Ketuvot 5b ~ Earlobes and Spandrels

:כתובות ה

תנא דבי רבי ישמעאל מפני מה אוזן כולה קשה והאליה רכה? שאם ישמע אדם דבר שאינו הגון יכוף אליה לתוכה

A Baraisa was taught in the academy of Rabbi Yishmael: Why is the [upper part of the] ear hard, but the earlobe is soft? So that if a person overhears something inappropriate, he will be able to bend the lobe in the ear canal [and block out the sound]. 

In 1979 Stephen J. Gould (d. 2002) and Richard Lewontin published a paper that would rock the world of evolutionary biology.  They suggested that evolution by natural selection could not explain every feature of an organism. Sometimes, a feature is a non-functional byproduct of evolution, rather than a direct result of it. Gould and Lewontin give an example from the world of architecture, from the spandrels in the church of San Marco in Venice. A spandrel is a by-product, formed when a dome sits upon a rounded arch, shown in the pictures below.

"San Marco Spandrel" by Maria Schnitzmeier - Detail of Image.

These spaces - these spandrels- are accidental spaces, and yet are intricately decorated, as if they were deliberately designed to have been there in the first place.  The design of these spaces "is so elaborate, harmonious, and purposeful," wrote Gould and Lewontin, that

 we are tempted to view it as the starting point of any analysis, as the cause in some sense of the surrounding architecture. But this would invert the proper path of analysis. The system begins with an architectural constraint: the necessary four spandrels and their tapering triangular form.   

Just as spandrels are accidental, some features of an organism are not the result of natural selection, but instead are "spandrel-like"in their origin. This was not to suggest that natural selection was incorrect; only that it was not a complete explanation of an organism's form and behavior. 

So what are earlobes for?  Indeed, are they for anything? Perhaps they are just spandrels, and can now happily be pierced and used to hold rings, studs, and other decorative ornaments. The Academy of Rabbi Yishmael disagree with this premise. Earlobes are not a spandrel-like by-product of evolution, but a designed part of our anatomy. And they are designed to act as an ear-plug when it would be best not to hear what is being said.  The Chofetz Chaim, Rabbi Yisrael Meir Kagan (d.1933) wrote a famous work on the laws of gossip, called ספר שמירת הלשון. In it, he cited today's passage, and wrote that the earlobe is better at blocking the sound than is a finger. Try it. Is he right? (I did. He isn't.) 

A: Ear of a treeshrew (Tupia) B: Ear of a new world monkey (Cebus) C: Primate (& Human) ear and its constituent parts.  From Friderun Ankel-Simons, Primate Anatomy: An Introduction. Academic Press 2010.

We humans share much with our primate cousins.  We share an opposable thumb; we share much of our DNA, and we share our ear anatomy.  Rabbi Yishmael teaches us to put that ear anatomy to good use. 

Ketuvot 3b ~ The Law of the First Night

Jules Arsene Gardie,  Le Droit Du Seigneur 1872

Mazal Tov; When's The Wedding?

Today, when a bride and groom wish to secure a wedding day, it will depend on their budget and the availability of the caterer. My, how things have changed. In the times of the Mishnah, the wedding day was decided by the availability of the local rabbinic court, the Bet Din. Then, a wedding (of a virgin) could only take place on the night before the Bet Din convened.  This would ensure that if, after their magical first night, the groom suspected that his bride had not been a virgin, he could take his claim to court the very next day.  

“ מפני מה אמרו בתולה נשאת ליום הרביעי שאם היה לו טענת בתולים היה משכים לב”ד
Why did they teach that a virgin must only marry on a Wednesday? So that if the groom questioned her virginity, he could hurry to the Bet Din...”

— Ketuvot 3a

Today's page of  Talmud explains that this happy custom changed during a period of persecution. Rabbah, a fourth century Babylonian sage, explained what this is all about: 

כתובות ג,ב

אָמַר רַבָּה, דְּאָמְרִי: בְּתוּלָה הַנִּשֵּׂאת בְּיוֹם הָרְבִיעִי תִּיבָּעֵל לַהֶגְמוֹן תְּחִלָּה

"[The authorities] said, "a virgin who gets married on Wednesday will first have intercourse with the governor" (הגמון). In order to avoid this awful legal rape, the wedding was moved a day early, to fly, so to speak, under the radar of the local governor. The Talmud also explains that this edict only applied for those who married on a Wednesday, rather than any other day of the week, which is an odd detail that is difficult to explain.

