Talmudology on the Parsha, Bamidbar: The Tachash, and Tutankhamun’s Tomb

במדבר 4:4-8

זֹאת עֲבֹדַת בְּנֵי־קְהָת בְּאֹהֶל מוֹעֵד קֹדֶשׁ הַקֳּדָשִׁים׃

וּבָא אַהֲרֹן וּבָנָיו בִּנְסֹעַ הַמַּחֲנֶה וְהוֹרִדוּ אֵת פָּרֹכֶת הַמָּסָךְ וְכִסּוּ־בָהּ אֵת אֲרֹן הָעֵדֻת וְנָתְנוּ עָלָיו כְּסוּי עוֹר תַּחַשׁ וּפָרְשׂוּ בֶגֶד־כְּלִיל תְּכֵלֶת מִלְמָעְלָה וְשָׂמוּ בַּדָּיו׃ וְעַל  שֻׁלְחַן הַפָּנִים יִפְרְשׂוּ בֶּגֶד תְּכֵלֶת וְנָתְנוּ עָלָיו אֶת־הַקְּעָרֹת וְאֶת־הַכַּפֹּת וְאֶת־הַמְּנַקִּיֹּת וְאֵת קְשׂוֹת הַנָּסֶךְ וְלֶחֶם הַתָּמִיד עָלָיו יִהְיֶה׃ וּפָרְשׂוּ עֲלֵיהֶם בֶּגֶד תּוֹלַעַת שָׁנִי וְכִסּוּ אֹתוֹ בְּמִכְסֵה עוֹר תָּחַשׁ וְשָׂמוּ אֶת־בַּדָּיו׃

This shall be the service of the sons of Qehat in the Tent of Meeting, namely, the most holy things:

and when the camp sets forward, Aharon shall come, and his sons, and they shall take down the veil of the screen, and cover the ark of testimony with it: and they shall put on it the covering of tachash skins, and shall spread over it a cloth wholly of blue, and shall put in its poles. And upon the table of showbread they shall spread a cloth of blue, and put on it the dishes, and the spoons, and the bowls, and the jars for pouring out: and the continual bread shall be on it: and they shall spread upon them a cloth of scarlet, and cover the same with a covering of tachash skins, and shall put in its poles.

From here.

At the end of this week’s parsha, we read about the tachach, which was to cover the Mishkan in the desert. The tachash had already been mentioned earlier in Sefer Shemot (25:5) as one of the building materials, but in chapter four of Bamidbar it gets no fewer than seven mentions, the most in any chapter of Tanach. (Fun fact, it is also mentioned in Bereshit (22:24) as the name of one of Avraham’s nephews. More in this at the end.) And so this week we will focus on the tachash, and the many suggestions as to its identity.

The many translations of the Tachash

Let’s start with one of the newest translations, and one of the most interesting: the Koren Tanach of the Land of Israel. It uses “a new translation of the entire Tanakh, produced by a team of scholars who remained true to the original text while also being consistent with modern language, idioms, and readability expectations….Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks was the primary contributor to the Torah translation…” (The Koren Tanakh of the Land of Israel, Exodus xvii). It translated tachash as “fine leather” Here is the footnote:

The use of the word tachash in Ezekiel (16:10) clearly implies that the it was used in making exquisite shoes:

וָאַלְבִּישֵׁךְ רִקְמָה וָאֶנְעֲלֵךְ תָּחַשׁ וָאֶחְבְּשֵׁךְ בַּשֵּׁשׁ וַאֲכַסֵּךְ מֶשִׁי

“I clothed thee also with embroidered cloth, and shod thee with tachash skin, and I girded thee about with fine linen, and I covered thee with silk.”

Let’s take a look at the other suggestions.

The Jerusalem Talmud

In the Yerushalmi there are at least five differing opinions (and six different translations) as to the nature of the tachash.

2:3 ירושלמי שבת

רִבִּי יוּדְה רִבִּי נְחֶמְיָה וְרַבָּנִן. רִבִּי יְהוּדָה אוֹמֵר. טִיינוֹן. לְשֵׁם צִבְעוֹ נִקְרָא. וְרִבִּי נְחֶמְיָה אָמַר גלקטינן. וְרַבָּנִן אָֽמְרִין. מִין חַיָּה טְהוֹרָה וְגִדּוּלָּהּ בַּמִּדְבָּר. וַתְייָא כַּיי דָּמַר רִבִּי אֶלְעָזָר בֵּירִבִּי יוֹסֵי רִבִּי אַבָּהוּ בְשֵׁם רִבִּי שִׁמְעוֹן בֶּן לָקִישׁ בְּשֵׁם רִבִּי מֵאִיר. כְּמִין חַיָּה טְהוֹרָה בָּרָא הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא לְמֹשֶׁה בַּמִּדְבָּר. כֵּיוָן שֶׁעָשָׂה בָהּ מְלֶאכֶת הַמִּשְׁכָּן נִגְנְזָה. רִבִּי אָבוּן אָמַר. קֶרֶשׁ הָיָה שְׁמָהּ. תַּנֵּי רִבִּי הוֹשַׁעְיָה. דְּחָדָא קֶרֶן. וְתִיטַ֣ב לָ֭יי מִשּׁ֥וֹר פָּ֗ר מַקְרִין וּמַפְרִֽיס. מִקֶּרֶן כָתַב רַחֲמָנָא.

