Talmudology on the Parsha, Bereshit: Evil in the World

First, this

I write these words having spent dozens of hours over the last five days watching Israel TV. The news just keeps getting worse.

For several months I had planned that this week I would launch a new project: Talmudology on the Parsha. But now I hesitate. Is now really the time to start this project, the very week when we have witnessed the largest slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust? On the other hand, what else can I do, sitting here far from my Israeli family and friends? I’ve donated money, I’ve signed up to volunteer in Israel, but they really don’t need another ER doctor, even one who once held an Israeli physician license. Of course they don’t. I could continue to watch Israel’s Kan 11 channel, but I’ve done that non-stop. So I turn to something that brings me comfort: writing about Jewish ideas. Feel free to delete this if you feel the time is not right. I can’t blame you. Heck, I’m not even sure I want to write it. But for those who want to read a little about parshat Bereshit, this is for you. I had intended to write about the Torah as a Textbook. But I’ve changed my mind. This is about how illness is built into the fabric of creation.

Bereshit 1:14

וַיֹּ֣אמֶר אֱלֹהִ֗ים יְהִ֤י מְאֹרֹת֙ בִּרְקִ֣יעַ הַשָּׁמַ֔יִם לְהַבְדִּ֕יל בֵּ֥ין הַיּ֖וֹם וּבֵ֣ין הַלָּ֑יְלָה וְהָי֤וּ לְאֹתֹת֙ וּלְמ֣וֹעֲדִ֔ים וּלְיָמִ֖ים וְשָׁנִֽים׃

And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:

“Let there be light.” It is one of the most famous phrases in the Bible, pronounced by God on the very first day of creation. But then, on the fourth day, God created the “lights of the firmament” - the stars - to project that Light. Several commentaries wonder why these stars were needed if Light (with a capital L) had already been created. Here, for example, is Moses ben Nachman, better known as Nachmanides or by his acronym, the Ramban. He was born in northern Spain in 1194 and later lived in Israel.

פירוש הרמב׳ן על התורה בראשית 1:14

יְהִי מְאוֹרוֹת הנה האור נברא ביום ראשון ומאיר ביסודות וכאשר נעשה הרקיע בשני הפסיק באור ומנע אותו מהאיר ביסודות התחתונים …"יְהִי מְאוֹרוֹת" כי מחומר השמים גזר בראשון שיהיה אור במדת היום ועתה גזר שיתגשם ויתהוה ממנו גוף מאיר ביום גדול

Now the light was created on the first day, illuminating the elements, but when on the second day the firmament was made, it intercepted the light and prevented it from illuminating the lower elements… He decreed on the first day that from the substance of the heavens there should come forth a light for the period of the day, and now He decreed that it become corporeal and that a luminous body come forth from it which would give light during the day with a great illumination, and that another body of lesser light [should come into existence] to illumine at night, and He suspended both in the firmament of the heavens in order that they illumine below as well.

Here the Ramban is focussed on figuring out what happened to that Light after it was created in the First Day, and explained that it was incorporated into our sun and into the stars on the Fourth. Many other commentaries spend time with this idea too. But the Talmud was concerned with another problem found in this verse, and it has nothing to do with the cosmos. It has to do with bacteria.

On the Fourth day, God created disease

Pay attention to that word מארת, meaning lights. It is vocalised as me’orot, despite the fact that it is written without the vowel letter ו. Without this letter, the word should be pronounced m’arat, meaning cursed. In explaining this, Rashi cites the Jerusalem Talmud:

רש׳י שם

יהי מארת. חָסֵר וָי"ו כְּתִיב, עַל שֶׁהוּא יוֹם מְאֵרָה לִפֹּל אַסְכָּרָה בַּתִּינוֹקוֹת, הוּא שֶׁשָּׁנִינוּ בְּד' הָיוּ מִתְעַנִּים עַל אַסְכָּרָה שֶׁלֹּא תִפֹּל בַּתִּינוֹקוֹת

יהי מארת The word is written without the ו after the א (so that it should be read מארת, cursed), because it is a cursed day when children are liable to suffer from croup. In reference to this we read: (Yerushalmi Taanit 4:3).On the fourth day of the week they used to fast to avert croup from the children…

Here is some context: according to the Talmud there were a number of tasks given to the townspeople who remained behind when it was the turn of their local priests, the Cohanim, to serve in the Temple in Jerusalem. These townspeople had very specific orders, as outlined in the Talmud Yerushalmi which Rashi cited:

