The absence of manuscript evidence does not undermine this argument; it only suggests that the interpolation must have been made relatively early, perhaps in the late Geonic period.

The origin of 29-12-793

If Professor Stern and his intellectual predecessors are correct, the origin of the 29-12-793 period for a lunation is not in fact in the Talmud. So where does it come from? In the twelfth century Rabbi Avraham bar Hiyya acknowledged that the calculation is identical to that found in the Almagest, a Greek language compendium on mathematics and astronomy which was composed by Ptolemy in the second century. In that book Ptolemy gives the lunation in the standard Babylonian sexagesimal system as 29d, 31i, 50ii and 20iv, (where one i=1/60 of the day, one ii is a sixtieth part of that and so on). It is exactly the same length as the rabbinic lunation. Rabbi Avraham bar Hiyya claimed that Hipparchus (the second century B.C.E scholar who Ptolemy used as his source) had taken this value from the Jewish sages - the ancestors of Rabban Gamliel referred to on today’s page of Talmud. But, as Sacha Stern noted, “it seems far more plausible to assume on the contrary, that it was the rabbis who borrowed their lunation from Ptolemy.” This assumption led a number of Jewish scholars to conclude that the molad calculation of 29- 12-793 could not have been instituted before the ninth century.

This is because Ptolemy’s Almagest was not known to astronomers in the Near East before its translation into Arabic in the early ninth century…It is likely that Ptolemy’s calculation of the conjunction was only then transmitted to the Jews, who soon incorporated it into the fixed rabbinic calendar. Although somewhat conjectural, this theory remains completely plausible, particularly as evidence of the present day molad calculation only begins to emerge in the ninth century.

Stern also admits that it is also possible that rabbinic calendar makers took their lunation period of 29-12-793 directly from the Babylonians, without resorting to Ptolemy’s Almagest. If that happened, “the rabbinic lunation could have been adopted long before the ninth century.” Either way, we got it from the Babylonians.

“Whether the molad calculation was borrowed from Babylonian astronomers, or from an Arabic translation of Ptolemy’s Almagest that would have been made at the ninth century Abbasid capital of Baghdad, in the heartland of Babylonia, the geographical origins of this molad would have been the same. It was in Babylonia, indeed, that this molad would have become known to the Jews and incorporated into the present-day rabbinic calendar. ”

— Sacha Stern Calendar and Community. Oxford University Press 2001; 209-210.

Where does that 1/1080 measure come from?

In 1989, shortly before his death, Otto Neugebauer (d. 1990), who was described as “the most original and productive scholar of the history of the exact sciences, perhaps of the history of science, of our age” published a paper that reviewed the transmission of the standard Babylonian value for the lunation. In it, he noted that in the third century B.C.E (!) in Mesopotamia, there existed a small unit of measure called “barleycorn” which represented a fraction of 1/6 of a finger breadth. The finger breadth is in turn a faction of a palm, and the palm of the cubit, so that 1 cubit = 180 barleycorns. But, noted Neugebauer, “measures can lose their specific meaning and become terms for fractional parts in general….Similarly, the barleycorn, embedded in a sequence of sexagesimally arranged units, retains only its fractional significance as 18 units of 60ths, ie 1/1080.” And so the Babylonians used this measure, which we inherited as halakim (parts). representing 1/1080 of an hour.

The Babylonians also discovered the nineteen year cycle around 600 B.C.E. which today is known as the Metonic cycle. It is is the period after which the phases of the moon recur at the same time of the year. They kept careful records of the time for a number of lunar cycles, and used these to calculate the average lunation. These were later adopted by the Romans. And by us.

No, It’s not a miracle

Some organizations, keen to spread the word about the beauty of Judaism, have looked to Rabban Gamliel and his knowledge about the length of the lunar month as proof of the divine origins of the oral law. Here is an excerpt from the Aish Hatorah Discovery Book:

So just how long is a lunar month, according to the reckoning of the Talmudic sages? The Talmud in Rosh Hashanah 25a tells us: Rabban Gamliel said...I have it on the authority of my father’s father that the renewal of the moon takes place after not less than twenty-nine and a half days, two-thirds of an hour and seventy-three parts of an hour.

Okay, class, you do the math. Two-thirds of an hour remembering that an hour is divided into 1,080 parts equals 720 parts. Add to that another 73 parts and you have 793 parts. So that according to the ancient calculation of the Sages of the Talmud, a lunar month is 29 and days plus 793 out of 1,080 parts of an hour. 793 out of 1,080 equals 0.734259 hours, which equals 0,03059 days. Add to that 29.5 days, and the average length of the lunar month according to the Rabbis is 29.53059 days.