1. Rebbi Yehudah says, it was the color called taynin; and so it was called thus because of its color.

2. Rebbi Nehemiah said, blue [or, according to Jastrow, “it was the fur of the ermine weasel imported by the Axeinoi (γαλῆ Ἀξεινῶν).”

3. But the Rabbis say, a kind of pure animal which grows up in the desert.

4…Rebbi Meir said: The Holy One, praise to Him, created for Moses in the desert a kind of tahor animal. After the work of the Tabernacle had been finished it was hidden. Rebbi Abun said, its name was tachash.

5. Rebbi Hoshaia stated, a unicorn.

So according to Rebbi Yehudah, the tachash was the color of ordinary goat skins that were dyed. This Rebbi Yehudah is the second century Galilean Rebbi Yehuda bar Ilai, whose teacher was Rabbi Akiva (among others). He is likely echoing the Greek translation of the Bible known as the Septuagint, which was written around the middle of the third century BCE. Whenever the word tachash appears, be it in Shemot, Bamidbar or Ezekiel, the Septuagint translated it as δέρματα ὑακίνθινα, dermata huakinthina or “skins the color of hyacinths,” which is to say, a bluish purple.

It is not clear if Rebbi Nehemia is suggesting that the actual skin came from a weasel, or came from a kosher animals whose hide was then dyed white. The Rabbis, perhaps disagreeing with him, suggest it was a kosher animal found only in the desert.

Rebbi Hoshaia’s suggests that the tachash was a unicorn - חָדָא קֶרֶן. In fact, the Midrash Tanchuma (Terumah 6) records our Rebbi Yehudah as also identifying the tachash with a unicorn. Here is the Midrash:

Unnamed London doctor’s poster from the seventeenth century.

וְעֹרֹת אֵילִם מְאָדָּמִים וְעֹרֹת תְּחָשִׁים... רַבִּי יְהוּדָה אוֹמֵר: חַיָּה טְהוֹרָה גְּדוֹלָה הָיְתָה בַּמִּדְבָּר וְקֶרֶן אַחַת הָיָה לָהּ בְּמִצְחָהּ, וּבְעוֹרָהּ שִׁשָּׁה גְּוָנִים, וְנָטְלוּ אוֹתָהּ וְעָשׂוּ מִמֶּנָּה יְרִיעוֹת

This is the offering … and rams’ skins dyed red, and tachashim (Exod. 25:3)….R. Judah said: It was a large pure animal, with a single horn in its forehead and a skin of six different colors that roamed the desert

This is not as silly as it sounds. As we noted in detail elsewhere, as late as the seventeenth century unicorns were widely believed to exist, and some physicians, (or better, quacks), marketed medicine from powder alleged to have been ground from the horn of the unicorn.

“I am sure I am not the only Assyriologist whose heart has sunk every time any form of the word appeared. There seemed to be such a lot of information, but it did not allow a consistent translation or understanding. The word seemed determined to resist the repeated assaults of scholarship.
”

— Dalley, S. Hebrew Tahas, Akkadian Duhsu, Faience and Beadwork. Journal of Semitic Studies, XLV(1) [2000]: 1–19. doi:10.1093/jss/XLV.1.1 rce

The last word goes to…Stephanie Dalley

Back in 2000, Dr. Stephanie Dalley, a retired Oxford Assyriologist, published what is still the definitive paper on the identification of the tachash. After discussing some other possibilities that include badgers, dolphins and dugongs, she focussed on the Sumerian word duh.si.a, (spelled also duh.su.a in Mari texts and in Hittite)

What did duhsu mean in Akkadian? It was an unusual word in that it was preceded sometimes by the sign for stone, at other times by the sign for leather, wool or linen. This sign, whether stone, leather, wool or linen, was taken to be a determinative, in other words it was not pronounced and did not affect the declension of the following duhsu. In this respect it was not comparable to 'or tahas in which the first word is in the construct before the second word in the genitive. But there is reason to question whether any of the Akkadian signs written in front of duhsu is a determinative, partly because so many different materials occur, and partly because duhsu always occurs in the genitive case when it is phonetically spelt. In other words, duhsu might be a description applied to different materials, and not the material itself.

