Insights from the Talmud....and Aristotle.

I am thoroughly enjoying dipping into the Penguin Classics The Talmud: A Selection, being constantly amazed and enthralled with the wide-ranging debates and scholarship that can be found this record of Rabbinic discussion on Jewish law, ethics and their interpretation of scripture as a guide to daily life. One particularly wonderful passage from chapter three of the seventh tractate (Nidda) is this:

'Rabbi Simlai expounded: What is a baby like in its mother's womb? He is like a folded notebook, his hands on his two cheeks, his two elbows on his two knees, his two heels on his two buttocks, his head between his knees, his mouth closed and his navel open; he eats what his mother eats and drinks what his mother drinks, but he does not excrete in case it kills his mother. As soon as he emerges into the fresh air, what was closed opens, and what was open, closes, for otherwise he could not survive. While still in the womb a light shines over his head, and he sees from one end of the world to the other, as it is said When his lamp shone over my head, when I walked in the dark by its light (Job 29:3) - do not be surprised at this, for a man sleeps here and in his dreams sees Spain - and these are the best days of a man's life, as it is said O that I were as in months gone by, in the days when God watched over me (Job 29:2) when there were months not years.'

Apparently during this time the child is taught the whole Torah, but on emerging from the womb into the fresh air 'an angel slaps his mouth and causes him to forget the whole Torah' so for the observant Jew the whole of life is spent trying to regain that former state of blessed knowledge.

There follows an excursus on what it takes to form a whole human being:

'Three partners form a person: the Holy One, blessed be He, his father and his mother. His father produces the white seed out of which are formed bones, sinews, nails, the soft matter of the brain in his head and the white of the eye: his mother produces the red seed out of which are formed skin, flesh and hair, and the dark part of the eye: the Holy One, blessed be He, puts in him spirit and soul and facial appearance and the seeing of the eye and the hearing of the ear, the speech of the mouth, the movement of the legs and discernment and understanding. When his time comes to depart from the world the Holy One, blessed be He, takes his portion and leaves before his mother and father their portion.'

I was particularly struck by recognition of the idea that the foetus is not just the sum of his bodily constituents, but requires additional divine input to make him 'alive'. Aristotle, who also spent a lot of time trying to work out how the foetus was formed, considered that the male contributed the vital heat required to give the soul form (the 'colder' female merely supplied the matter). Indeed, he thought that females were colder, damper, inferior versions of males - but this is the guy who considered that plants were upside-down animals because they had their nutrition-seeking parts down in the earth (unlike animals mouths which tend to be on the upper end of the body) and their generative (seed-bearing) parts waving about in the air (unlike animals who have their generative parts safely tucked away)!

Both the Talmud and Aristotle agree however that the male embryo becomes 'ensouled' at 40 days gestation.....the female embryo somewhat later.

Because they're a bit colder (thought Aristotle) they take somewhat longer to get going, see?