What is so incredibly amazing about all this is the fact that, in our own times, the scientists and researchers at NASA have spent years of research using satellites, hairline telescopes, laser beams and supercomputers and all this in order to determine the exact length of the synodic (lunar) month. And the calculation they came up is that the length of the lunar month is 29.530588 days. The difference between this figure and that used by the Sages is .0000006, or one sixth millionth of a day!!!

Incredible! How could the Sages of millennia ago have been able to calculate the exact length of the lunar month with such incredible precision, enabling them to accurately and successfully balance the solar and lunar cycles for so many thousands of years?! With absolutely no modern technological tools and equipment, how could the Rabbis of old have had access to such accurate information way ahead of their time?! [Can you say G-d?]

We actually have a tradition, based on an ancient Midrash, that when G-d commanded Moses regarding the establishment of the calendar and the Jewish holidays based on the sanctification of the New Moon, He also gave to Moses all the secrets and vital information necessary to accurately calculate and balance the solar and lunar cycles.

Maybe accepting the Torah as G-d’s truth doesn’t require such a leap of faith after all?

There may be lots of good reasons to follow traditional Jewish practice, but, contra Aish Hatorah, the knowledge of the length of the lunar month is not one of them. It was an inheritance we took from the Babylonians, and unless Aish is suggesting that God revealed the average length of the lunar month to them, knowing the history of the Jewish lunation reveals something else and just as impressive. It is the ingenuity of the human mind.

Talmudology on the Parsha, Va'erah: Scientific Explanations of the Plagues

9:3 שמות

הִנֵּ֨ה יַד־ה׳ הוֹיָ֗ה בְּמִקְנְךָ֙ אֲשֶׁ֣ר בַּשָּׂדֶ֔ה בַּסּוּסִ֤ים בַּֽחֲמֹרִים֙ בַּגְּמַלִּ֔ים בַּבָּקָ֖ר וּבַצֹּ֑אן דֶּ֖בֶר כָּבֵ֥ד מְאֹֽד׃

Behold, the hand of the Lord is upon thy cattle which is in the field, upon the horses, upon the asses, upon the camels, upon the oxen, and upon the sheep: there shall be a very grievous plague.

Scientific Explanations of the Ten Plagues

There is a fascinating explanation on this pasuk from Rabbi Yehuda Ayyash (1688–1760) who lived in Algiers, and served as rabbi of the city. He eventually made his way to Jerusalem although his lengthy work, Vezot Leyehuda was published in Sulzbach, Germany in 1776. It included a commentary on the Pesach Haggadah, in which Rabbi Ayyash asked why, when God threatened Pharaoh with the plague of pestilence [dever] the Torah used the specific words found in our parsha: “ . . . the hand of the Lord will strike cattle which is in the field” (Exodus 9:3). It would surely have been obvious that cattle, which generally spend time outside in fields, would be smitten with the plague there, in those same fields.

To explain why this location—the fields—was specifically mentioned, Rabbi Ayyash reminded his readers of the etiology of plagues, or what today we might call their scientific explanations. They were believed to have been caused by foul air, or miasmas, which poisoned those who breathed it. Therefore, when a plague struck, it was best to flee to a place where the air was clean of these poisonous vapors, and this often meant leaving the confines of one’s home and living in open fields.

Yehudah Ayyash, Vezot L’Yehudah. Sulzbach 1776. 58a column II.

It was important to note that in a pandemic [magefah] most of the sickness is caused by poisonous air and foul smells. Therefore, many people flee to the fields and orchards and meadows, open spaces where there is no foul air, but instead the air is pure and clean and sweet . . . And it is here that the Egyptians were forced to acknowledge the hand of God and his providence, because they realized that these deaths were not natural . . . for they occurred in the fields and not inside, which is the opposite of what usually happens. This is the hand of God and there is none like Him.

This account was published some two centuries before a rational etiology of the Ten Plagues became a topic of scientific interest. and it demonstrated that even traditional Jews turned to the scientific theories of their time as a starting point for understanding the significance of biblical miracles. Although Rabbi Ayyash understood the plague of pestilence as a supernatural event and a reversal of the natural order, it could only be understood as such using the widely accepted theory of miasmas to explain how it miraculously everted the natural order.

Academic scholars generally do not view the Bible as the word of God given at Sinai. Instead, it is a collection written and edited over hundreds of years, starting around the tenth century B.C.E. and ending sometime in the fifth. What natural events, these scholars have asked, might explain the Ten Plagues? Over the last sixty years there have been a number of different theories, each describing a scenario in which one plague causes the next, and each has a rational explanation. As we discuss some of the purported scientific explanations for the miraculous Ten Plagues, it is worth remembering it was not just academic scholars, historians, and scientists who used the best contemporary theories to make sense of the biblical account of the plagues. Deeply religious Jewish thinkers like Rabbi Ayyash did the same long before.