Moving on from memories of high school genitives and derminatives (never a strong point of mine), it is the last sentence that sums it up: “duhsu might be a description applied to different materials, and not the material itself.” She continues:

Twenty years after his first attempts to understand the word, Oppenheim published some Middle Assyrian and later recipes in cuneiform for making glass or faience. 'Stone-duhsu was one of the products, but he was perplexed to find it in eight or more hues. He was forced to conclude that duhsu essentially stood for a colour with a wide variety of shades. None of the known words for glass and faience was used with the recipe for stone-duhsu, and it was supposed that a natural stone, whatever it was, was being imitated chemically. It is generally accepted that faience and glass aimed to imitate the colours of real stones, and Akkadian texts often write of 'mountain' lapis lazuli, i.e. the real stuff, alongside (artificial) lapis lazuli, both types being preceded by the determinative for stone.

It gets better:

Dr Gillian Eastwood-Vogelsang in Leiden, working on the clothing in the tomb of Tutankhamun, has identified specific items imported from western Asia, by certain features of design. One of those items consists of beaded sandals which she describes as 'embellished with an intricate design of gold bosses and beadwork in carnelian, turquoise and possibly lapis lazuli'. In the Amarna letter EA 22 the Mittanian king sent to Akhenaten one pair of duhsu-shoes, studded with ornaments of gold, of hiliba-stone, etc. If duhsu here means some kind of beadwork, the description would match not only Tutankhamun's sandals but also certain beaded objects which have been found intact on excavations in Mesopotamia. In the royal tomb of queen Pu-abi at Ur in the third millennium BCE, a leather-based headdress had a background of tiny lapis lazuli beads attached, as a background to set off larger attachments which included gold animals, fruits and rosettes. Faience beads resembling dates have been found at El-Amarna, and they might be thought to correspond to the Akkadian lexical text listing stone uhinnu-dztes of duhsu?''

And now we are ready for her conclusion:

As a result of these correspondences between vocabulary and excavated objects, it seems very probable that duhsu is a general word which refers to coloured beads and inlays made of glass and faience in imitation of certain kinds of stone, perhaps in the first instance blue, and then perhaps more generally to multi-coloured beadwork…

Hebrew tahas is cognate with Hurrian / Akkadian / Sumerian duhsu. It denotes beading and attaching pendants, and inlaying in stone, metal, faience and glass, and is usually made on leather but sometimes also wool or linen, or as cloisonné in precious metals, timber, etc.

The profession which manufactured them was not involved in dyeing leather, but was a refiner of frit, faience and glass, who shaped beads and inlays, and designed the iconography of ceremonial armour and harness, awnings for royal boats, ceremonial necklaces and headdresses, luxury sandals and royal headrests. His status was far higher than that of a mere dyer of leather, and the range of his expertise accounts for his high rank at the neo-Assyrian court…

Both the colour and the surface effect of beading are taken up in the Greek translation of the Hebrew as huakinthinos. The covering for the tabernacle in the Pentateuch with its underlay of red, madder-dyed leather has its precise counterpart in craft materials from Isin and Mari around 2000-1800 BCE. The sandals in Ezekiel have their counterpart in the Amarna letters and in the grave goods from Tutankhamun’s tomb.

(Oh, and that name of Abraham’s nephew, Tachash? It most likely means an embroiderer of leather with beads, just like the name of his other nephew, Tevach, means butcher.

Beaded hides. Q.E.D

Talmudology on the Parsha, Behukotai: Where the Wild Things Are

In this week’s parsha we read of the terrible destruction that will be brought on the People of Israel if they fail to keep God’s word. Among the consequences is this:

ויקרא 26:22

וְהִשְׁלַחְתִּי בָכֶם אֶת־חַיַּת הַשָּׂדֶה וְשִׁכְּלָה אֶתְכֶם וְהִכְרִיתָה אֶת־בְּהֶמְתְּכֶם וְהִמְעִיטָה אֶתְכֶם וְנָשַׁמּוּ דַּרְכֵיכֶם׃

I will also send wild beasts among you, which shall rob you of your children, and destroy your cattle, and make you few in number; and your highways shall be desolate

In Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic (WEIRD) societies, most of us live far from dangerous wild animals. But in many places people still need to be vigilant for the threat that they may bring (see here for example). And certainly during talmudic times we shared the environment with all sorts of potentially dangerous animals. So this week on Talmudology on the Parsha we will examine the threat that wild animals bring, and whether some may be safely domesticated.

Let’s start with the Talmud:

 בבא קמא טו,ב

הזאב והארי והדוב והנמר והברדלס והנחש הרי אלו מועדין רבי אלעזר אומר בזמן שהן בני תרבות אינן מועדין והנחש מועד לעולם

The the wolf, the lion, the bear, the leopard, the bardalis and the snake are considered to be forewarned [so that if they cause damage their owner must pay in full].  R. Eleazar says: if they have been tamed, they are not forewarned; the snake, however, is always forwarned.