A longer version of the legend is found in the Jerusalem Talmud (Ketuvot1:5). Here it is.

בָּרִלאשׁוֹנָה גָֽזְרוּ שְׁמָד בִּיהוּדָה. שֶׁכֵּן מְסוֹרֶת לָהֶם מֵאֲבוֹתָם שֶׁיְּהוּדָה הָרַג אֶת עֵשָׂיו. דִּכְתִיב יָֽדְךָ בְּעוֹרֶף אוֹיְבֶיךָ. וְהָיוּ הוֹלְכִין וּמְשַׁעְבְּדִין בָּהֶן וְאוֹנְסִין אֶת בְּנוֹתֵיהֶן וְגָֽזְרוּ שֶׁיְּהֵא אִיסְטְרָטֵיוֹס בּוֹעֵל תְּחִילָּה. הִתְקִינוּ שֶׁיְּהֵא בַּעֲלָהּ בָּא עָלֶיהָ עוֹדָהּ בְּבֵית אָבִיהָ. שֶׁמִּתּוֹךְ שֶׁהִיא יוֹדַעַת שֶׁאֵימַת בַּעֲלָהּ עָלֶיהָ עוֹד הִיא נִגְרֶרֶת

In earlier times they [the Romans] decided on a persecution in Judea because they had a tradition from their forefathers that Jehudah had killed Esav, as it is written Gen. 49:8: “Your hand is on your enemies’ neck.” They went and enslaved the Jews and raped their daughters; and they decided that a soldier would cohabit with a bride first. The Sages decreed therefore that her husband should cohabit with her while she was still in her father’s house, for when she knows that her husband’s fear is on her she is drawn after him…

This episode likely describes the period after the Bar Kochba rebellion, and as the Guggenheimer translation notes, the Bavli is a “toned down” version of the this story. In this version, any soldier could take the bride, and not just the hegemon, and he could claim the bride on any day, not just on a Wednesday.

Jus Primae Noctis in the Talmud & Midrash

The law that Rabbah referenced is known variously as Jus Primae Noctis, the Law of the First Night and, much more graphically, as The Right to the Thigh - Droit du Cuissage. Its origins are further explained in the Talmud Yerushalmi, which dates it to the time of the Bar Kochba revolution:

 תלמוד ירושלמי כתובות פרק א הלכה ה  

בראשונה גזרו שמד ביהודה שכן מסורת להם מאבותם שיהודה הרג את עשו...  והיו הולכין ומשעבדין בהן ואונסין את בנותיהן וגזרו שיהא איסטרטיוס בועל תחילה התקינו שיהא בעלה בא עליה עודה בבית אביה 

In the beginning, they [the Romans] decreed destruction in Judea (for they had a tradition that Yehuda killed Esau) ... and they enslaved them and raped their daughters, and decreed that a soldier would have intercourse [with a bride] first. It was then enacted that her husband would cohabit with her while she was still in her father's house. 

A reference to Primae Noctis also appears in the Midrash Rabbah, a collection of rabbinic homilies edited sometime in the forth or fifth century. As told in Genesis 6, “the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were beautiful (tovot), and they took wives from whoever they chose.” The Midrash focuses on that word beautiful, and explains:

בראשית רבה (וילנא) פרשת בראשית פרשה כו 

אמר רבי יודן טבת כתיב, משהיו מטיבין אשה לבעלה היה גדול נכנס ובועלה תחלה, הדא הוא דכתיב כי טבת הנה, אלו הבתולות ויקחו להם נשים מכל אשר בחרו, אלו נשי אנשים, 

“Rabbi Judan said the word tovot (טבת) – beautiful – is written in the singular, [but read as a plural]. Meaning that the bride was made beautiful for her husband, but the lord of the nobles had intercourse with her first...”