ירושלמי תענית 4:3

תַּנֵּי. אַנְשֵׁי מִשְׁמָר הָיוּ מִתְעַנִּים בְכָל־יוֹם. בַּשֵּׁינִי הָיוּ מִתְעַנִּין עַל מַפְרִשֵׂי יַמִּים. וַיֹּ֣אמֶר אֱלֹהִ֔ים יְהִ֥י רָקִ֖יעַ בְּת֣וֹךְ הַמָּ֑יִם. בַּשְּׁלִישִׁי הָיוּ מִתְעַנִּין עַל יוֹצְאֵי דְרָכִים. וַיֹּ֣אמֶר אֱלֹהִ֗ים יִקָּו֙וּ הַמַּ֝יִם מִתַּ֤חַת הַשָּׁמַ֙יִם֙. בָּרְבִיעִי הָיוּ מִתְעַנִּין עַל הַתִּינוֹקוֹת שֶׁלֹּא תַעֲלֶה אַסְכָּרָה לְתוֹךְ פִּיהֶם. וַיֹּ֣אמֶר אֱלֹהִ֗ים יְהִ֤י מְאוֹרוֹת. מְאֹרֹת֙ כָּתוּב

It was stated: The people of the watch would fast every day. On Monday they would fast for travellers at sea, [because on Monday God said] “there shall be a spread in midst of the water.” On Tuesday they fasted for travellers on the road, [because on Tuesday God said], “the waters under the sky shall be gathered into dry land.” On Wednesday they fasted that the children should be spared from askara [diphtheria, because on Wednesday God said], there shall be lights in the firmament, [and the word for “lights” [מאורות] is written as “curses’ [מארת].

“No case of diphtheria is unattended by danger. However mild the case may seem at the commencement, death may end it. Never be off your guard.”

— William Jenner. Diphtheria: Its symptoms and treatment. London: Walton & Maberly 1861. p62.

diphtheria

Askara was the dreaded disease diphtheria. Here is how it is described in the Talmud:

ברכות ח,א

תַּנְיָא נָמֵי הָכִי: תְּשַׁע מֵאוֹת וּשְׁלֹשָׁה מִינֵי מִיתָה נִבְרְאוּ בָּעוֹלָם, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: ״לַמָּוֶת תּוֹצָאוֹת״, ״תּוֹצָאוֹת״ בְּגִימַטְרִיָּא הָכִי הָווּ. קָשָׁה שֶׁבְּכֻלָּן — אַסְכָּרָא, נִיחָא שֶׁבְּכֻלָּן — נְשִׁיקָה. אַסְכָּרָא דָּמְיָא כְּחִיזְרָא בִּגְבָבָא דְעַמְרָא דִּלְאַחוֹרֵי נַשְׁרָא, וְאִיכָּא דְאָמְרִי כְּפִיטּוּרֵי בְּפִי וֶשֶׁט, נְשִׁיקָה דָּמְיָא כְּמִשְׁחַל בִּנִיתָא מֵחֲלָבָא

It was also taught in a baraita: Nine hundred and three types of death were created in the world, as it is stated: “Issues [totzaot] of death,” and that, 903, is the numerical value [gimatriya] of totzaot. The most difficult of all these types of death is askara, while the easiest is the kiss of death. Croup is like a thorn entangled in a wool fleece, which, when pulled out backwards, tears the wool. Some say that croup is like ropes at the entrance to the esophagus, which would be nearly impossible to insert and excruciating to remove…

And here is how Paul de Kruif, the author of the famous 1926 book Microbe Hunters, described the toll on the children, who were especially likely to die from the disease.

The wards of the hospitals for sick children were melancholy with a forlorn wailing; there were gurgling coughs foretelling suffocation; on the sad rows of narrow beds were white pillows framing small faces blue with the strangling grip of an unknown hand. Through these rooms walked doctors trying to conceal their hopelessness with cheerfulness; powerless they went from cot to cot—trying now and again to give a choking child its breath by pushing a tube into its membrane-plugged windpipe…Five out of ten of these cots sent their tenants to the morgue.

For the rabbis of the Talmud, diphtheria was a reality built into the very fabric of creation. God had deliberately created this terrible disease alongside the marvels of Creation. This was a divine decree and it required regular prayer and fasting if it were to be mitigated. And as this week has reminded us, evil, too, seems to be part of the fabric of our universe. Whether in the guise of man or microbes, it is never far.

