Sustenance and the Strange: Grotesque Talmudic Accounts of Miracles, Deformity, and Domestic Survival (Shabbat 53b)
Appendix - The Story of the Hasid Breastfeeding from the Goat - A Lesson in Piety, Sinning, and Following Communal Norms (Temurah 15b)
This sugya features two surreal, arresting stories that orbit a single shared theme: the desperate lengths to which people must go when faced with the harsh reality of poverty and the struggle for daily sustenance:
In one case, a man miraculously grows female-like breasts and breastfeeds his infant after his wife dies.
In another, a man lives his entire marriage without realizing that his wife is missing an arm.
Both tales provoke not only wonder but conflicting reactions from the rabbis—some admire the characters’ modesty and divine favor; others are unsettled by the abnormality and disruption of nature.
The narrative of the breastfeeding father becomes a point of theological tension: is it a mark of divine grace or a humiliating deviation from the natural order?
Rav Yosef and Abaye represent opposing views, which lead to a broader reflection on the difficulty of making a living—so severe, Rav Yehuda says, that it's easier for God to break the laws of biology than to provide financial stability.
This theme of moral and social limits reemerges in the appendix from Temurah 15b, where a certain unnamed pious man (=hasid; identified by the Talmud as an early 2nd century sage named R’ Yehuda, either R’ Yehuda ben Bava or R’ Yehuda bar Ilai) is said to have maintained a female goat and suckled daily directly from it, for medical reasons, despite the communal prohibition against raising goats and sheep in Eretz Yisrael.
Though this may strike modern readers as grotesque, the Talmud’s interest lies in how even exceptional piety does not exempt one from communal norms. His breach, though minor, is remembered as his only sin.
Outline
Breastfeeding Fathers and Modest One-Armed Wives: Miracles and the Difficulty of Sustenance (Shabbat 53b)
The Miraculous Story of the Father Who Breastfed His Baby
Debate on the Miracle of the Breastfeeding Father
The difficulty of earning a livelihood
The Man Who Didn’t Notice His Wife’s Disability
Appendix - The Story of the Hasid Breastfeeding from the Goat - A Lesson in Piety, Sinning, and Following Communal Norms (Temurah 15b)
The Illness
Visitors’ Accusation, their Judgment and His Own Confession: this was his only transgression
Identifying the Hasid
The Passage
The Miraculous Story of the Father Who Breastfed His Baby
A man whose wife died had no money for a wet nurse (מניקה).
A miracle occurred, and he developed breasts1 and breastfed (הניק) his son.
תנו רבנן:
מעשה באחד
שמתה אשתו
והניחה בן לינק
ולא היה לו שכר מניקה ליתן,
ונעשה לו נס
ונפתחו לו דדין כשני דדי אשה
והניק את בנו.
The Gemara cites a related baraita in which the Sages taught:
There was an incident where one man’s
wife died,
and she left him a son to nurse,
and he did not have money to pay the wages of a wet-nurse.
And a miracle was performed on his behalf,
and he developed breasts like the two breasts of a woman,
and he nursed his son.
Debate on the Miracle of the Breastfeeding Father
Rav Yosef praised the man for having a great miracle, while Abaye viewed it as a dishonorable alteration of nature.2
אמר רב יוסף:
בא וראה כמה גדול אדם זה
שנעשה לו נס כזה!
אמר ליה אביי:
אדרבה
כמה גרוע אדם זה
שנשתנו לו סדרי בראשית.
Rav Yosef said:
Come and see how great this person is
that a miracle of that magnitude was performed on his behalf.
Abaye said to him:
On the contrary,
how dishonorable is this person
that the order of creation was altered on his behalf.
A miracle was indeed performed on his behalf; however, it was performed in a demeaning and unpleasant manner.
The difficulty of earning a livelihood
Rav Yehuda commented that it is so hard to earn a livelihood (מזונותיו) that changing nature was easier than providing financial support.
Rav Naḥman reinforced this by noting that although miracles occur (מתרחיש), food is never created miraculously.
אמר רב יהודה:
בא וראה
כמה קשים מזונותיו של אדם,
שנשתנו עליו סדרי בראשית.
אמר רב נחמן:
תדע,
דמתרחיש ניסא
ולא אברו מזוני.
Rav Yehuda added and said:
Come and see
how difficult it is to provide for a person’s sustenance.
It is so difficult that the order of creation had to be altered on his behalf, which was apparently easier than providing him a source of financial support.