This midrash is cited by Rashi (d. 1105), the great French exegete, in his commentary to the Torah. And this isn't the only time Rashi uses Primae Noctis to explain a historical event.  According to Rashi, it was this law that precipitated the rebellion of the Maccabees against their Greek oppressors, an uprising that culminated in the miracle of Chanukah:

תלמוד בבלי שבת דף כג עמוד א 

דאמר רבי יהושע בן לוי: נשים חייבות בנר חנוכה, שאף הן היו באותו הנס

 רש"י שם:  שגזרו יוונים על כל בתולות הנשואות להיבעל לטפסר תחלה  

Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi said: Women are obligated to take part in the lighting, for they were included in that miracle...

Rashi: For the Greeks made an edict that all virgins who were about to marry must first have intercourse with the Prefect...

JUS PRIMAE NOCTIS...IN THE Movies

There are numerous references to Primae Noctis in ancient and modern literature, from the Epic of Gilgamesh to The Marriage of Figaro. One more recent example can be seen in the 1995 movie Braveheart, when the evil King Edward gallops into a village, to interrupt a wedding celebration. “I’ve come to claim the right of Primae Noctis. As lord of these lands, I will bless this marriage by taking the bride into my bed on the first night of her union.”  And as the groom is restrained by Edward's henchmen, Edward reminds the peasants “it is my noble right.”  

Jus Primae Noctis. Is there a more fearsome example of feudal barbarism? Of what one scholar called “a male power display…coercive sexual dominance…and male desire for sexual variety”?  But the legend, despite its appearance in many guises, is, fortunately, likely to be nothing more than just that: a legend.  

Jus Primae Noctis...is a Legend

Perhaps the most comprehensive investigation of the legend of Primae Noctis is The Lord's First Night: the Myth of the Droit de Cuissage, by the French social scientist Alain Boureau. (I bought my copy for less than $10, and no, you can't borrow it.) His careful analysis is particularly important since, as we have seen, Rashi, our favorite French commentator, cites this legend twice. After a meticulous two-hundred page review of every alleged appearance of the legend, Boureau is clear:

““[T]he droit de cuissage never existed in medieval France. Not one of the arguments, none of the events insinuated, alleged or brandished, holds up under analysis.””

— Alain Boureau, The Lord's First Night,

Others scholars agree with Boureau. In 1881, the German historian Karl Schmidt concluded that the right never existed.  In 1973, the historian J.Q.C. Mackrell noted that there is "no reliable evidence" that it existed. And Prof. Tal Ilan, of the Free University of Berlin, addressed the myth of Primae Noctis in a magnificently titled 1993 paper: Premarital Cohabitation in Ancient Judea. Prof. Ilan noted that that “all medieval literature that evokes the custom of Jus Primae Noctis has been proven to be folkloristic and has no historical basis.” But what about the evidence from the Talmuds, and the Midrashim? Don’t they provide evidence that Primae Noctis was indeed practiced in the time of the Talmud? Not so, claims the professor:

“If a motif of this sort could have appeared in a sixteenth-century document and upset the entire history of medieval Europe for the next two centuries, the same motif likewise could have cropped up in the fourth -or fifth-century Palestinian Talmud, falsely describing events of the second century.”

Instead, Prof Ilan suggests that the Talmud used the myth of Primae Noctis to excuse the behavior of some prospective couples, who would engage in sexual relations before they married.  “the jus primae noctis was conveniently drawn in order to explain and justify a custom that seemed to the rabbis to undermine their view of proper conduct in Jewish society.”

“Some events do take place but are not true; others are—although they never occurred.’
”

— Elie Wiesel, Legends of Our Time

There is some further support to the claim that primae noctis never existed, and it is not one I have seen suggested before.  It is a claim from silence.  I've checked over 100,000 responsa, and there is not one on this topic. Not a single one.  If primae noctis really was a law of the Greek and Roman empires, and a feudal right across medieval Europe, then why were its implications for the Jewish community never discussed in the responsa literature?  This silence supports the conclusions of work done by Boureau, Ilan and others: it never existed. In fact Boureau wonders what muddled thinking would lead anyone to believe it existed in the first place: 

It has been clear from the start that no matter what social restrictions were put on conduct and the management of wealth, and no matter how violent mores became, the principle of free choice of an unfettered matrimonial life was the most sacred area of individual liberty in medieval Europe. The Church, European society's principal normative center, very early removed all restrictions on the marriage of dependents, and it imposed consent as a sacramental value.  No juridicial form, no custom, could attack that principal...sanctified in the twelfth century by the establishment of the sacrament of matrimony.  