_________________

[To read more about diphtheria in the Talmud, and the Jewish pediatrician Abraham Jacobi who dedicated his career to fighting it, click here.]

אַחֵינוּ כָּל בֵּית יִשְׂרָאֵל

הַנְּתוּנִים בַּצָּרָה וּבַשִּׁבְיָה

הָעוֹמְדִים בֵּין בַּיָּם וּבֵין בַּיַּבָּשָׁה

הַמָּקוֹם יְרַחֵם עֲלֵיהֶם

וְיוֹצִיאֵם מִצָּרָה לִרְוָחָה

וּמֵאֲפֵלָה לְאוֹרָה

וּמִשִּׁעְבּוּד לִגְאֻלָּה

הָשָׁתָא בַּעֲגָלָא וּבִזְמַן קָרִיב

Talmudology Redux ~ Sukkot and Juggling Records

In a discussion of the joyous celebration that would take place in the Temple on the festival of Sukkot, we read this charming passage:

סוכה נג, א

תַּנְיָא: אָמְרוּ עָלָיו עַל רַבָּן שִׁמְעוֹן בֶּן גַּמְלִיאֵל, כְּשֶׁהָיָה שָׂמֵחַ שִׂמְחַת בֵּית הַשּׁוֹאֵבָה, הָיָה נוֹטֵל שְׁמֹנֶה אֲבוּקוֹת שֶׁל אוֹר, וְזוֹרֵק אַחַת וְנוֹטֵל אַחַת וְאֵין נוֹגְעוֹת זוֹ בָּזוֹ

They said about Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel that when he would rejoice at the Celebration of the Place of the Drawing of the Water, he would take eight flaming torches and toss one and catch another, juggling them, and, though all were in the air at the same time, they would not touch each other.

This might sound like a just another neat trick, but as a very amateur juggler, I can assure you that it is much more that that. It is almost impossibly difficult. Rabbi Shimon ben Gamliel must have spent hours and hours perfecting this juggling ability, but difficult as it most certainly is, it is entirely achievable.

world records for juggling clubs

To get a sense of how difficult this sort of thing is, let’s start with juggling “only” seven clubs. Here is American juggler Anthony Gatto juggling them for a world record four minutes (and 24 seconds). No need to watch the whole thing, though it is very magical.

Now here is Gatto juggling with eight clubs and setting a then world record in 2006. Watch the twelve second clip, and then imagine doing that with clubs that were on fire.

Finally, here is the current world record for juggling clubs. It was set by the Norwegian Eivind Dragsjø in 2016. He managed to juggle nine clubs for eleven catches.

Now, with knives

This page of Talmud tells us of another rabbinic juggler by the name of Levi, actually out-juggled Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel:

לֵוִי הֲוָה מְטַיֵּיל קַמֵּיהּ דְּרַבִּי בְּתַמְנֵי סַכִּינֵי

Levi would walk before Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi juggling with eight knives.

Juggling knives is much harder than juggling balls or clubs, because, well, they are knives and have a sharp end. The current world record for juggling knives appears to be six. No-one today has yet juggled eight knives, or even seven for that matter. Oh, and by the way, if you are thinking of attempting to set this record, here is the small print:

WARNING: This record can be extremely dangerous. Please do not attempt this record unless you are above the age of 18 and trained as a professional juggler. We will not accept submissions in this category from minors.

A More Gentle Approach

Elsewhere in the Talmud we read of another sage who juggled, though he was criticized for his skill:

כתובות יז, א

אמרו עליו על רבי יהודה בר אילעאי שהיה נוטל בד של הדס ומרקד לפני הכלה ואומר כלה נאה וחסודה רב שמואל בר רב יצחק מרקד אתלת א"ר זירא קא מכסיף לן סבא כי נח נפשיה איפסיק עמודא דנורא בין דידיה לכולי עלמא וגמירי דלא אפסיק עמודא דנורא אלא אי לחד בדרא אי לתרי בדרא

The Sages said about Rabbi Yehuda bar Elai that he would take a myrtle branch and dance before the bride, and say: A fair and attractive bride. Rav Shmuel bar Rav Yitzchak would base his dance on three myrtle branches that he would juggle. Rabbi Zeira said: The old man is humiliating us, as through his conduct he is demeaning the Torah and the Torah scholars…