It begins with Silt, and ends with ANTHRAX

Writing in 1957, Greta Hort suggested the plagues began with silt that was washed into the Nile from one of its flooded tributaries. The river was overrun, with bacteria which caused the fish to die. As a result, “the frogs would have to leave their normal biotope and seek refuge on dry land.” However, the frogs themselves died from anthrax, one of those bacteria that bloomed in the Nile. The plague of “lice” was actually a mosquito infestation, and the fourth plague, a swarming of fleas, “is the sudden mass multiplication of some insect or other and its just as sudden disappearance, as it is known to everyone who has lived for any length of time in tropical or subtropical regions.” The decimation of the cattle was caused by their ingesting fodder contaminated with the same anthrax that killed off the frogs. When the anthrax bacillus later infected the Egyptians, it caused the skin pustules described in the sixth plague. Hort’s series of unfortunate events stops at this plague; she postulated that the last four plagues were not interconnected.

Or maybe mold

More recently, other microbes responsible for the plagues have been suggested. Perhaps it was not anthrax, but by a tiny single-celled protozoon which goes by the scientific name of Trypanosoma evans and causes disease in cattle, or the rove beetle, which produces a blister-inducing toxin. Perhaps molds played a part. They would have grown quickly in the wet and humid conditions of Egypt’s grain stores, where they released dangerous mycotoxins. In biblical times (and long beyond), firstborn sons were always treated more favorably. Maybe, “during the famine that must have followed the previous plagues, any little food that might have remained inside the houses would have been given to the firstborn. Such food would have been moldy and toxic in view of the rain, hail, and darkness.” In the mold theory, the victims of the tenth plague were killed by the very prejudices of a society that had favored them.

Or the weather

Another telling lays the blame not only on bacteria or molds but on something with which we are all too familiar—climate change, or more specifically, an “unseasonable and progressive climate warming along the eastern Mediterranean coast where Israelites worked in forced labor.” It all began with a change in the weather over the eastern Pacific Ocean, which today we call the El Niño effect. This in turn heated the Mediterranean and the atmosphere over Africa. The Nile waters warmed to a critical temperature, which allowed a massive red algae to bloom. This was described as the plague of blood. The river then became uncomfortably warm for the frogs, who fled to dry land, where they later died and spread disease. The third plague, lice, was caused by a rise in the population of small insects that enjoyed the unusual wet and humid conditions. Then came the larger fleas and biting flies of the fourth plague “having hatched in soil heavily polluted with animal urine and feces.” The fifth plague that killed Egypt’s livestock was due to infections like the Rift Valley Fever Virus and West Nile Virus, both having been spread by mosquitos enjoying the unusually warm and moist climate. Other fly larvae burrowed into the skin and were responsible for the boils inflicted on the Egyptians and described in the sixth plague. The last four plagues were also consequences of the El Niño effect. As the warm moist seas air collided with the cooler inland air, violent storms with hailstones resulted. These same storms and high winds then carried huge swarms of locusts into Egypt; as they subsided, a dense fog settled, caused by the sudden condensation of moisture. This was described in the Torah as the penultimate plague of darkness. Once again, these conditions were perfect for the mosquitos, which this time spread viral diseases into the Egyptian human rather than the animal population. Older Egyptians would have been immune, having already been infected in previous years but the younger population, which of course included the firstborn, were not so lucky. In this, the final plague, they died in large numbers.

Or Volcanoes

There is another natural explanation for the biblical plagues in Egypt. Volcanos. This was first suggested in 1940 by a father-son pair of British archeologists who theorized that a volcanic eruption along the rift valley in central Africa led to a series of ecological changes, which resulted in the plagues. The theory was criticized soon after its publication not because of its vulcanology but rather its geography: a volcanic eruption in central Africa would send lava south rather than north toward the Nile. This problem was addressed in 1964 when a German researcher suggested a new volcanic site. Around 1600 B.C.E. there had been a massive eruption that destroyed the Aegean island of Thera. It was this eruption, and not one in central Africa, that was the proximate cause of the ensuing plagues. The Aegean eruption was also offered as an explanation of the plagues in a recent book by Barbara Sivertsen. It was too far away, she notes, to have been seen in the Egyptian delta, though perhaps the people there “noticed a clattering or shattering of some of their pottery as a wave of air seemed to rush past.”The tsunami that followed the eruption flooded the Delta and contaminated the normal supplies of drinking water. Iron dust from the volcanic eruption settled in the water and was taken up by iron- eating bacteria, which in turn excreted large amounts of organic nitrogen. This nitrogen stimulates the “massive growth of toxic dinoflagellates and results in a red tide two or three months after the original dustfall.”It was this chain of events that turned the water red. Sivertsen further suggested that an echo of the plague of Blood might be found in an Egyptian text known as the Admonitions of Ipuwer: “Lo, the river is blood. As one drinks of it one shrinks from people and thirsts for water.”