History and Heritage

The historian David Lowenthal has explained the differences between history and heritage. While history "seeks to convince by truth," heritage "passes on exclusive myths of origin and endurance, endowing us alone with prestige and purpose." Heritage, continues Lowenthal, commonly alters the past: sometimes it selectively forgets past evils, and sometimes it updates the past to fit in with our modern sensibilities. Sometimes it upgrades the past, making it better than it was, and sometimes it downgrades the past, to attract sympathy.  And so, how we read the Talmud will depend on whether we see it as a work of history or as a book of our heritage.  

“There you have it...some of it fact, and some of it fiction, but all of it true, in the true meaning of the word”

— Miles Orvel, The Real Thing: Imitiation and Authenticity in America

There are stories both wonderful and terrible from our Jewish past. Some are factual, and some are not, and a measured approach to how we might approach these stories has been suggested by Judith Baumel and Jacob J. Schacter. They explored the claim (published in The New York Times) that in 1942, ninety-three Beis Yaakov schoolgirls in Cracow committed suicide rather than face rape by their German captors. They concluded that the evidence to support the truth of the story is not conclusive one way or the other. 

Whether or not it actually happened as described is difficult to determine, but there is certainly no question that it could have happened...in response to those claiming that the incident was "unlikely" to have occurred, let us remind the reader that the period in question was one during which the most unlikely events did occur, when entire communities were wiped out without leaving a single survivor...Maybe it did happen. But maybe again it didn't. Could it have happened? Of course.

The horrors of the Holocaust left in their wake a hope that, having touched the lowest levels of depravity, humanity would say Never Again, and a new era of responsibility for all of would follow. But our recent history shows that this lesson was not learned, that the world can be a truly terrible place. The legend of Primae Noctis is not likely to have been true. But some stories are true, even though they never happened. Ask yourself, from what you know about Jewish history, could it have been true? Yes. And that's what makes it all the more terrifying. 

Yevamot 118b ~ Does Marriage Make You Happier?

יבמות דף קיח

אמר ריש לקיש: טב למיתב טן דו מלמיתב ארמלו

Resh Lakish said: It is better for a woman to live as tan du than to live alone

In a 1975 lecture to the Rabbinical Council of America, Rabbi J.B. ("the Rav") Soloveitchik, quoted this aphorism of Resh Lakish found in today's Daf.  The Rav went on to explain that it was "based not upon sociological factors...[but] is a metaphysical curse rooted in the feminine personality. This is not a psychological fact; it is an existential fact." Wow.  Is this statement of Resh Lakish really an existential fact? To answer this, we need to first answer another question - what do his words actually mean?

What did Resh Lakish Actually Mean?

One way to understand the aphorism is as follows:  "A widow would rather live in misery than live alone." But that's not the only translation, which depends on the exact meaning of the Aramaic phrase טן דו (tan du).  There are a number of possibilities.

Rashi

 Let's start with Rashi (and his explanation to the text in .כתובות דף עה).

טן דו - גוף שנים. משל הדיוט הוא, שהנשים אומרות טוב לשבת עם גוף שנים משבת אלמנה

Tan Du: Two bodies. This is a common maxim, for women say that it is better to live as two than to live alone

So according to Rashi, Resh Lakish never mentioned anything about living in misery. He just made the observation that women prefer marriage over a single life.

Jastrow's Dictionary

Not so Marcus Jastrow, whose dictionary (published 1886-1903) became a classic reference text for students of the Talmud. Jastrow translated טן דו as a load of grief, an unhappy married life. This will become very important later, so make note. 

The Soncino Translation

Moving on, the Soncino translation of the Yevamot (first published in 1936) echoes Jastrow's translation "It is preferable to live in grief than to dwell in widowhood." However, a footnote to the text notes that "Levy compares it with the Pers., tandu, two persons." (The reference here is to Jacob Levy's  German Dictionary Chaldisches Worterbuch uber die Targumim - Aramic Dictionary of the Targums and a Large Part of Rabbinic Literature.) Why did Isidore Epstein, editor of the Soncino Talmud, choose to use Jastrow's translation over that of Levy - and that of Rashi? Answering that will take us too far off track, so we will leave it for another time... 