רש׳י שם

אתלת - שלש בדין זורק אחת ומקבל אחת

Three - he would take three branches, and toss them in the air and catch them

Another Sage WHo Juggled

So although Rabbi Yehudah juggled with myrtle branches, which are far safer than knives, he was criticized for conduct unbecoming a Talmudic sage. But that seems a bit harsh. In any event, we may no longer have juggling sages, but we do have juggling mathematicians, who are sages of a different order. The foremost of these was the late Ronald Graham (1935-2020) who was a quite brilliant mathematician; in 2003, he was awarded the American Mathematical Society's annual Leroy P. Steele Prize for Lifetime Achievement. Graham wrote six books and some 400 mathematical papers, many with the famous Hungarian mathematician Paul Erdos. But Graham was also a juggler; he began when he was 15, and was able to juggle six balls. In 1973 he was elected President of the International Jugglers’ Association. It should come as no surprise that he also wrote an important paper on the mathematics behind juggling drops and descents.

The acclaimed mathematician Ronald Graham juggling a four-ball fountain (1986).

Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel, Levi, and Rabbi Yehudah demonstrate that the rabbis of the Talmud had hobbies, that they worked to perfect them, and they became rather good at them. Ronald Graham was not a trailblazer; instead, and unbeknown to him, he was following an esteemed Talmudic tradition.

Wishing you all a joyous Sukkot, whether or not you can juggle.

Kiddushin 39 ~ Half Way There

For those studying the Daf-Yomi, one-page-a-day-cycle, tomorrow is an important day. A very important day. The present cycle of study began 1,355 days ago, on January 5th, 2020. And in another 1,355 days, on Monday June 7, 2027, the cycle will be completed.  And so Kiddushin 39 marks the halfway point, page 1,356. There are 1,355 pages completed, and another 1,355 to go. If you have been studying the last 1355 pages, (or even if you joined at some later time), now is a good opportunity to congratulate yourself, or your favorite daf-yomi teacher.

Are we there Yet? 

If you drove from New York to Los Angeles, it would take you about forty hours of driving to cover the 2,789 miles.  If you took Interstate 80, the halfway point on that journey would be at mile 1,395 which means a pit stop at the Wood River West State Wildlife Management Area in Nebraska.

Travelling from Eilat to Kiryat Shmonah (via Route 90 up the Jordan Valley), your halfway stop would be just south of the Ein Gedi nature reserve (but before you cross the bridge over Nahal Arugot), 146 miles from your start and 146 more miles to go.  

According to the Talmud (קידושין ל,א) that we happened to study a week ago,  the middle letter of the Torah is the Vav of the word Gichon, (גחון) found in פרשת שמיני – Leviticus 11:42. We noted that this traditional halfway point is way off. The actual middle letter of the Torah is letter # 152,403, the first letter of ויקרא פרק ח פסוק כט, which is 4,833 letters sooner than the traditional one.

Where is the Middle of the Torah?
	According to the Talmud	According to the Facts
Middle Letter of the Torah	וא"ו דגחון ויקרא 11:42	וא"ו דויקח ויקרא 8:29
Middle Words of the Torah	דרש דרש ויקרא 10:16	יצק אל ויקרא 8:18

Pagination in the Talmud

Are we making too much of this halfway page, this daf at the center of the Talmud Bavli? Perhaps. If you were to read the Vatican's 1381 manuscript of Kiddushin (shown below) you would see a completely different pagination, and today's daf would not be the halfway point.   

Manuscript of Talmud Bavli, Kiddushin, from the Vatican Apostolic Library (Vat.ebr.111/0222). The beginning of page 39a of the standard talmud in use today is show in red. This is one of three manuscripts in the Vatican Library together comprising all of Seder Nashim. It was copied by Yehoshaya b. Abraham b. Berechiah
b. Abraham b. Joseph of the Joseph Ha-Meoni family for Berechiah b. Mattathias and was completed on 11 Shevat 5141, or January 7th, 1381. Here is the entire colophon:

אני יהושעיה בן הרב ר' אברהם בן הרב ר' ברכיה בר' אברהם בר' יוסף ממשפחת יוסף המעוני כתבתי סדר נשים זה לר' ברכיה בר' מתתיה וסיימתיו בי"א יום לחדש שבט קמ"א לפרט המקום יזכינו
.להגות בו בניו ובני בניו עד סוף כל הדורות. אמן אמן. ברוך הנותן ליעף כח ולאין אונים עצמה ירבה

And below is our page, this time from a hand-written Talmud belonging to the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. It dates from 1700; clearly the scribe undertook a labor of love in writing this when printed texts were widely available. And in this unique Talmud, Kiddushin 39 is not the middle page.

