Discussion on the Daf - Shabbat

malki2

Mon, Jul 20 2020, 9:03 am

amother [ Orchid ] wrote:

From elsewhere. A woman living through a c-section was as inconceivable to people in the time of the gemara as flying to the moon.

I’ll have to look into it. The Chazon Ish at the end of Emunah Uvitachon brings examples of sophisticated surgery from the Gemara such as successful spleen removal. I don’t remember if he mentions C-sections.

imorethanamother

Mon, Jul 20 2020, 1:08 pm

Aylat wrote:

I learned this at 4am one Shabbat morning lying on the operating table for an emergency C-section.

Me: Well, I guess it will be a Shabbos bris.

Secular theatre nurse: No, not for a C-section baby. The bris will be on Sunday.

I checked with DH later who confirmed. I love Israelis.

What's the halacha re fertility treatments?

That theoretically it isn’t docheh shabbos. He tied it all into the besulah who gets pregnant miracle part in a Gemara elsewhere. (I don’t know where).

Also it’s so so so weird to me that the concept of an eight day bris is not Halacha. How could it not be? It’s just so odd. And here we go talking about how the newborn gets a surge of some vitamin or something on the eighth day and doesn’t it all work out perfectly and here the Day 8 isn’t even a thing at all. It all has to do with her tumah not anything about Hashems commandment to Avraham.

Again, it’s stuff like this that I started learning the daf for, because it makes me realize there are whole swaths of my religion that are completely opposite to what I’ve always thought. Or I’m completely ignorant of.

malki2

Mon, Jul 20 2020, 1:35 pm

So I clarified. The Chazon Ish has an essay at the end of Emunah Uvitachon (it’s been translated into English and is called Faith and Trust), where he brings numerous proofs from the Gemara that the medical knowledge of those days was sophisticated. One of the proofs was from the Gemara in Bechorot which discusses a case of a baby that was born vaginally following a C-section. He does not deny that in more recent medieval times doctors did not have this knowledge, but he says that the ancients did possess sophisticated medical knowledge and he brought many proofs to this from the Gemara.

If you look at the world from a (correct), non-evolutionary viewpoint, the ancients has tremendous amounts of technological knowledge which was lost over the ages. Anyone who knows anything about the construction of the pyramids and other Egyptian architecture will confirm that the ancient Egyptians used highly sophisticated engineering techniques in their construction. The Alexandria library, which was burned, also contained a tremendous amount of scientific wisdom. Just because the ancients didn’t have flushing toilets and IPhones does not mean that they knew less than we did.

amother

Orchid

Mon, Jul 20 2020, 2:34 pm

malki2 wrote:

The gemara in ברכות is about an animal birth, not a human one. Maybe they stitched up the animals afterwards. There is a mishna in כריתות about whether a mother who delivers by C-section has to bring a korban, and also one in נידה about her status, thus suggesting that women lived through the procedure. Possible, but incredibly unlikely.

Sometimes the conversation is just theoretical. For example, we've been discussing what to do when a baby is born already circumcised. Lots of different scenarios are discussed, and all of this despite the fact that there's never been a case in medical history of a baby boy being born circumcised. It just doesn't happen. The gemara deals with hypothetical situations as a way of clarifying ideas, not because those scenarios actually happened.

malki2

Mon, Jul 20 2020, 2:49 pm

amother [ Orchid ] wrote:

I told you, he gives not one, but numerous examples of complex surgeries. For example, the spleen removal surgery that I mentioned earlier. Also, the Gemara says that in Alexandria, they used to remove the uterus from a sow before they sold her to an outside party so that they would not be able to breed them. So these cases clearly were not only hypothetical. And, the Mishna in Bechorot is talking about a human, not an animal. And you are also wrong about a baby boy being born circumcised. It does and did happen.

amother

Orchid

Mon, Jul 20 2020, 3:51 pm

malki2 wrote:

And you are also wrong about a baby boy being born circumcised. It does and did happen.

Do you have an example? Because pediatric urologists say otherwise.

Why is it so hard to believe that the gemara uses hypothetical cases to sharpen understanding of the rules? A case doesn't have to be reasonable or even possible in order to work as an intellectual exercise.

I'm not saying that there was never a successful surgery fifteen hundred years ago. A single case here or there could be possible. I'm saying that it would have been far beyond normal. That's not a knock at anyone's intelligence. They worked with the tools available to them.

malki2

Mon, Jul 20 2020, 4:00 pm

amother [ Orchid ] wrote:

1. Moshe Rabeinu.
2. Yaakov
3. Yosef
4. The Gemara speaks about it extensively.
5. DH had an uncle who was born like that.

Of course the Gemara uses hypothetical cases. But it is clear when the cases are hypothetical and when they are not. And the Gemara also does not discuss Halacha of cases that are not possible realistically.

And I’m clearly saying that they had sophisticated medical techniques and I proved it from the Gemara. You keep saying the same things, but you aren’t answering any of the proofs that I gave. These were not single cases here or there.

amother

Orchid

Mon, Jul 20 2020, 4:10 pm

malki2 wrote:

.

We're going in circles. You see things very literally. If the gemara says x about a natural phenomenon, all it proves is that the gemara says x. It doesn't actually prove the existence of x. At best, it proves the existence of a belief in x.

