Talmud Commentary: Bavli 2/1. bBetsah 16a (mBetsah 2:1)

@Manuscript evidence

@General observations

The gemara reports a discussion on the value of the Shabbat as a gift, and inquires whether gifts should or should not be reported. The rabbis inquire whether Moses, when he received the Shabbat as a gift, was supposed to inform the Jewish people about it or not. In comparison they inquire whether anyone who gives something (in our case, a piece of bread) to a child has to inform his or her mother of his intended action or not. The discussion ends with the conclusion that a person who does this should mark the child so that even if s/he eats the food before s/he comes home to her/his mother, the mother will see the mark and will ask where it comes from. As a result, this somebody makes sure that the mother of the child will be aware that the child has received a present.

@Feminist observations

Before dealing with the above-cited text, it is worth pointing out that Rabban Shime‘on ben Gamli’el is again mentioned in connection with women, in this case with a mother. In addition, from a feminist point of view this text poses the following questions: 1. Why is it so important that the mother be informed when her child receives a piece of bread? 2. Why inform the mother and not the father of that specific child? 3. What is the connection between gift-giving and witchcraft? And 4. Why do the rabbis discuss this question in connection with Shabbat? I shall begin by discussing the relationship between a mother and her children.

Already the Bible states that a mother is responsible for her children (Prov 1:8; 6:20; 10:1). She suckles them in the first three years (I Sam 23:24; this is also reported in II Macc 7:27) and nurses them.[1] In ancient Israel nurses were also employed to look after the children (Gen 24:59; Num 11:12; II Sam 4:4; II Kgs 11:2; Isa 49:23; Ruth 4:16; II Chr 22:11) and a feast took place at the end of the suckling period (Gen 21:8), when sacrifices would be offered (I Sam 24). From that point on the child came under the authority of the father (Exod 12:24; 13:8; Deut 4:9; 6:7; 19:32; Josh 4:6; Job 15:18; Ps 78:5).[2]

In rabbinic literature the custody of children under the age of six was granted to the mothers rather than fathers.[3] The period of time of a mother’s full guardianship over her child is closely linked to the length of time she breastfeeds it. As long as she nurses the child, it is under her custody. Yet, nursing was not considered a mother’s duty, but rather a wife’s duty to her husband, as Gail Labovitz has shown.[4] The Bavli (bKet 65b) explicitly states that a child remains under the custody of its mother until the age of six:

Here Rav Asi determines that a child until the age of six is under the authority of its mother by stating that the mother’s eruv is valid for her/him, too, and that her handwork and household duties are reduced to enable her to feed her child. Elsewhere (bKet 102b), the mother is even favored over a male educator to raise the child:

This refers to a young child of either sex. A daughter remains with her mother regardless of whether she is a minor or of age. Therefore, the education of a young son and of a daughter, until she marries, was entrusted to the mother.[1] Moreover, as shown by Valler, stories about father-son relationships in the Bavli are different from those about mothers and sons.[2]

Thus far to the question, why a mother and not a father? Obviously, if a person should be informed about a child’s whereabouts and doings it is the mother. But we still have to answer the questions, why inform of a gift at all and what has all this to do with witchcraft and Shabbat.

The sugya from Betsah discussed here aside from reminding us of mothers’ expected responsibilities for their under six-year-olds, also provides another link to women: The connection between Shabbat and sorcery. This connection, albeit not touching on women at all, can also be found in a famous Bavli passage about sorcery (bSan 67b):

The discussion of the laws of sorcery in Tractate Sanhedrin touches on the question of whether the rabbis saw themselves as practitioners of magic. Since sorcery and its performers were viewed as being not completely beyond the pale of the permitted,[1] Simcha Fishbane has pointed out, that it was in any case an “undeniable reality” for the rabbis[2] as well as for most antique cultures, which were “permeated by magic and sorcery.”[3] This is also where women come in.