Talmud Kiddushin,1700.  Page 39a (לט)  is marked. From the Library of The Jewish Theological Seminary, New York, Record # 000009185.

So yes, this page is perhaps nothing more than an interesting by-product of the winning format in which the Talmud is now reproduced.  But we celebrate marathons and half-marathons, even though their length is totally arbitrary, (based on the length of the Marathon in the 1908 London Olympics - 26 miles, 385 yards; 26 miles because, well, who knows, and 385 yards being added so that the race would finish in front of the Royal Box). Running a half-marathon is a remarkable achievement, and so too is studying half of all the pages in the Babylonian Talmud. Congratulations to all who have achieved this milestone. But this is not an opportunity to relax: Don’t you have a sukkah to build?

According to The New York Times (April 6, 2016, p3.) there are 5,422 pages in the Talmud. Which is sort of correct.  And sort of not.  In our standard pagination of the Talmud, one page is made up of the verso and recto (a and b sides) sides. So Daf Yomi according to The Times would take twice as long as it does currently. Another way to look at it is that The New York Times prefers Amud Yomi to Daf Yomi.

From the Talmudology Archives - On the Healing Power of Honey, and Happy Rosh Hashanah

On Friday evening we will welcome in the start of the Jewish New Year. Among the many traditional foods that are eaten, honey features prominently. Many of us will dip our apples and our challah in it, as we symbolically wish for a sweet new year (and let’s face it, we really need one of those). So in honor of Rosh Hashanah, let’s dig into the Talmudology archives and talk about…honey.

In the Talmud we learn that aside from being delicious, honey was once used as a salve to heal a wound:

שבת עז,ב

דְּבַשׁ כְּדֵי לִיתֵּן עַל הַכָּתִית. תָּנָא: כְּדֵי לִיתֵּן עַל פִּי כָתִית. בָּעֵי רַב אָשֵׁי: ״עַל כָּתִית״ — אַפּוּמָּא דְּכוּלַּהּ כָּתִית, אוֹ דִילְמָא אַמּוּרְשָׁא קַמָּא דְּכָתִית, לְאַפּוֹקֵי הוּדְרָנָא דְּלָא — תֵּיקוּ

We learned in the mishna: The measure that determines liability for carrying out honey is equivalent to that which is used to place on a sore caused by chafing. A tanna taught in a Tosefta: The precise measure is equivalent to that which is placed on the opening of a sore, i.e., on the wound itself. Rav Ashi raised a dilemma: Does the term on a sore mean the measure of honey spread on the opening of the entire sore; or, perhaps it means the measure spread on the primary protuberance of the sore, to the exclusion of the surrounding area upon which he does not spread honey? No resolution was found for this dilemma either. Therefore, let it stand unresolved.

But elsewhere in the Talmud, honey was considered to be bad for a wound:

בבא קמא פה,א 

כדתניא הרי שעבר על דברי רופא ואכל דבש או כל מיני מתיקה מפני שדבש וכל מיני מתיקה קשין למכה והעלה מכתו גרגותני יכול יהא חייב לרפאותו ת"ל רק

It was taught in a Braisa: If the victim of an assault disobeyed the advice of his doctor and ate honey or all types of sweets - and this violated his doctor's instructions because honey and all types of sweets are harmful for a wound - it could be thought that the assailant is still obligated to heal the victim. Therefore the Torah uses the word רק (only) to teach otherwise...(Bava Kamma 85a)

Secretions of the honey bee. From Israili, Z. Antimicrobial Properties of Honey. American Journal of Therapeutics 2014. 21; 304–323.

But certainly according to the Talmud in Shabbat, honey was considered to be beneficial. In fact honey has been used as a medicine for at least the last 3,000 years.  And as we will see, honey has some quite amazing therapeutic uses.

FROM WHERE DOES HONEY COME?

The honeybee is the only insect that produces food eaten by humans. Here is what happens: The female honeybees use their proboscis (a tube-like tongue) to up suck flower nectar and mix it with their saliva and enzymes. Then they store it in a honey sack. Back at the hive, the mixture is regurgitated into cells, dried to about 16% moisture, and stored as a primary food source. As you might expect, the content of the honey depends on a number of factors including the species of bee, the kind of flowers on which they fed, and the conditions in which the honey was stored.

