Talmud Commentary: Bavli 4/1. bBetsah 30a (mBetsah 4:1)

@Manuscript evidence

@General observations

The Mishnah requires deviating in the manner of carrying burdens on festival days, but this should in no way increase one’s exertion. Therefore, the rule applies that, if it is not possible to deviate from normal practice, this practice is permitted. Additionally it was decreed that, when it is not permitted, it is better not to tell anyone, because to violate the law unintentionally (בשוגג) was considered a minor violation compared to violating the law deliberately (במזיד). If a person transgresses biblical law deliberately, knowing the full extent of his/her transgression, s/he is liable to capital punishment by stoning (סקילה). If a person transgresses a rabbinic prohibition deliberately, s/he is liable to lashes for disobedience (מכות מרדות). In contrast, if a person performs an act of labor inadvertently, realizing neither that it is prohibited nor the severity of the transgression, s/he must only bring a “sin offering” to the Temple. If a person transgresses a rabbinic prohibition without knowing it, and later finds out about the prohibition, sincere repentance (תשובה) can rectify the action. Yet, at the end of the above gemara the rabbis decide that in any case (whether biblical or rabbinic law is involved), one should utter no words of rebuke about the transgression.

@Feminist observations

Women are recorded in the above-cited text as being responsible for carrying water. Rabbinic discussions, as cited in mKet 1:10, take it for granted that transporting water from a stream far from a house was performed by women. Cynthia Baker has demonstrated that “water [...] was as likely to be carried from a community well, aqueduct, or fountain, or from a nearby spring or stream, as to come from a cistern or rain barrel in a courtyard.”[1]

Fetching water for household use was a daily necessity. The image of women drawing water from fountains is also common in the Greek world. Thus for example, several statuettes, found at Tegea in the Peloponnese, show young women with water pitchers.[2] Many black-figure vases show women fetching water from a public fountain house. In most instances the vase itself is a hydrai, a three-handled pitcher with a broad belly and narrow neck. In the Greek world, the watercarriers, or hydrophoroi, were usually young, unmarried women. The task that the hydrophoroi performed in a ritual context was also necessary in the οἴκοϛ. The selfconfidence and independence of the hydrophoroi was reported in the third-century C.E. treatise On Abstinence by the Neoplatonist Porphyry. He told the following story (2:30):

They chose young women called hydrophoroi; these bring water so that they can sharpen the axe and the knife. Once these had been sharpened, one man handed over the axe, another struck the ox, another cut its throat [...] They set up an inquiry into the murder and called to make their defense all those who had taken part in the deed. The hydrophoroi accused the sharpeners, the sharpeners accused the man who handled the axe, he accused the man who struck the blow, and he finally accused the knife; and since the knife could not speak, it was convicted [had it been able to speak, it would presumably have blamed the victim].

In this example, the hydrophoroi are as important as men. They speak articulately in a juridical context, defending their own innocence and incriminating the next in line. Their high social status and esteem also derives from the fact that water-carrying was, in all probability, the domestic labor most thoroughly represented in the ritual sphere; water-carrying in processions remains a constant feature of women’s ritual activity throughout Greece.[1]

The same observations can be made for the above-cited gemara, demonstrating the ways in which male authorities did not succeed in influencing the behavior of water-carrying women. Although the gemara begins by claiming that the lack of protest against a common practice was not always a reflection that this practice was permitted, the rabbis, nevertheless, accepted the way women fetched water. Here again men adapt the halakhah according to the actions of women. Moreover, women thereby succeed in maintaining their strong halakhic position, in addition to enlarging their sphere of movement, since carrying water took place in the public domain.

Furthermore, one may observe that the gemara here uses the designation “Israel” exclusively with women. At first glance, this is astonishing given that, as Boyarin has stated, the rabbis generally appropriate the name “Israel” for “those who hold their creed and follow the ways that they identify as the way of Israel.”[2] As Wegner has pointed out with reference to the Mishnah, “the male Israelite is called simply Yisrael [...] but they never designate the woman by a grammatically equivalent feminine form like Yisraelia or Yisraelit, even though these forms existed (mQid 4.4, mSot 5:4), but rather by the term bat Yisrael (mYev 7:5).”[3] And indeed, MS Göttingen 3 amends the text here to read “daughters of Israel” (בנות ישראל). Moreover, the term “Israel,” in fact, was mobilized in the Mishnah to establish rabbinic control over women’s bodies and sexuality.[4]

In contrast, Tractate Betsah provides an example of women whose actions were not controlled or restricted, but who instead acted independently, even against the will of the rabbis. Whereas, in other tractates, women’s actions counter to the will of the rabbis are produced as examples of incorrect halakhic practice which had to be opposed, Massekhet Betsah, as we have seen throughout, basically accepts women’s behavior, or, at least, sees no need to change it. One can explain the power possessed by women in this tractate as deriving to a large extent from the labors they usually performed. It was these female activities, moreover, which led to basic halakhic decisions. Therefore, the above-cited text could conclude with a general statement that relied upon the way women acted, but was valid for women and men alike: “Let Israel go their way, it is better to err unintentionally than deliberately.” With this sentence, the rabbis, to some degree, admit that they are actually powerlessness to control their practices in this field.