Melamed's Aramaic-Hebrew-English Dictionary

Melamed's Aramaic-Hebrew-English Dictionary (Feldheim: Jerusalem 2005) follows Rashi : "טן דו = two bodies." 

The ArtScroll Translation

The ArtScroll Schottenstein Talmud bases its translation on Rashi, but adds a footnote that brings its meaning closer to that of Jastrow and the Soncino: "I.e. a woman prefers even a less than desirable marriage over staying single." 

The Koren Steinsaltz Translation

In his Hebrew translation of the Aramaic text, Rabbi Steinsaltz follows Rashi, and translates טן דו as "two bodies."A side note points out that the true origin of the phrase is not known, though it likely comes from Persian.

The newer English Koren Talmud follows the same translation: "It is better to sit as two [tan du] than to sit lonely as a widow, i.e., a woman prefers the companionship of any husband over being alone."  The note, (written by Dr. Shai Secunda), is more definitive than the Hebrew note. Tan Du is from middle Persian, meaning together.  It's nothing to do with being miserable.

Teshuvot Hage'onim

I've left the strongest textual witness for last: how the words Tan Du were understood during the period of the Geonim (c. 589-1038). In 1887 Avraham Harkavy published a collection of responsa from this period that he found in manuscripts held in the great library of St. Petersburg. In this collection is a reference to our mysterious words:

  טן דו בלשון פרסי שני בני אדם. ארמלו יחידות 

טן דו in Persian means two people. ארמלו means alone.

Chronologically, this is our earliest source, and, therefore, our most compelling. Case closed. 

Variations of the Resh Lakish Rule

So far we have the following four versions of what we will now call the Resh Lakish Rule:

It's better for a woman to be...

....married and unhappy than single  (Jastrow).

...in a less desirable marriage than no marriage at all (ArtScroll footnote).

...miserable and married than to be a widow (Soncino).

...with a husband than to be alone (ArtScroll, Koren, Melamed, Rashi, Teshuvot Hage'onim)

What if Tan Du Means Miserable?

It seems that the translation of  טן דו as miserable originated with Jastrow, and that those who translate Resh Lakish as saying "misery is better than being single" are following in the Jastrow tradition. If we were to evaluate the Resh Lakish Rule per Jastrow (and Soncino and an ArtScroll footnote), the question is, what, precisely, constitutes a "miserable marriage"? One in which the woman feels physically safe but emotionally alone? One in which her husband loves her dearly but is  unable to provide for her financially? Or one in which she has all the money she needs but her husband is an alcoholic? Tolstoy  has taught us that each unhappy family (and presumably each miserable marriage) is unhappy in its own unique way. The point here is not to rank which is worse. 

Today it would be utterly silly (and incredibly rude and insulting) to suggest that a woman is better off miserable than single.  But after our review, that does not appear to be what Resh Lakish ever said.  What he really said was this: a woman would be better off (טב) married than living alone (as a widow). Resh Lakish didn't explain what he meant by better off, so we will have to assume that what he meant was a measure of overall well-being, or what we call... happiness. What we want to know is how this understanding of Resh Lakish stands up today. Was the Rav correct when he called this "an existential fact"?

Measuring Happiness & Happiness Inequality

Happiness inequality exists and has been well documented. University of Pennsylvania economists Betsy Stevenson and Justin Wolfers, (who live together, but not within the bonds of marriage), note that

“...the rich are typically happier than the poor; the educated are happier than those with less education; whites are happier than blacks; those who are married are happier than those who are not; and women—at least historically—have been happier than men.”

But why is this so? Don't we all oscillate around a set point of happiness, regardless of what life may throw at us? Some psychologists think so.

Lottery Winners & Accident Victims: The Set Point Theory of Happiness

According to the set point theory of happiness, we all revolve around our own, innate happiness point. When we are faced with adversity, we do, to be sure, become sadder. But we eventually bounce back to where we were before, back at our set point. Similarly, when met with some good mazal, we are, for a period, more happy. But then we return to our innate set point for happiness, wherever that was prior to the good fortune. The evidence for this comes from a classic study which found that "lottery winners were not much happier than controls" and that accident victims who were paralyzed "did not appear nearly as unhappy as might have been expected." (The problem is that this study used a tiny sample - there were only 22 lottery winners and 29 paralyzed accident victims - so we need to be very cautious in generalizing from it.) 