Wild Animals gone...Wild

In July 2012, while touring a hospital in Johannesburg, I was given a brutal reminder of the dangers posed by the wild animals were were about to see on safari. In the Intensive Care unit and fighting for his life was a young American named Andrew Oberle, who had come to South Africa to study the chimps. Oberle, a twenty-six year old student, had left the group he was guiding and entered a 'no-go' zone. Two chimps interpreted this as an act of aggression, grabbed the young American, and dragged him into their enclosure. By the time he was finally rescued, Oberline had suffered these injuries: 

The chimps tore away his scalp down to the skull. His ears and nose are gone, and he can’t close his right eye. He has wounds on his trunk and all four limbs. He’s lost most of his fingers, and his right forearm has been eaten, the tendons gone. He’s lost parts of his feet, and his right ankle is destroyed.

(Oberle survived his attack, and in December 2017 he talked about it on podcast which you can listen to here.)

Then there was bear enthusiast Timothy Treadwell (who later became the subject of an excellent 2005 documentary by Werner Herzog).  Treadwell was a self-described bear conservationist, although he lacked any formal training in the field and was frequently at odds with the Park Service. In October 2003, Treadwell and his girlfriend were mauled and eaten by a Grizzly bear in Alaska's Katmai National Park. Thus far, two examples of wild animals acting, well, wild.  

What about training these wild animals to perform tricks?  Well, there's a cautionary tale in that too. Do you recall the great illusionists Siegfried Fischbacher and Roy Horn, the pair of magicians who became world famous for their performances with white lions? For over thirteen years Siegfried and Roy performed at the Mirage Hotel in Las Vegas, until um, they stopped. On October 3, 2003 Roy was bitten in the neck by a seven year old tiger named Manticore, who dragged him off the stage "like a ragdoll." He almost bled to death, and remains partially paralyzed as a result of the attack.  So how could Rabbi Eleazar possibly claim that animals as wild as a lion or a bear ever be considered tame or domesticated? Well, read on...

Domestication

The Encyclopaedia Britannica defines domestication as

the process of hereditary reorganization of wild animals and plants into domestic and cultivated forms according to the interests of people. In its strictest sense, it refers to the initial stage of human mastery of wild animals and plants. The fundamental distinction of domesticated animals and plants from their wild ancestors is that they are created by human labour to meet specific requirements or whims and are adapted to the conditions of continuous care and solicitude people maintain for them.

Thus we speak of domesticated horses and wild horses, domesticated bees and wild bees, and domesticated plants -(think tobacco, and corn)- and wild plants. What turns a species from a wild to a domesticated form is human patience and careful breeding. But the late professor of anthropology Charles Reed (d. 2000) wrote that many animals are naturally tame - or at least not afraid of human contact:

Among these are manatees, who may not even move aside as one swim among them; sea-otters, from whom one can take the young without any defense by the mother; various basking seals, elephant-seals and sea-lions, among who (other than the males in breeding season) one can walk unconcerned, and whose young, if they've lost their mothers, will follow any human hoping to be fed; various of the porpoises and dolphins, who seem to have no fear of man, and even the great whales.

Can Wolves be Tamed?

The Mishnah on today's page of Talmud stated that six species of animal can never be relied upon to have been domesticated. One of these is the wolf, which seems kind of reasonable, even allowing for the fact that our dogs are descended from them.  But wolves have also been successfully raised as family pets, (though you should probably check with your spouse before bringing home a wolf cub for the family). "Actually" wrote Charles Reed, "wolf pups reared as a group in Alaskan isolation or a single pup brought up with children and dogs in an urban family are wonderfully affectionate, social, dynamic, interesting, and of course intelligent fellow citizens." Which sounds rather like the opinion of Rabbi Eleazar, who believed that wolves, (and bears, lions and leopards) may be tamed so successfully that they end up about as aggressive as domestic goats.

“Wild animals ain’t so wild, as shown again by a wild-caught penned wolverine in Alaska, which, within a few days of capture, was taking food from the hand...when the hand was empty, the wolverine gently, with its incisor teeth, held the lady’s fingertips without braking the skin.”

— Charles A. Reed. Wild Animals Ain't So Wild, Domesticating Them Not So Difficult. Expedition 1986. 28 (2) 8-15.

A Pet Grizzly Bear called ben franklin

In the Mishnah, Rabbi Eleazar spoke not only of a tame wolf - but of a tame bear.  While our modern sensibilities would be outraged at the notion of raising a wild bear as a pet, these sensibilities are, to be sure, modern indeed. In a charming article published in the American Naturalist in 1886, John Caton described the domestication of the grizzly bear. Just to remind you- a small grizzly bear weights 400 pounds and stands about six and a half feet tall. Now read on:

Among others he [a certain James Adams] fairly domesticated quite a number of the grizzly bear (Ursus ferox Lewis and Clark) with complete success. This is the largest and fiercest known of all the species, and it might be expected the most intractable or unsubmissive to human control, yet such appears not to have been the case.