And no, the gemara most definitely does not always state when it's being hypothetical.
.
I have no idea what your husband's uncle looked like, but a doctor would be able to tell you. Sometimes a baby is born with a retracted foreskin but it's still there. Really, speak to a urologist.

malki2

Mon, Jul 20 2020, 4:28 pm

amother [ Orchid ] wrote:

We’re going in circles because you said that the Gemara regarding C-sections is not literal and I brought that the Chazon Ish said that it is. And with proofs. And I don’t know what you mean about taking things literally. If the Gemara says that a surgery was done extensively, then it was done extensively, unless you don’t believe the Gemara.
Regardless of my husband’s uncle, you also don’t seem to believe the Chazal that say that Moshe, Yaakov and Yosef were born without foreskins. Not with retracted ones. But yes, I agree that we are going in circles. Maybe try responding directly to one of my points.

amother

Orchid

Mon, Jul 20 2020, 4:37 pm

malki2 wrote:

Your proofs just aren't proofs. I didn't say that surgery was never attempted, only that it was almost never successful. Saying over and over again that someone once performed this surgery doesn't mean that it worked.

Veterinary surgery was attempted more often than human surgery. That has nothing to do with C-sections on women.

And when Chazal say something that goes against the rules of nature, then we should understand their words figuratively. We can draw important lessons without losing our grasp on reality.

malki2

Mon, Jul 20 2020, 4:48 pm

amother [ Orchid ] wrote:

You are completely missing the main point that the Chazon Ish makes, which is that they had sophisticated medical techniques in those days, and for which he brings numerous proofs. There is nothing that goes against reality here. You are free to say that you disagree with the Chazon Ish, But just say so. And try to answer his points logically.

amother

Orchid

Mon, Jul 20 2020, 4:56 pm

malki2 wrote:

I agree that they used some medical techniques that seemed advanced. In very rare situations, these techniques even worked. That, however, has nothing to do with our discussion.

I repeat: Fifteen hundred years ago, a woman who had a cesarean section was almost always already dead. The current situation of women surviving surgical delivery and going on to have other children was essentially unheard of.

Further: The gemara sometimes uses examples that could not happen in real life. These are intended to clarify points under discussion and not as descriptions of reality.

malki2

Mon, Jul 20 2020, 5:04 pm

amother [ Orchid ] wrote:

Ok, so you are taking a different position than the Chazon Ish, but without understanding or answering his points. There’s not much else to talk about then.

imorethanamother

Mon, Jul 20 2020, 5:07 pm

amother [ Orchid ] wrote:

Um, what? Being born circumcised does happen. It's called Aposthia. You can go on wikipedia, and it's pretty graphic, so I'm not linking it here.

Also, sometimes this is another term for a micropenis, which happens a lot more than you think. I remember someone I know growing up who never had a bris, and when I asked why, I was told it was because he already had one. It was likely a micropenis.

Also, based on the predilection for washing hands, it's very likely that C sections might have been survivable more amongst the Jewish population than others. It's not like there was data taken back then. I would read this amazing book by Atal Gawande (edit to add: It's called "Better") that discuses the history of C sections. People did live through them, they just had a really high mortality rate.

This isn't to say that the Gemara isn't hypothetical (I mean, the case of the vaginal snake comes to mind), but this is probably not one of them.

MORE edited to add: The situation of the micropenis is possibly why, in the story where Rav Ada had a child who was born circumcised, when Rav Ada tried he mutilated the baby.

Last edited by imorethanamother on Mon, Jul 20 2020, 5:34 pm; edited 2 times in total

malki2

Mon, Jul 20 2020, 5:22 pm

imorethanamother wrote:

Um, what? Being born circumcised does happen. It's called Aposthia. You can go on wikipedia, and it's pretty graphic, so I'm not linking it here.

Also, sometimes this is another term for a micropenis, which happens a lot more than you think. I remember someone I know growing up who never had a bris, and when I asked why, I was told it was because he already had one. It was likely a micropenis.

Also, based on the predilection for washing hands, it's very likely that C sections might have been survivable more amongst the Jewish population than others. It's not like there was data taken back then. I would read this amazing book by Atal Gawande (I think it's "Perfect"?) that discuses the history of C sections. People did live through them, they just had a really really high mortality.

This isn't to say that the Gemara isn't hypothetical (I mean, the case of the vaginal snake comes to mind), but this is probably not one of them.

Oh, the beloved elusive vaginal snake. If a dog can sniff your privates, why can’t a snake?
But I should keep my mouth shut. It’s not very often that you back me up over here. Smile

naturalmom5

Thu, Aug 06 2020, 3:09 am

Ok... I keep pushing this off, because I had dreams , aspirations of picking up where I left off and writing some of my husbands scholarly notes on each daf, that I never get too..

But this time I had to jump in where the daf is holding now, Shabbos 152..

Malki, is that the most misogynistic Gam you ever saw..

Women are just sacks of blood, and men still chasecafter them...
I know there is a deeper meaning, but still ... Huh... Surprised

malki2

Thu, Aug 06 2020, 5:26 am

naturalmom5 wrote:

Well I’d assume that they would have said the same thing about men, if people would be chasing after them. . .