The contamination of the water left it uninhabitable, and the amphibians were forced to leave, which resulted in the plague of frogs. The third plague, lice, was actually a dust storm in which fine volcanic ash reached the Delta.

Over the centuries, as the story was remembered and misremembered, the dust from the sky became lice from the ground. “The first light ashfall was not dense enough to produce darkness,” Sivertsen explained. “It was only dense enough to be perceived as dust— an acid-bearing dust, irritating the skin of man and beast, like gnats or lice or mosquitos biting. In time, the modifier “like” would be dropped from the oral tradition . . . and the dust was transformed into small biting insects.” The same oral tradition might have embellished the small insects and turned them into the large flying insects of the fourth plague. That, or the insects swarmed and invaded Egyptian homes as the ash “blocked their tra- cheal tubes and hindered their ability to fly.” This falling ash killed the livestock that could not be sheltered indoors and caused the blisters, described in the fifth and sixth plagues. This would explain the biblical connection between hot soot and the plague of blisters and boils: “Then God said to Moses and Aaron, ‘Take handfuls of soot from a furnace and have Moses toss it into the air in the presence of Pharaoh. It will become fine dust over the whole land of Egypt, and festering boils will break out on men and animals throughout the land.’” The seventh plague of hail was an aggregation of cyclonic storms and ash from the eruption. The next plague, locusts, had nothing to do with volcanos, but was an ordinary perhaps even expected occurrence in the Egyptian Delta. It was remembered as an especially severe outbreak and was incorporated into exodus story. The ninth plague of darkness is readily explained by the huge clouds of volcanic ash, but rather disappointingly Sivertsen stops here. She makes no attempt to explain the etiology of the final plague, the death of the firstborn: “ . . . from the firstborn son of Pharaoh, who sits on the throne, to the firstborn of the slave girl, who is at her hand mill, and all the firstborn of the cattle as well.”

“שָׁ֭לַח מֹשֶׁ֣ה עַבְדּ֑וֹ אַ֝הֲרֹ֗ן אֲשֶׁ֣ר בָּחַר־בּֽוֹ׃
שָֽׂמוּ־בָ֭ם דִּבְרֵ֣י אֹתוֹתָ֑יו וּ֝מֹפְתִ֗ים בְּאֶ֣רֶץ חָֽם׃
שָׁ֣לַֽח חֹ֭שֶׁךְ וַיַּחְשִׁ֑ךְ וְלֹֽא־מָ֝ר֗וּ אֶת־[דְּבָרֽוֹ] (דבריו)׃
הָפַ֣ךְ אֶת־מֵימֵיהֶ֣ם לְדָ֑ם וַ֝יָּ֗מֶת אֶת־דְּגָתָֽם׃

He sent Moshe his servant; and Aharon whom he had chosen. They performed his signs among them, and wonders in the land of Ḥam. He sent darkness, and made it dark, and they did not rebel against his word. He turned their water into blood, and slew their fish.
”

— Psalm 105. 26-29

How many plagues were there, really?

Despite the importance of the plagues to the Exodus story, nowhere in the Bible are they listed as being “ten.” When they are mentioned in the book of Psalms, which they are, twice, they are reduced to only seven in number. In Psalm 78, no mention is made of lice and darkness; in Psalm 105 darkness is mentioned as the first plague, not the ninth. This suggests that there had been different traditions about both the number and the nature of the plagues, which were later unified in the account found in Exodus. In light of these different accounts, it is difficult to give credence to any of the differing attempts to explain the natural causes and order of the Ten Plagues, no matter how imaginative they are.

Regardless of which of these highly conjectural explanations might be correct, the Bible would have described the plagues in terms that would resonate with those who first read it. Those for whom the story was first written would have recognized many features of the plagues described in the book of Exodus. They would have nodded their heads at the accounts of lice infestations, skin boils, and sudden deaths, for they were also features of their own lived experience. The Ten Plagues included both natural disasters and epidemics, which, just as they do today, claimed lives in a capricious and random way. The formation of the Children of Israel took place in a crucible of disease.

---

Excerpted from The Eleventh Plague; Jews and Pandemics from the Bible to COVID-19 (Oxford University Press 2023).