The first specimens experimented with were two cubs, over a year old when caught, taken in Washington Territory, between Lewis and Clark's fork of the Columbia. They were brother and sister; the latter was retained by Adams, and his experiments were principally conducted on her, which he called " Lady Washington." She seems to have been the more tractable and submissive. The male he parted with to a friend, after he had received but the rudiments of his education. At first they were chained to trees near the camp-fire, and resisted all attempts at familiarity and kindness; then severity was adopted, until they finally submitted.

Soon after the male was parted with, and we have no account of his subsequent career. The female was always after treated with the utmost kindness, and in a few months became as tractable as a dog. She followed her master in his hunting excursions, fought for him with other grizzlies, and saved him from the greatest perils.

She slept at his feet around the camp-fire, and took the place of a most vigilant watch-dog. He taught her to carry burdens with the docility of a mule, and as she grew up her great strength enabled her to render him great assistance in this way.

Another bear of the same species he captured in the Sierras in California before its eyes were open, and raised it on a greyhound bitch in company with her own pup. This he called Ben Franklin, and proved more docile even than the first. He never found it necessary to confine in any way this specimen, but he was allowed to roam and hunt with his foster brother, the grayhound [sic]. They were inseparable companions, and seemed to have as much affection for each other as if they had been of the same species, Before he was full-grown, when his master was attacked by a wounded grizzly, he joined in the fight with such ferocity as to save his master's life, and though he was severely wounded in this contest, with careful nursing he survived, and ever after showed as much courage in attacking his own species as if he had not met with this severe punishment.

I know what you are thinking: grizzly bears are found only in North America, but bears in Israel were a species of the brown bear called Ursus arctos syriacus, or the Syrian Brown Bear. Well that's true, but it's not only grizzly bears that make cuddly pets; the same owner of Ben Franklin, the pet grizzly, also kept black bears (and who knows, perhaps brown ones too):

He found the black bear, when raised in camp, as readily domesticated as the grizzly, and as fond of his society, following him about the camp and through the woods with fidelity and attachment.

So there we have it. Evidence to support Rabbi Eleazar's dissenting opinion that many wild animals may become as domesticated as a dog or cat.  Still, best to stick with dogs and cats as pets.  They take up far less space than the enormous, though very cute, grizzly bear.

This week’s parsha also contains a promise to remove the threat of wild animals should the People of Israel faithfully follow God’s word:

ויקרא 26:6

וְנָתַתִּי שָׁלוֹם בָּאָרֶץ וּשְׁכַבְתֶּם וְאֵין מַחֲרִיד וְהִשְׁבַּתִּי חַיָּה רָעָה מִן־הָאָרֶץ וְחֶרֶב לֹא־תַעֲבֹר בְּאַרְצְכֶם׃

And I will give peace in the land, and you shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid: and I will remove evil beasts out of the land, neither shall the sword go through your land.

On which Ibn Ezra makes this comment:

ואין מחריד. לא מחיה רעה ולא מאויב רק אתם תרדפו האויב ויפול לפניכם

AND NONE SHALL MAKE YOU AFRAID: No wild animals and no enemy. On the contrary, you will chase your enemies and they shall fall before you.

Now that the threat of wild animals has long been removed from the borders of Israel, let us hope that those people who threaten the state and its citizens will quickly meet a similar fate.

Bava Metzia 85b ~ Rebbi's Many Ailments

בבא מציעא פה, ב 

שמואל ירחינאה אסייה דרבי הוה חלש רבי בעיניה א"ל אימלי לך סמא א"ל לא יכילנא אשטר לך משטר [א"ל] לא יכילנא הוה מותיב ליה בגובתא דסמני תותי בי סדיה ואיתסי

Shmuel Harchina'ah was Rebbi's physician. One day Rebbi was suffering from an eye ailment. Shmuel said to him, "I will insert this medication into your eyes." Rebbi told him "I cannot endure that treatment." Shmuel said to him "I will gently put a salve on the surface of your eyes." Rebbi replied "I cannot endure that either." So Shmuel put a tube of medicine under Rebbi's pillow, and he was cured." [Bava Metzia 85b]

RABBI YEHUDAH HANASSI, EDITOR EXTRAORDINAIRE

Rebbi, (Teacher) was the moniker of Rebbi Yehudah Hanassi, Judah the Prince (~135-217 CE). Rebbe edited the Mishnah, and so had a pivotal role in the formation of Jewish practice and indeed the evolution of Judaism itself.  According to the great scholar of the Talmud David Halivni, the Mishnah came into being 

...as a result of the exigencies of the post-Temple era...towards the second half the of century with the termination of the oppressive Roman regimens, the Mishnah continued to flourish through the activities of the enormously prestigious R. Judah Hanassi...only to collapse of its own weight soon after R. Judah Hanassi's death.  

