Avodah Zarah, Daf Kaf Bet, Part 5

 

Introduction

This is a continuation of the discussion of the issue of leaving animals with non-Jews. In a baraita on 15b it was stated that a Jew should not leave even female animals with female non-Jews. The Talmud here asks why this should be a concern. Do women engage in bestiality with female animals? (Don t answer that).

 

נקבות אצל נקבות מאי טעמא לא מייחדינן

אמר מר עוקבא בר חמא מפני שהעובדי כוכבים מצויין אצל נשי חבריהן ופעמים שאינו מוצאה ומוצא את הבהמה ורובעה .

 

Why then should we not leave female animals alone with female non-Jews?

Mar Ukba b. Hama said: Because non-Jews frequent their neighbors wives, and should one by chance not find her in, and find the cattle there, he might engage in bestiality with it.

 

We don t leave female animals alone with them lest the paramour comes knocking, doesn t find the wife and instead finds the animal.

 

ואיבעית אימא אפילו מוצאה נמי רובעה דאמר מר חביבה עליהן בהמתן של ישראל יותר מנשותיהן

דא"ר יוחנן בשעה שבא נחש על חוה הטיל בה זוהמא.

 

You may also say that even if he should find her in he might engage in bestiality with the animal, as a Master has said: Non-Jews prefer the beasts of Israelites to their own wives, for R. Yohanan said: When the serpent came unto Eve he infused pollution into her.

 

I think we hear here a rabbinic ontological understanding of non-Jews, one that has echoes in many cultures trying to delineate and separate themselves from whomever they define as the other. Non-Jews are irreparably full of lust. This terrible pollution is their genetic heritage from the time of Eve, and was put into her by the snake [yes, I think this is a sexual allusion.] Thus all non-Jews are full of incontrollable lust. I should note that I am in the middle of reading a book by Stephen Greenblatt called The Rise and Fall of Adam and Eve. Christians throughout the medieval period identified the Jews with Eve, who was fallen, whereas the Christians were identified with Mary, mother of god, redeemed from original sin through Christ . Thus we see both religions using the figure of Eve in a misogynistic means of pointing out the pollution of the other the Jews identify Eve with the non-Jews, and the Christians identify her with the Jews.

 

אי הכי ישראל נמי! ישראל שעמדו על הר סיני פסקה זוהמתן, עובדי כוכבים שלא עמדו על הר סיני לא פסקה זוהמתן

 

If that be so [the same should apply] also to Israel! When Israel stood at Sinai their pollution was eliminated, but the non-Jews, who did not stand at Sinai, their pollution did not cease.

 

This seems to be some sort of acknowledgment that Jews and non-Jews all come from the same essential genes from Eve. But the Sinai revelation, accepted only by the Jews, was a redeeming moment for the Jews and ended their pollution. In this context R. Yohanan s means that Jews, having accepted the Torah at Sinai, no longer have the same lustful desires (here to have sex with animals) that non-Jews do. Of course there is no way of empirically testing such a statement. But it is nevertheless an interesting conception of Torah Torah changes the essential inner being of a person. It is not just an overlay of laws meant to keep one in line. Rather, by accepting it, Jews changed the core of their identity and no longer have the same desires as do others.