Talmudology on the Parsha, Shemot: A History of Jewish Midwives

שמות 1:15–22

וַיֹּ֙אמֶר֙ מֶ֣לֶךְ מִצְרַ֔יִם לַֽמְיַלְּדֹ֖ת הָֽעִבְרִיֹּ֑ת אֲשֶׁ֨ר שֵׁ֤ם הָֽאַחַת֙ שִׁפְרָ֔ה וְשֵׁ֥ם הַשֵּׁנִ֖ית פּוּעָֽה׃

וַיֹּ֗אמֶר בְּיַלֶּדְכֶן֙ אֶת־הָֽעִבְרִיּ֔וֹת וּרְאִיתֶ֖ן עַל־הָאבְנָ֑יִם אִם־בֵּ֥ן הוּא֙ וַהֲמִתֶּ֣ן אֹת֔וֹ וְאִם־בַּ֥ת הִ֖וא וָחָֽיָה׃

וַתִּירֶ֤אןָ הַֽמְיַלְּדֹת֙ אֶת־הָ֣אֱלֹהִ֔ים וְלֹ֣א עָשׂ֔וּ כַּאֲשֶׁ֛ר דִּבֶּ֥ר אֲלֵיהֶ֖ן מֶ֣לֶךְ מִצְרָ֑יִם וַתְּחַיֶּ֖יןָ אֶת־הַיְלָדִֽים׃

וַיִּקְרָ֤א מֶֽלֶךְ־מִצְרַ֙יִם֙ לַֽמְיַלְּדֹ֔ת וַיֹּ֣אמֶר לָהֶ֔ן מַדּ֥וּעַ עֲשִׂיתֶ֖ן הַדָּבָ֣ר הַזֶּ֑ה וַתְּחַיֶּ֖יןָ אֶת־הַיְלָדִֽים׃

וַתֹּאמַ֤רְןָ הַֽמְיַלְּדֹת֙ אֶל־פַּרְעֹ֔ה כִּ֣י לֹ֧א כַנָּשִׁ֛ים הַמִּצְרִיֹּ֖ת הָֽעִבְרִיֹּ֑ת כִּֽי־חָי֣וֹת הֵ֔נָּה בְּטֶ֨רֶם תָּב֧וֹא אֲלֵהֶ֛ן הַמְיַלֶּ֖דֶת וְיָלָֽדוּ׃

וַיֵּ֥יטֶב אֱלֹהִ֖ים לַֽמְיַלְּדֹ֑ת וַיִּ֧רֶב הָעָ֛ם וַיַּֽעַצְמ֖וּ מְאֹֽד׃

וַיְהִ֕י כִּֽי־יָרְא֥וּ הַֽמְיַלְּדֹ֖ת אֶת־הָאֱלֹהִ֑ים וַיַּ֥עַשׂ לָהֶ֖ם בָּתִּֽים׃

וַיְצַ֣ו פַּרְעֹ֔ה לְכל־עַמּ֖וֹ לֵאמֹ֑ר כל־הַבֵּ֣ן הַיִּלּ֗וֹד הַיְאֹ֙רָה֙ תַּשְׁלִיכֻ֔הוּ וְכל־הַבַּ֖ת תְּחַיּֽוּן׃

And the king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives, of whom the name of the one was Shifra, and the name of the other Pu῾ah: and he said, When you do the office of midwife to the Hebrew women, you shall look upon the birth stones; if it be a son, then you shall kill him: but if it be a daughter, then she shall live. But the midwives feared God, and did not as the king of Miżrayim commanded them, but saved the men children alive. And the king of Miżrayim called for the midwives, and said to them, Why have you done this thing, and saved the men children alive? And the midwives said to Par῾o, Because the Hebrew women are not as the Egyptian women; for they are lively, and are delivered before the midwives come to them. Therefore God dealt well with the midwives: and the people multiplied, and grew very mighty.

In a remarkable act of defiance, the Hebrew midwives Shifra and Pu’ah refused to murder the baby boys that they delivered. For this, they have ever since been evoked in discussions of Jewish midwifery, which is the topic of this week’s Talmudology on the Parsha.

Abaye’s Midwife-Surgeon

In Masechet Shabbat, the great Babylonian amora Abaye (d.337) described the skill of his nurse, (whom he called אם, mother, for she raised him). She was both a midwife and a surgeon, as this passage makes clear:

שבת קלד,א

אָמַר אַבָּיֵי, אֲמַרָה לִי אֵם: הַאי יָנוֹקָא דְּלָא יְדִיעַ מַפַּקְתֵּיהּ, לְשַׁיְיפֵיהּ מִישְׁחָא וְלוֹקְמֵיהּ לַהֲדֵי יוֹמָא, וְהֵיכָא דְּזִיג — לִיקְרְעֵיהּ בִּשְׂעָרְתָּא שְׁתִי וָעֵרֶב. אֲבָל בִּכְלִי מַתָּכוֹת — לָא, מִשּׁוּם דְּזָרֵיף

Abaye said: my nurse told me: In the case of a baby whose anus cannot be seen, [as it is obscured by skin,] let one rub it with oil and stand it before the light of the day. And where it appears transparent, let one tear it with a barley grain widthwise and lengthwise. However, one may not tear it with a metal implement because it causes infection and swelling.