As a result, relatively few additions entered the Mishnah; it basically remained much the same as it was when compiled by the editor-anthologist.  This is why the Mishnah is the only classical rabbinic book about whose editor we are relatively certain.  We have no idea who the editors were of any of the other classic rabbinic texts (including the Talmud) but the evidence clearly indicates that R. Judah Hanassi was the editor-anthologist of the Mishnah.  This evidence is based on two sources: the occasional cross reference by R. Yochanan to R. Judah as editor-anthologizer and, above all, the fact that no one who lived after R. Judah Hanassi is mentioned in the Mishnah. 

Even though Rebbi was on very good terms with the leader of the Roman occupiers of Israel, the Emperor Macrus Aurelius Antoninus, he was not a healthy man, and suffered from a great many ailments. You may recall some of them when we studied Ketuvot. There we read that he suffered with an intestinal disorder, and Rebbi’s maid noted that he needed to use the latrine very often. This was causing him great distress –although apparently the distress was not because he needed to move his bowels so often, but rather that as a result of his condition, he could not wear tefillin. 

THE MEDICAL HISTORY OF RABBI YEHUDAH HANASSI

Recent scholars have been tempted to diagnose the many illnesses from which Rebbi suffered. In her Hebrew paper The Illnesses of Rabbi Yehudah HaNassi in Light of Modern Medicine, the historian Esther Divorshki  from the University of Haifa noted that more is known about the ailments of Rebbi than about any other talmudic sage. Some think that Rebbi suffered from painful hemorrhoids, to such a degree that his cries could be heard when he used the latrine (and as described in today's page of Talmud). Rebbi was so distressed by this illness that he ascribed to it a religious meaning, and proclaimed: “The righteous die though intestinal diseases.” But as Divorshki correctly notes, hemorrhoids are not painful to the degree described in the Talmud (– unless complicated by anal fissures). She therefore suggests that Rebbi’s illness - the one from which he died - was an inflammatory bowel disease.

Rebbi suffered from a number of other diseases throughout his life. In Nedarim  we learn that he had episodes of temporary memory loss. He was also afflicted with צמירתא and צפרנא (that's in today's daf, Bava Metziah 85a). Divorshki the historian notes that some have suggested that צמירתא is kidney stones, perhaps complicated with urinary tract infections. As for צפרנא, (or, in variant forms, צפדנא) Avraham Steinberg from Sha'arei Tzedek Hospital suggests that since this disease was characterized by bleeding from the gums, “it seems reasonable to identify this illness with scurvy.” Julius Preuss had a similar suggestion, one he offered with great certainty: “There can be no doubt that tzafdina refers to stomatitis, perhaps scorbutic stomatitis which also occurs sporadically.” And if these were not enough, today we leaned that Rebbi also had an eye ailment, which his personal physician Shmuel was able to cure, as well as inflammation of his joints, (Yerushalmi Shabbat 16:1) that suggests the illness we call gout. 

A UNIFYING DIAGNOSIS?

Can a wise clinician put all this together and come up with a single unifying diagnosis that can explain all of Rebbi’s terrible symptoms? In 1978, Ari Shoshan suggested in Korot, The Israel Journal of the History of Medicine and Science, that Rebbi suffered from a psychosomatic disease. However, Divorshki suggests that the rapidly advancing field of genetics can provide a more satisfying solution. She posits that Rebbi had a seronegative spondyloarthritis associated with a specific tissue type called HLA (Human Leukocyte Antigen) B-27. (Don't be afraid. Seronegative means that the condition is not associated with rheumatoid factor, and spondyloarthritis is a group of conditions that causes inflammation of the joints - and other tissues.)  This tissue disorder –a kind of autoimmune disease - is associated with gout (Rebbi had that) and inflammation of the mouth (check) and uveitis – a painful inflammatory eye condition (that's the passage in today's daf with which we opened.). Perhaps, Divorshki notes, צמירתא was not in fact kidney stones or a urinary infection, but an inflammation of the bladder wall or referred pain from an inflammation of the intestines, caused by the same nasty tissue disorder. For reasons that are still not known, this autoimmune disease can flare up and then, just as mysteriously, become dormant for months or years, which could explain how Rebbi appeared to have been cured.

Schematic ribbon diagram of the HLA-B27 molecule’s peptide-binding cleft with a bound peptide (light blue); the letters N and C indicate, respectively, the amino and carboxy termini of the bound peptide. HLA-B*27:06, one of the two subtypes that seem to have no association with ankylosing spondylitis, and the disease-associated subtype HLA-B*27:04 (from which Rebbi may have been suffering) differ from each other by two residues at positions 114 and 116. From Khan, MA.  Polymorphism of HLA-B27: 105 Subtypes Currently Known.  Current Rheumatology Reports. (2013) 15:362

We now have identified at least 105 subtypes of HLA-B27, and the list continues to grow.  Today, seronegative spondyloarthitis, of the sort that may have afflicted Rebbi, can often be managed with medications that suppress the immune response. But without these, damage to the host tissues slowly builds until the organ systems start to fail, offering no respite from the painful symptoms of this disease. Perhaps now we are in a position to better understand Rebbi’s dying words, which appear on Ketuvot 104a.