Married people are – on average – happier than those who are single, but perhaps this fact does not suggest causation. Some would argue that it's just a correlation. A grumpy person, unable to hold down a job and miserable to be around, is not likely to find another individual willing to marry him. So it’s not that marriage makes you happier –it’s that happier people are more likely to find a partner and get married. According to this set point theory of happiness, the Resh Lakish Rule would not be supported, since the act of marrying would have no overall long-term effect on happiness.

THE MORE IS BETTER THEORY OF HAPPINESS

However, evidence from a 15 year longitudinal study of 24,000 people suggests that "marital transitions can be associated with long-lasting changes in satisfaction."  This would support the claim that marriage is causally related to happiness. It's not that you went from being a happy person who was once single to being a similarly happy person who is now married. What actually happened was that the marriage had an effect on just how happy you became.  And data from other large cohort studies show that happiness increases when people marry. Just look at the happiness of women by marital status in the figure below. Was Resh Lakish onto something?

Mean happiness of women by marital status, birth cohort of 1953-1972, from ages 18-19 and 28-29. From Easterlin, RA. Explaining Happiness. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 2003. 100 (19): 11176-11183.

“Remarriage has the same positive effect on happiness as a first marriage”

— Richard Easterlin, Explaining Happiness

Miserable marriages

Of course, not all marriages are equally happy. Some are downright miserable for one or both parties. A 2014 paper published in the delightfully named Journal of Happiness Studies, examined the relationship between marriage quality and overall well being, using data from the US, UK and Germany. The authors noted that “people in self-assessed poor marriages are fairly miserable and much less happy than unmarried people, even in the first year of marriages.” Conversely, “people in self-assessed good marriages are even happier than the literature suggests.” They continue:

In percentage terms (calculated at the mean) these effects suggest that those in high quality marriages are around 20, 19 and 18 % happier than the unmarried... The (un)happiness effect of a poor quality marriage is quite large compared to being unmarried, with the coefficients for the US, the UK and Germany respectively being -0.48, -0.55 and -0.27, which in percentage terms (calculated at the mean) are around 22, 27 and 14%.

And so, it all depends on the quality of the marriage. Of course it does.

what about the widows?

All this supports the Resh Lakish Rule that people are happier when they are married. (I say people because all the evidence applies equally to men too.) But we can get even more specific, because Resh Lakish used the word ארמלא, which most likely means widowed (and hence has a secondary meaning of being alone). There is actually data that applies to this more specific Resh Lakish claim about widows, and it comes from The Roper Center at the University of Connecticut. 

From Economics and Happiness, ed Bruni L. Oxford University Press 2005.

As shown in the table, 62% of women who are widowed want to be happily married.  (Of course this also means that about 40% of widowed women would rather not be married -  even happily. That’s a huge proportion. Still, the overall finding still supports the Resh Lakish Rule.) The women's perspective is the most important perspective in this conversation, and when women (widows)  were asked, most wanted to be married again. Widows indeed wish to live as two rather than live alone. I don't think this amounts to anything like an existential fact, as claimed by the Rav. But the evidence from the social sciences would certainly support the Resh Lakish Rule.

“Free to call the tune, free to say if you’re gonna work or play
You can have the moon but you don’t have to have it night and day

Anyway, on your own with only you to concern yourself
Doesn’t mean you’re lonely, just that you’re free
Live and alone and like it, don’t come down from that tree

That’s the answer for me
That’s the answer for me”

— Live Alone and Like It (From Dick Tracy), by Stephen Sondheim

Yevamot 116b~ Of Snake Bites, Palestinian and Israeli

The Palestinian Viper צפע ארצישראלי. Vipera palaestinae

יבמות קטז, ב

דאמר רב יהודה אמר שמואל שילפי קציר חטין היו והלכו עשרה בני אדם לקצור חטין נשכו נחש לאחד מהן ומת

Rav Yehudah said in the name of Shmuel: It was the end of the harvest when ten men went to reap their wheat; a snake bit one of them and he died

Snake bites were a widespread fear in ancient Israel. The Talmud warns that snakes can be found in houses and records a snake attack that occurred in the toilet, so going to the bathroom was a risk to one’s life. (Snakes still appear  to make relieving oneself in the Holy Land a dangerous enterprise, if this report is to be believed.)  And because of the possibility that a snake had discharged its venom into a standing bucket of liquids, the Talmud ruled that it is forbidden to drink from a liquid that had been left uncovered [Terumot 8:4] – a ruling codified, (with some changes) into normative Jewish law.