This midwife was also skilled in a number of other post-natal interventions:

וְאָמַר אַבָּיֵי, אֲמַרָה לִי אֵם: הַאי יָנוֹקָא דְּלָא מָיֵיץ, מֵיקַר [הוּא] דְּקָר פּוּמֵּיהּ. מַאי תַּקַּנְתֵּיהּ? לַיְתוֹ כָּסָא גּוּמְרֵי, וְלַינְקְטֵיהּ לֵיהּ לַהֲדֵי פּוּמֵּיהּ, דְּחָיֵים פּוּמֵּיהּ וּמָיֵיץ. וְאָמַר אַבָּיֵי, אֲמַרָה לִי אֵם: הַאי . יָנוֹקָא דְּלָא מִנַּשְׁתֵּים — לִינְפְּפֵיהּ בְּנָפְווֹתָא וּמִנַּשְׁתֵּים

וְאָמַר אַבָּיֵי, אֲמַרָה לִי אֵם: הַאי יָנוֹקָא דְּלָא יְדִיעַ מַפַּקְתֵּיהּ, לְשַׁיְיפֵיהּ מִישְׁחָא וְלוֹקְמֵיהּ לַהֲדֵי יוֹמָא, וְהֵיכָא דְּזִיג — לִיקְרְעֵיהּ בִּשְׂעָרְתָּא שְׁתִי וָעֵרֶב. אֲבָל בִּכְלִי מַתָּכוֹת — לָא, מִשּׁוּם דְּזָרֵיף. וְאָמַר אַבָּיֵי, אֲמַרָה לִי אֵם: הַאי יָנוֹקָא דְּלָא מָיֵיץ, מֵיקַר [הוּא] דְּקָר פּוּמֵּיהּ. מַאי תַּקַּנְתֵּיהּ? לַיְתוֹ כָּסָא גּוּמְרֵי, וְלַינְקְטֵיהּ לֵיהּ לַהֲדֵי פּוּמֵּיהּ, דְּחָיֵים פּוּמֵּיהּ וּמָיֵיץ. וְאָמַר אַבָּיֵי, אֲמַרָה לִי אֵם: הַאי יָנוֹקָא דְּלָא מִנַּשְׁתֵּים — לִינְפְּפֵיהּ בְּנָפְווֹתָא וּמִנַּשְׁתֵּים.

Abaye said: My nurse told me: If a baby refuses to nurse, that is because its mouth is cold and it is unable to nurse. What is his remedy? They should bring a cup of coals and place it near his mouth, so that his mouth will warm and he will nurse. And Abaye said that my mother told me: A baby that does not urinate, let one place him in a sieve and shake him, and he will urinate.

And Abaye said: My nurse told me: If a baby is not breathing, let them bring his mother’s placenta and place the placenta on him, and the baby will breathe. And Abaye said that my mother told me: If a baby is too small, let them bring his mother’s placenta and rub the baby with it from the narrow end to the wide end of the placenta. And if the baby is strong, i.e., too large, let them rub the baby from the wide end of the placenta to the narrow end. And Abaye said that my mother told me: If a baby is red, that is because the blood has not yet been absorbed in him. In that case, let them wait until his blood is absorbed and then circumcise him. Likewise, if a baby is pale and his blood has not yet entered him, let them wait until his blood enters him and then circumcise him.

As we will shortly see, this ability to both deliver babies and operate on a number of neonatal conditions was common among Jewish midwives.

Ancient Roman midwife attending a woman giving birth. From TheWellcome Trust Corporate Archive.

A thirteenth century Hebrew Midwifery Manual

Klalei haMilah (The Rules of Circumcision), is a work attributed to Jacob haGozer and Gershom haGozer, a father and son team who were both known by their profession (haGozer, lit. ‘the cutter’). They practised in Worms during the first half of the thirteenth century, and one chapter of their guidebook addresses midwifery, based on (of all things) the first chapter of the biblical book of Ezekiel. Here is a flavor, from a 2019 paper on the topic by Elisheva Baumgarten.

‘As for your birth, when you were born’ (Ezekiel 16: 4) – Thus we learn from this that a woman may be delivered on the Sabbath. ‘Your navel cord was not cut’ – Thus the umbilical cord is severed for the newborn (lit. child) on the Sabbath and it is tied on the Sabbath because its life depends on it. “You were not bathed in water to smooth you” – Thus the infant is washed in order to smooth its skin. “You were not rubbed with salt,” – Thus the infant is salted on the Sabbath.