“May it be Your will that there will be peace when I rest in eternity.”

Rebbi wanted nothing more than respite from his pain, and his wish was granted: ‘A voice from heaven emerged and said: “He will come with peace, they will rest on their resting places.”

Talmudology on the Parsha, Bahar: The Sad, Sad, Sad, Sad, but Inspiring Story of Yisroel of Shklov

ויקרא 25:1-5

וַיְדַבֵּר יְהֹוָה אֶל־מֹשֶׁה בְּהַר סִינַי לֵאמֹר׃ דַּבֵּר אֶל־בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל וְאָמַרְתָּ אֲלֵהֶם כִּי תָבֹאוּ אֶל־הָאָרֶץ אֲשֶׁר אֲנִי נֹתֵן לָכֶם וְשָׁבְתָה הָאָרֶץ שַׁבָּת לַיהֹוָה׃ שֵׁשׁ שָׁנִים תִּזְרַע שָׂדֶךָ וְשֵׁשׁ שָׁנִים תִּזְמֹר כַּרְמֶךָ וְאָסַפְתָּ אֶת־תְּבוּאָתָהּ׃ וּבַשָּׁנָה הַשְּׁבִיעִת שַׁבַּת שַׁבָּתוֹן יִהְיֶה לָאָרֶץ שַׁבָּת לַיהֹוָה שָׂדְךָ לֹא תִזְרָע וְכַרְמְךָ לֹא תִזְמֹר׃ אֵת סְפִיחַ קְצִירְךָ לֹא תִקְצוֹר וְאֶת־עִנְּבֵי נְזִירֶךָ לֹא תִבְצֹר שְׁנַת שַׁבָּתוֹן יִהְיֶה לָאָרֶץ׃

And the Lord spoke to Moses at mount Sinai, saying: Speak to the children of Yisra᾽el, and say to them, When you come to the land which I give you, then shall the land keep a sabbath to the Lord. Six years thou shalt sow thy field, and six years thou shalt prune thy vineyard, and gather in its fruit; but in the seventh year shall be a sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a sabbath for the Lord: thou shalt neither sow thy field, nor prune thy vineyard. That which grows of its own accord of thy harvest thou shalt not reap, nor gather the grapes of thy undressed vine: for it shall be a year of rest for the land.

Books That The Plague Inspired

There are several examples of important works of Jewish literature which rose from the destruction of a pandemic. The great Polish Rabbi Moshe Isserles (1530–1572), known by his acronym as Rema is famous for his gloss on the Shulhan Arukh, the defining code of Jewish law. Less known is the fact that as a young man, he had fled from bubonic plague in Krakow.

I, Moshe, (son of my father, the honorable benefactor and leader Israel, may he live long) called Isserles from Krakow, was exiled, having left our city in [5]316 [=1556] because of the polluted air (may it not befall us). We were sojourners in a land that was not ours in the city of Shidlov which has neither figs nor vines and there is barely any water to drink . . . we could not celebrate Purim with the usual joy and happiness. In order to remove the sadness and dejection I resolved to stand and take pride in my creativity, for my wisdom helped me . . . and so I decided to investigate and expound on the meaning of the Megillah

While in a self-imposed exile fleeing from a pandemic, Rema wrote his very first book, Mehir Yayyin [The Price of Wine], which was published some three years later in 1559. Not only did he refuse to let a pandemic derail his study, he was actually spurred by one to reach new intellectual heights.

In Frankfurt in 1720, the Lithuanian rabbinic scholar Jonathan ben Joseph published a book called Yeshuah Beyisrael. It was a commentary on the sections about astronomy found in Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah, and in his introduction ben Joseph explained the motivation behind the book. He had been thinking about the topic for some time, but then, in 1710 “God’s anger was kindled, and he smote the land of my birth with a plague [dever], may God protect us.”

In great haste I left the town where I was born, the holy community of Ruznay in Lithuania, for the fields and valleys, together with my wife and family. Then we climbed up a hill, for I feared that the terror would reach me, and I would die. And we lived there in a little hut which I built, from the spring through the winter.

It was then that I vowed to God that if he will be with me and protect me, and not allow the Destroyer to enter my home, and will return me to my father’s house, then this God will certainly be my God, the God of the heavens and the earth and of all the stars. And then insofar as God has filled my heart and has placed his spirit in me, to understand, explain and clarify that about which it is written (Isaiah 40:26) “Lift up your eyes to the stars and consider who created them” . . . I will return the crown [of astronomy] to its former glory, sitting with the wisest of our people . . . and publish an explanation in clear language that is easy for anyone to understand

And so bubonic plague was the impetus for a Hebrew text on astronomy, one that the author hoped would reconnect the Jewish people to this discipline.

