Are the following citations from the Talmud "rumor and innuendo" or simple facts?
Shabbath 19:2
They may perform on the Sabbath all things that are needful for circumcision: excision, tearing, sucking [the wound], and putting thereon a bandage and cumin. If this had not been pounded up on the eve of the Sabbath a man may chew it with his teeth and then apply it.
The Mishnah
Translated by Herbert Danby
Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1933. pp. 116-117.
These are taken from the Jerusalem Post Magazine. Why don't you read them for yourself!
sexuallymutilatedchild.org
Shabbat 133B
II.1.
A. Suck [out the wound]:
B. Said R. Pappa, "A Surgeon who didn't suck out the wound - that is a source of danger, and we throw him out."
C. So what else is new? Obviously, since we are prepared to desecrate the Sabbath on that account, it is certainly dangerous not to do it!
D. What might you have supposed? That this blood is stored up. So we are informed that it is the result of the wound, and in the status of a bandage and cumin: Just as when one doesn't put on a bandage and cumin, there is danger, so here, too, if one doesn't do it, there is danger.
The Talmud of Babylonia: An American Translation
Translated by Jacob Neusner
Number 275. Volume II.E: Shabbat Chapters 18-24.
Program in Judaic Studies Brown University
Atlanta: Scholars Press. 1993. p. 45.
These facts may be "disgusting", as you say, but they are NOT "RUMOR AND INNENDO" but realities. |