And R. Gershom the Circumciser, of blessed memory, explained that when he questioned the midwives (about this practice), they said that they do not salt the child at all; God forbid, for how could he tolerate any salt? However, they salt the placenta, and they also pour wine on it, and [moreover], she [one of the midwives] says that it (wine) is good for the mother of the child for it will season her food. ‘Nor were you swaddled’—Thus, the infant is swaddled on the Sabbath. ‘Swaddled’: meaning they bind the child in cloth rags that fix him and straighten his limbs. As we have said here (lit. now), Everything that is enumerated in the Chapter of Rebuke may be done for women in labour on the Sabbath. Thus, the infant would be endangered if we did not carry out all that is mentioned in this chapter; therefore, these (actions) are permitted on the Sabbath without sin (lit. even when premeditated).

Jewish Midwives in Eighteenth Century Germany

In a fascinating paper published in 2022, the Israeli academic Nimrod Zinger noted that the names and actions of several midwives appear in the memorial books of German Jewish communities, known as memorbikher. “The criterion for entering the memorbukh was a donation to one of the community’s institutions, made by family members of the deceased or by the deceased themselves,” and their names were read by the cantor each Shabbat. Here is an example, from the Pinkas hazkharat neshamot be-kehilat Wermaiza (Jerusalem, National Library of Israel, MS Heb. 656–4), 45:

May God remember the soul of old Mrs. Hech’le daughter of Rabi Toviya z”l with the souls of S.R.R.A. [Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah], for she rose early in the mornings and went in the evenings to the synagogue. For her lovingkindness [gemilut ḥasadim] toward the poor and the rich, and for delivering babies for several years for free, in our community and in other places. Her heirs gave, on her behalf, some golden coins for charity. our community and in other places. Her heirs gave, on her behalf, some golden coins for charity. our community and in other places.

We should note that Hech’le did not receive payment for her services, but instead practiced midwifery as part of her charitable activity. And here is another mention, this time from the community of Vienna:

May God remember the soul of the pious Mrs. Mara’le daughter of R. Natan Segal z”l…for she was charitable for every person near and far, and did charity for poor and far [rich], and was modest in all her actions, and for the women in labor among our people she did as Shifra and Puah and was a woman of valor.

Zinger noted that these descriptions demonstrated that “patients often chose not to call on physicians or professional healers, such as doctors or surgeons, but rather on non professional healers, who usually did not receive payment for their aid.” In addition to acting as midwives, many women mentioned in these German memorial books provided other charitable services, including treating wounds and fractures, and burying the dead. Consider, for example, Fromet Shnabir of Frankfurt, who died in 1724:

[She was like] Shifra and Puah and sat nights and days by women in labor and the sick, poor and rich, and dealt with medications and bandages by herself …with the living and the dead…with any person in issues of medications, bruises and wounds for the rich and the poor, and any person who turned to her, and she lent [money] to the poor in times of need.

Sometimes, the midwife was part of a healing duet, in which her husband was a physician. Here is a description of Rachel the midwife and her husband of Zelcely the physician, who lived in Mainz.

the important, decent, and pleasant woman… Mrs. Rachel Frumrechi, daughter of the deceased Rabbi Meir Katz, wife of the deceased Rabbi Zelcely the rofeh [physician]…who went all her days in the path of the righteous, who did charity with her body and with her money for the poor and for the rich. She did good deeds, visited the sick, and always went to the women giving birth to save them.

Still, even pious midwives needed an income, which is why a contract was sometimes drawn up in which there was a guarantee of payment for the services of a midwife. Here is one that was signed in July 1759 in Offenbach, between the Jewish community and a midwife named Haya’le:

Her annual salary of twenty-five gold coins will be paid by the community, may God protect it, in four payments [i.e., every three months]. It was also promised that she will be provided free accommodation according to her need. There is also a need to settle her status before His Majesty. Anyone who calls for her to perform a delivery will have to pay her at least one gold coin, and every householder whose wife is about to deliver must call for her, and if he does not, he will have to pay the mentioned gold coin before his wife leaves her bed. The community, may God protect it, will be pledged for that gold coin, with the agreement of the householders. She has to notify the officer on duty [parnas ha-hodesh] if she does not receive her fee before the wife leaves her bed. Then the community may prevent the husband from conducting smechim bezetam [the ritual surrounding a woman’s arrival at the synagogue after her son’s birth] if he does not pay before the Sabbath.

(According to Zinger, this turned out not to be enough, and in 1761 Haya’le asked for an increase. The community agreed to raise to sixty gold coins, and to provide her with firewood for winter.)

“Elka Godel, born in Mea Shearim (a Jerusalem neighbourhood), went to Vienna for her training and returned home with her diploma in 1901. However, her young age was to her disadvantage. She was sent by the Jewish Colonisation Association to Zichron Ya’akov (a settlement near Haifa) as a replacement for the local midwife. Since she was only 22 years old, not yet married and had not given birth herself, she was greeted by the local population with a lack of trust, until she finally managed to attend a number of successful births”

— Galbloom R. 1961, ‘The Nostalgic Story of Elka Godel’, La-Ishah, 15 August, 22–3.