Honey as an Antibiotic

In a recent review article that focuses on the antimicrobial properties of honey, Zafar Israili from the Emory School of Medicine noted that a large number of laboratory and clinical studies have confirmed the broad-spectrum antimicrobial properties of honey.  These include antibacterial, antifungal, antiviral, and antimycobacterial.  “Honey,” wrote Israili, “was found to be an effective topical treatment for ringworms, athlete’s foot, jock itch, nail fungus, and yeast infections and reported to be comparable to many over-the-counter antifungal preparations.” These properties are likely due to the honey’s acidity, osmotic effect, high sugar concentration, and the presence of chemicals like hydrogen peroxide, antioxidants, and lysozymes.  

Honey contains more than 600 compounds (you can see a list of them here), and the wound healing properties of honey are probably its oldest and best studied medicinal property.  It has been shown to aid wound healing in conditions such as chronic pressure sores, traumatic and diabetic wounds, diabetic foot ulcers, boils, burns, fistulas, necrotizing fasciitis, and a very nasty condition called Fournier’s gangrene. (That's necrosis of the scrotum. Yes, quite gross.) So in contrast to the advice of the talmudic doctors that "honey is bad for an injury", honey turns out to be rather good for wounds, especially when applied directly to them.  But honey isn't just good for wounds...

“There is a large body of evidence to support the use of honey as a wound dressing for a wide range of types of wounds. Its antibacterial activity rapidly clears infection and protects wounds from becoming infected, and thus it provides a moist healing environment without the risk of bacterial growth occurring. It also rapidly debrides wounds and removes malodor.”

— Molan, PC. The Evidence supporting the use of honey as a wound dressing. Lower Extremity Wounds 2006. 5 (1); 52.

Your Mother was correct

A 2012 study from physicians at the Sackler School of Medicine in Tel Aviv tested the effects of honey on nocturnal cough and sleep quality.  They enrolled 150 children age 1-5 years (and presumably, their tired and exasperated parents) and half an hour before bedtime, gave half of them “a single dose of 10g of eucalyptus honey, citrus honey, or labiatae honey,” and the other half a placebo. (In case you were wondering, as was I, as to what the placebo was, here’s the answer: date extract, “because its structure, brown color, and taste are similar to that of honey.” True enough.) What they found might change the way you treat your own cough this winter. Each of the three honey groups had a better response compared with the date extract, and no significant differences were found among the different types of honey. The authors concluded that honey may be preferable to cough and cold medications for childhood respiratory infections. 

The effect of different types of honey and date extract on cough frequency (I), cough severity (II), cough bothersome to child (III), the child’s sleep (IV), parent’s sleep (V), and combined symptoms score (VI). P <0.05 for the comparisons between group D and the other groups. A, eucalyptus honey; B, citrus honey; C, labiatae honey; D, silan date extract. From Cohen, AH. et al. Effect of Honey on Nocturnal Cough and Sleep Quality: A Double-blind, Randomized, Placebo-Controlled Study. Pediatrics 2012. 130 (3); 465-471.

Honey as a Medicine for Pretty much everything

There are dozens of other medical conditions for which honey may be used. Here is what the review from Israili has to say:

Honey has been reported to be of benefit in a large number of human pathologies including allergy, asthma, bronchitis, common cold, flu, hay fever, nasal congestion, rhinitis, sinusitis, upper respiratory infections, sore throat, cough, fatigue, anxiety, migraine (stress related), cuts, lacerations, burns, wounds (venous, arterial, diabetic, malignant), pressure ulcers, malignant ulcers, perianal and gluteofemoral fistulas, bed sores, adult and neonatal postoperative infections, necrotizing fasciitis, pilonidal sinus, insect bites, infections (bacterial including antibiotic-resistant strains and fungal), septicemia, conjunctivitis and other eye diseases, endophthalmitis, acne, chronic seborrheic dermatitis, dandruff, eczema, psoriasis, inflammation, gingivitis, stomach ache, stomach ulcers, digestive disorders, constipation, vomiting, diarrhea, colitis, dehydration, diabetes, osteoporosis, insomnia, chronic fatigue syndrome, anemia, hypertension, immune disorders, multiple sclerosis, cardiovascular disease, hepatitis, tumors, cancer, and radiation/chemotherapy-induced oral mucositis.

You'd have to check the references and decide if the evidence supports claims like this. But in any event, this list supports the observation in the Talmud that honey was used to heal wounds. And now we use it to usher in our hopes and prayers for a safe and sweet new year.

***

Want more Talmudology on honey? Click here on how to melify a corpse, and honey as a preservative. But don’t share it when your’re eating, ok?

***

SHannah TovaH From Talmudology