שולחן ערוך יורה דעה קטז

  משקים שנתגלו, אסרום חכמים דחיישינן שמא שתה נחש מהם והטיל בהם ארס. ועכשיו   שאין נחשים מצויים בינינו, מותר

Liquids that have been left uncovered [overnight] were forbidden by the rabbis, because of the concern that a snake may have drank from them and left its venom in them. Today, when snakes are less prevalent in society, it is permitted [to drink]

Actually, there is no danger in drinking at all, even in places where snakes are found. Snakes only discharge their venom when they intend to bite, not when stopping for a drink. And even if there was venom in the liquid, snake venom is not absorbed by the human gastrointestinal tract, so it would have absolutely no effect. Still, this shows how dangerous snakes were thought to be, and so when they did not bite, it was considered to be miraculous. Hence the Mishnah (Avot 5:5) records that one of the ten miracles that occurred during the time of the Second Temple was that no person was ever injured by a snake.

snake bites in Israel and around the world

Snake bites remain a threat in Israel and beyond (though in my six years of working in Jerusalem as an emergency physician I recall treating only one victim; he was a handler at a private snake collection- who should have known better.) In the US, venomous snakes are found in every state except Maine, Alaska and Hawaii, and each year in the US there are about 2,000 recorded venomous snake bites that result in about 6 deaths. The World Health Organization estimates that snakes kill between 20,000 and 94,000 people per year.

Kastururante A. et al. The Global Burden of Snakebite. PLOS Medicine 2008. 5:1591-1604

Snakes are such a problem for Israel and its neighbors that in 1998 the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and the Jordanian Armed Forces held a joint conference on the topic. Since snakes are cold blooded, they are virtually inactive in the winter months, and summer time can be too hot for them; hence they are most active in the spring and fall. Like the report in today’s page of Talmud, the IDF found that the peak incidence for snakebites is May (that is, harvest time). 

Snakebites in the IDF. Average incidence per month, 1993-1997. From Haviv, J, et al. Field treatment of snakebites in the Israel Defense Forces. Public Health Rev 1988; 26:24-256.

There are at least eight species of poisonous snake found in Israel, of which the most common is the Palestine Viper, (shown in the photo above,) which is found in all regions north of Be’er Sheva. It is this snake that is responsible for all the fatal snake bites in Israel, though the IDF reported not one fatality during its five year study period.

sidebar: palestinian or israel viper?

Let's re-read that last paragraph:

“There are at least eight other species of poisonous snake found in Israel, of which the most common is the Palestine Viper”

Is that its real name? Well, it depends who you ask, or perhaps, in what language you ask. The snake's Latin name is Vipera palaestinae, and its Hebrew name is...צפע ארצישראלי! The snake could have been given a Hebrew name that was transliterated from the Latin, i.e. צפע פלסטיני – but that's not what whoever chose the name decided on.  Outside the case of the viper in the Jerusalem Zoo, this multiple naming is evident:

(It's not only snakes that have may have a crisis of identity. The chamomile flower, common in Israel, is called by its scientific name Anthemis palaestina, and in Hebrew it is קחוון ארצישראלי. Similarly the Terebinth; it is known to the scientific community as Pistacia palaestina, and in Hebrew as אלה ארץ-ישראלית. I could go on, but the point is made.)

One snake living happily, called two names by two peoples. There's a lesson there somewhere. But I digress.

the treatment of snake bites in the Talmud - and today

The Talmud offers a remedy for the unfortunate person bitten by a snake (of either the Palestinian or Israeli variety. Not the person. The snake.)