Polish midwife certificate awarded to Sara Malia Goldfarb (nee Arzt). Sara was born in Jaroslaw (then part of the Austrian Empire, and graduated from the Royal Imperial School for Midwives in Lwow (now Lviv in Ukraine) on 15 July 1882. She practised as a midwife in Port Said, Egypt. Sara Malia and some of her siblings had gone to Egypt for the opening of the Suez Canal several years earlier, in 1869. Image courtesy of Albert Braunstein, Sara’s great-grandson and Talmudology reader.

Jewish Midwives in Late Ottoman Palestine

In her 2010 paper, Zipora Shehory-Rubin noted that the first midwives in Eretz Israel had no formal professional education and were therefore generally ignorant of hygienic necessities. In late Ottoman Palestine, poor living conditions, overcrowding and lack of minimal sanitary and hygienic conditions led to high rates of both maternal and infant mortality.

The great majority of the country’s inhabitants lacked any kind of medical help or treatment, making do with all sorts of herbal remedies, whispered prayers, supposed healing powers and amulets, and even asking help of what one might call witch-doctors… the causes of the high incidence of illness and death among infants… included unhygienic living conditions with crowding, lack of lighting and fresh air, the flow of raw sewage, accompanied by filth and foul odours. There was a lack of public services for the removal of sewage and garbage. Water was collected in cisterns, and was insufficient in quantity and quality. There was also malnutrition, insufficient clothing and heating during the winter, widespread disease and epidemics, as well as the frequency of drought and famine years. Moreover, premature marriages impaired the health and longevity of young mothers and their offspring.

To address this, the Ezrat Nashim (Women’s Help) Society was founded in 1895, to care for pregnant women, and to provide a midwife for those too poor to pay for one. In 1898, there were 22 midwives in Jerusalem, of whom 13 were Ashkenazi and 9 were Sepharadi. Few had any theoretical training and some could neither read nor write. Many of the midwives were older widows, who went out to work to provide income for their families. But there was little in the way of modern medicine to be practiced. Commonly, to induce labor or prevent a difficult birth, many women resorted to placing the key of the synagogue under their pillow, or taking a thread from the cover of the Ark and tying it to the bed.

If the birth ended in success, the midwife would receive her fee from the head of the family and in due course leave the house, in order to be ready for her next case. Sometimes the midwife would receive items of food (sugar, oil, bagels, raisins or dates) and small gifts (such as a kilo of soap) in addition to her fee. If a son was born, the midwife won a higher fee, and visitors and relatives used to leave her small gratuities or gifts. Before she left the house, the father would ask her to attend the next birth.

It is little wonder, therefore, that in 1925 the Annual Report of the Jerusalem Branch of the Hebrew Women’s Federation, observed that “there wasn’t a woman in the old city [in Jerusalem] or outside, who had not experienced the death of two or three babies at birth, or shortly thereafter, from among the eight to twelve children they had brought into the world.”

The Fertility Institute Named after a Biblical Midwife

In Israel today, The Institute of Fertility and Medicine According to Halacha (מכון פועה - פוריות ורפואה ע"פ ההלכה) is named Machon Pu’ah, after, of course, our very own midwife from this week’s parsha. Here is their mission statement:

Whether individuals are struggling with fertility, women's health, men's health, genetics or intimacy, PUAH is here to help. PUAH advisors embody a unique synthesis of rabbinical knowledge and specialized training in modern reproductive medicine to provide the best guidance possible. Our counseling and guidance is free-of-charge, helping to ease the difficult journey. All that we do is carried out in accordance to Jewish law, with deep sensitivity and compassion.

So this week, if you are looking for a charity to support, think of Machon Pu’ah, and send them a donation in honor of Shifra and Pu’ah and Abaye’s Mother, and Hech’le and Haya’le and Fromet and Rachel and all the unnamed and and unrecognized Jewish midwives who, over many thousands of years, were the unsung heroes of Jewish continuity.

Childbirth and care of the neonate has long been the provenance of women, starting with the Hebrew midwives Shifrah and Pu’ah. The knowledge that midwives passed down to each other saved countless babies from the complications of childbirth or the rigors immediately following it. While some of their advice was certainly in error from our modern perspective (Abaye’s nurse recommended placing a baby in a sieve and shaking her in order to get her to urinate,) their knowledge and skills often worked. Otherwise we would not be here to tell about it.

“[Frumit’le] was involved in charity work for the living and for the dead. She delivered young babies at the hekdesh [Jewish hospital] like Puah and Shiphrah...She did not neglect any mitzvah, big or small, and prepared medications with no charge for the rich and the poor alike.”

— Description of Frumit’le of Frankfurt, who died in 1753:Mimorbukh shel kehilat Frankfurt de-Main (Jerusalem, National Library of Israel, MS Heb. 1092 = 4), 329.