The Torah discusses sorcery in two separate texts. One, in Deut 18:10-11, is gender neutral and bans the practice of any kind of witchcraft:

Throughout the entire Hebrew Bible we find only one report of a woman practicing one of the above mentioned arts: The description of Saul visiting a woman from En-Dor who consults a ghost (I Sam 28). Yet, Exod 22:17 speaks explicitly about women practicing sorcery: מכשפה לא תחיה (A sorceress may not live), thus highlighting two dimensions to the ban on sorcery which we do not encounter in Deut 18: The death penalty for those practicing it and the specific mention of women who are magical practitioners.[1] The Bible, as well as the Mishnah (see the Introduction to this commentary), generally use the masculine term for men and women. In Exod 22:17, however, a woman is explicitly mentioned. Medieval commentators attempted to make her disappear again, claiming that the word מכשפה (witch) is not a feminine singular, but a collective noun.[2] And, both talmudim agree that the sentence in Exod 22:17 applies to men and women alike (bSan 67a; ySan 7:19, 25d). Nevertheless, the Bavli asks: “If this is the case why does Scripture say “a sorceress” (Exod 22:17)?” and answers the question thus: “Because most women are involved in sorcery” (bSan 67a).

Apocryphal literature too attributes sorcery to women in two and apparently contradictory narratives: Whereas witchcraft and magic in the Book of Enoch were given through the angels who descended upon Mount Hermon, took wives and taught them magic and medicine,[3] the Testament of Reuben (5:5-6) teaches the opposite: There women did not learn magic from the angels, as they already possessed it, even using it to entrap the angels themselves.[4]

Moving from the Land of Israel to Babylonia, and closer to the time of the Bavli, incantation bowls found at ancient sites in Iraq and Iran,[5] name both men and women as beneficiaries of the incantations or as malevolent forces to be protected against. Thus, we perceive that in the reality of talmudic Babylonia men and women alike were involved in incantations and sorcery.

The Bavli connects women and sorcery on several occasions. Of course, most talmudic passages do not necessarily represent social reality. Rather they present an ideologically motivated view: The rabbis were the holders of legitimate supernatural power whereas women, in contrast, were illegitimate claimants to similar power.[6] In opposition to the rabbis, whose supernatural powers were sanctioned, “the sorceress’s powers were condemned because they represented demonic powers.”[7] Such demonic powers were often associated with women in connection with food and the use of spices (on women and spices see the commentary on Mishnah 3. mBetsah 1:8). The Bavli states in bBer 53a:

Jews are expected to say a blessing over the scent of spices, but of course not when these are burnt for idolatry. In this text again women are especially suspect when it comes to their major sphere of labor: Food preparation and spices, for here their power was considered a potential threat to the established society headed by the rabbis. It is no accident that witchcraft and sorcery were closely associated with the intimate knowledge of plants and roots.[1] Food was always a highly suspect territory, simply because it was under the “control” of women. bGit 45a even states that: “[Women] stir the pot through witchcraft.” The power of food is deeply connected to the notion of life and death. As food is necessary for life, women had an important, almost total control over the family’s and their husbands’ lives. The stories about women and sorcery, therefore, often attest the rabbis’ fears of powerful and uncontrolled learned women. A woman could be accused of sorcery if, as Eliezer Berkovits suggests, she was thought to exercise “powers beyond her assigned boundaries.”[2]

bBets 16a speaks about all of these patterns: Women, children, food, sorcery, and the linkage of sorcery to Shabbat. The text in bBets 16a, not quoted to my knowledge in any research about sorcery, is instructive, because it shows, on the one hand, rabbis who mark children, and, on the other hand, mothers who oppose and fear sorcery, even demanding to be informed that their child was not involved in any magical act. These are described here as being on the “good” side and, consequently, far removed from practicing witchcraft themselves. Of course, this is also due to the fact that the woman in this passage behaves in the way the rabbis expect a woman to function: As a caring mother of little children.