If one is bitten by a snake, he should take an embryo of a white donkey, tear it open, and sit on it (Shabbat 109b)

How does this advice compare with the IDF field manual? Not very well, as you can see from this list of the field treatment do's and dont's from the Medical Corps of the IDF.  Embryos of white donkeys do not make it. (Donkey embryos as a therapy also fail to make a fascinating 1953 report of 65 cases of viper bite in Israel.)

Haviv, J, et al. Field treatment of snakebites in the Israel Defense Forces. Public Health Rev 1988; 26:24-256.

Snake venom produces its deadly effects by causing a coagulopathy, which is the general name for a breakdown in the normal way the blood clots.  When things get really bad, snake venom causes a consumption coagulopathy, in which (as its name implies), all the vital bits that are needed for blood to clot are consumed, leaving the poor victim susceptible to life-threatening uncontrollable bleeding. Here's a chart of the clotting pathways that medical students have to learn (a process only slightly less painful than a snake bite itself,) with the bits that venom attacks shown in green.

Diagram of the clotting pathway showing the major clotting factors (blue) and their role in the activation of the pathway and clot formation. The four major groups of snake toxins that activated the clotting pathway are in green and the intermediate or incomplete products they form are indicated in dark red. There are four major types of prothrombin activators, which either convert thrombin to form the catalytically active meizothrombin (Group A and B) or to thrombin (Group C and D). From Maduwage K, Isbister GK. Current Treatment for Venom-Induced Consumption Coagulopathy Resulting from Snakebite. PLoS Negl Trop Dis 2014. 8(10): 1-13.

The standard treatment for snake envenomation is antivenom. (This is a technical term for something that is anti the venom.) In the 1950s  antivenom was already part of the standard  treatment of viper bites in Israel, though apparently it was then called by the far fancier name of "serum antivenimeux."  (If chemistry or immunology is your thing, you can read more about how viper antivenom was made in Israel here.) These antivenoms work in a number of ways, one of which is by blocking the toxin and preventing it from binding to its target (i.e. those green diamonds in the diagram above).

It was these ten vials of antivenom that saved the life of the brave Jewish lady preparing for her son's Bar Mitzvah back in 2011. You can read all about that episode here. (Spoiler alert - the mom won.)

snakes that heal

Snakes aren't only associated with coma, convulsions and death.  They are - paradoxically -  often associated with those who heal.  Here is the cover of Fred Rosner's book; notice what looks like two snakes wrapped around a winged pole.  Compare that image with the insignia of the US Army Medical Corps below.

The image you see is the caduceus, the rod carried by the Greek god Hermes (known as Mercury when in Rome). But in fact this double-snake flying-rod has nothing to do with healing, and is erroneously -though very widely- used as a medical emblem.  But as an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association points out, the adoption of the double-snaked caduceus of Hermes - at least in the US - is likely due to its having been used as a watermark by the prolific medical publisher John Churchill.   

The correct mythological association is with the Staff  of Asklepios, the ancient Greco-Roman god of medicine. In one legend, a snake placed some herbs into the mouth of another serpent that Asklepios had killed, and the dead snake was restored to life.  As a mark of respect, Asklepios adopted as his emblem  a snake coiled around his staff.  While the US Army Medical Corps uses the caducues as its badge, on its regimental flag the US Army Medical Command uses the more appropriate single snaked staff. Oh, and a rooster.  

U.S. Army Medical Command Regimental Flag. Don't ask about the rooster...

Fortunately, the Israel Defense Forces clearly know a caduceus from an Asklepios. They adopted the correct Greco-Roman mythological symbol for the medical unit of the first Jewish army in 2,000 years.

The Greeks may have had their tradition, but we have ours. And in ours, it is never the snake that heals.

“עשה לך שרף ושים אותו על נס, והיה כל הנשוך וראה אותו וחי. וכי נחש ממית או נחש מחיה? אלא בזמן שישראל מסתכלין כלפי מעלה ומשעבדין את לבם לאביהן שבשמים היו מתרפאים, ואם לאו היו נימוקים...

”Make a fiery snake and place it on a pole, and it will be that anyone who is bitten will look at it and live” [Numbers 21:8] But is a snake the source of life and death? Rather, the verse means that when Israel looked up and submitted their heart to their Father in Heaven, they were healed, but if they did not do so, they perished.”

— Mishnah Rosh Hashanah 3:8