We can use this week’s parsha and the mitzvah of shmitta with which it opens to remember another important work of Jewish literature that was written as a response to a plague. When it comes to understanding the halakhot of shmitta, it is, in the words of Rabbi Yosef Rimmon, “one of the most important works dealing with these issues.”

Yisroel of Schklov

Yisroel ben Shmuel of Shklov (c. 1770 –1839) became a disciple of the great Gaon of Vilna, and was entrusted with the publication of the Gaon’s commentary on Shulhan Arukh. He moved to Palestine around 1809 and settled in Safed. After spending some time back in Europe raising funds for the Jewish communities of Ottoman Palestine, he moved to Jerusalem and wrote the work for which he is famous to this day: Pe’at Hashulkhan, published in Safed in 1836. The book focused on the mitzvot of shmitta and the mitzvot associated with the Land of Israel, which had been deliberatley ignored in the Shulkhan Arukh.

Yosef Rimon. Shemita. Halacha Mimekorah. Maggid 2014. p109.

In the style of many rabbinic authors of his time, Yisroel assumed a modest persona. He described his contemporaries as “Princes and Kings and Holy Rabbis” while he was but a “pauper among Israel.” “Who am I” he asked, “to stand among the great ones who are like angels? …We cannot even measure up against their donkeys.” How then, did Yisroel justify writing a new work of Jewish law?  “Then I recalled that it is a duty to recall God’s actions, and the more travails and troubles that befall a person, the greater is His wonder.” Yisroel’s justification for writing his book were the tragedies that had befallen him after his arrival in the Holy Land. 

An outbreak of bubonic plague had swept across the Ottoman Empire and reached the town of Safed in 1813. By his own account Yisroel had little understanding of the proper response, “for we were strangers and did not know about matters of quarantine.” Together with a large number of people he left with his family for Jerusalem, but his wife died on the journey. Her death was the first of a series that befell his family. He found Jerusalem a fearful place, where “death crept up to our windows.” A month after the death of his wife, his seventeen-year-old son-in-law died. During the following month, the Jewish month of Av, Yisroel lost his daughter Leah, aged eighteen and his son Nahman (who died within a day of each other,) his daughter Esther and another son Ze’ev Wolf. (Leah’s death left an orphaned baby who was Yisroel’s grandson. Yisroel wrote that he suffered great hardship in order to raise this baby, who later died in 1834 aged twenty.) He later learned that his mother and father, who had remained in Safed, had also died from the plague. His youngest daughter Sheindel fell ill, “and she lay sick next to me…There were tears on my cheeks and my eyes wept at all that had befallen me. My loss is as wide as the ocean.”

Yisroel’s Vow to Write a Sefer

Yisroel lost his wife, four children, a son-in-law and his two parents, but bubonic plague was not finished with him yet. The following year his new wife contracted the disease and lay fighting for her life. “But God heard our tears and the merits of her ancestors and she recovered from her illness.” Yisroel made a vow that should he be saved he would write a book on the agricultural laws that applied in the Holy Land, which despite a further tragic series of events (the death of two more of his children, briefly being jailed and losing his home to flooding) he was able to publish in 1836. Today, the work is widely acknowledged as an indispensable tool to the serious study of the laws of the Land of Israel. Less known are the devastating circumstances of its composition. They serve as a reminder of the endless expanse of Jewish creativity, and the ability to overcome personal tragedy to reach new intellectual heights.

In a strange confluence of dates, today, May 22, is the 203rd anniversary of his death on May 22, 1839. His yarzheit will be on the 9th of Sivan, which this year begins on Friday night June 14th. May his memory, and that of his family, be an inspiration.

…My daughter Sheindel lay sick next to me…There were tears on my cheeks and my eyes wept at all that had befallen me. My loss is as wide as the ocean.”

In the Galilee we lost many great and righteous people, and from the bottom of my heart I uttered a quiet promise to the Lord. To he who dwells by the gates of heaven, I said: Please Merciful King have compassion on me and on the remnants of the House of Israel, the ember that was saved from the fire, the fledglings left without a mother. I recalled the story of our ancestor Jacob who made a vow while in great distress, and I too have made a vow: If God will be merciful to me and deal with me in kindness, I undertake to write a commentary on the Order Zerai’m found in the Jerusalem Talmud, following the explanations of our great Rabbi [Elijah of Vilna] who I was privileged to serve before his death. And may his great merit stand with me so that I may write all the halakhot [of shmitta] which were overlooked by our earlier holy rabbis.

Introduction to Pat Hashulhan. Jerusalem, Pardes  1958. 4b-5a