Rav Naḥman said:
Know that it is so,
as miracles are often performed on a person’s behalf;
however, it has not yet happened that food was miraculously created in a person’s home.
The Man Who Didn’t Notice His Wife’s Disability
A man married a one-armed woman3 and only realized4 when she died.
Rav praised the woman's modesty, while R' Ḥiyya emphasized the husband’s modesty.
תנו רבנן:
מעשה באדם אחד
שנשא אשה גידמת
ולא הכיר בה עד יום מותה.
אמר רב:
בא וראה כמה צנועה אשה זו
שלא הכיר בה בעלה.
אמר לו רבי חייא:
זו דרכה בכך.
אלא:
כמה צנוע אדם זה
שלא הכיר באשתו.
The Gemara relates another unusual story. The Sages taught:
There was an incident involving one man
who married a one-armed woman,
and he did not realize that she was one-armed until the day that she died.
Rav said:
Come and see how modest this woman was
that her husband did not realize this about her.
R' Ḥiyya said to him:
That is typical conduct for her, as a woman typically covers herself. All the more so a one-armed woman makes sure to cover her defect.
Rather, say:
How modest was this man
that he did not recognize this in his wife.
Appendix - The Story of the Hasid Breastfeeding from the Goat - A Lesson in Piety, Sinning, and Following Communal Norms (Temurah 15b)
The Illness
A baraita recounts a case involving a pious man suffering from chest pain (גונח מלבו - literally: “groaning [גונח] from his heart").
Physicians recommended a dose of boiling (רותח - i.e. fresh (?)) milk every morning (שחרית) as the only remedy.
Consequently, a goat was brought and tied to the legs (כרעי) of his bed, and he would breastfeed from it (daily).5
תניא:
מעשה בחסיד אחד
שהיה גונח מלבו,
ושאלו לרופאים,
ואמרו:
אין לו תקנה
עד שיינק חלב רותח שחרית,
והביאו עז
וקשרו לו בכרעי מיטתו,
והיה יונק ממנה חלב.
taught in a baraita:
There was an incident involving a certain pious man
who was groaning, i.e., suffering, due to a pain in his heart.
And they asked the physicians what to do for him,
and they said:
There is no other remedy for him but that
he should suckle warm milk every morning.
And they brought him a goat
and tied it to the leg of the bed for him,
and he would suckle milk from it.
Visitors’ Accusation, their Judgment and His Own Confession: this was his only transgression
When his friends visited and saw the goat, they were shocked, likening its presence to that of an “armed (מזויין) bandit” .6
They then investigated the hasid's conduct and found no sin other than his violation of this communal regulation.
Before his death, the man himself confessed that this was his only known transgression: keeping the goat, in breach of the halakhic consensus that one may not raise sheep and goats (“small domesticated animals”) in Eretz Yisrael.7
למחר, נכנסו חביריו לבקרו,
כיון שראו העז
אמרו:
ליסטים מזויין בתוך ביתו,
ואנו נכנסים לבקרו?!
ישבו ובדקו,
ולא מצאו בו עון,
אלא של אותה העז בלבד.
ואף הוא, בשעת מיתתו, אמר:
יודע אני בעצמי, שאין בי עון,
אלא של אותה העז בלבד,
שעברתי על דברי חבירי,
שהרי אמרו חכמים: אין מגדלין בהמה דקה בארץ ישראל.
[...]
On the following day, his friends entered to visit him.
When they saw the goat tied to the leg of the bed
they said:
There is an armed bandit in this man’s house,
and we are entering to visit him?!
They referred to the goat in this manner because small animals habitually graze on the vegetation of neighbors, stealing their crops.
The Sages sat and examined this pious man’s behavior,
and they could not find any transgression attributable to him
other than the sin of keeping that goat in his house alone.
And that man himself also said at the time of his death:
I know for a fact with regard to myself that I have no transgression attributable to me
but the sin of keeping that goat in my house alone,
as I transgressed the statement of my colleagues, the Sages.
As the Sages said in a mishna (Bava Kamma 79b): One may not raise small domesticated animals, i.e., sheep and goats, in inhabited areas of Eretz Yisrael, because they graze on people’s crops.
[...]
Identifying the Hasid
The Talmud states that “we maintain” (קיימא לן) that a story beginning with "There was an incident involving a certain hasid”, it refers either to R’ Yehuda ben Bava or R’ Yehuda bar Ilai.8
קיימא לן,
כל היכא דאמר ״מעשה בחסיד אחד״ —
או רבי יהודה בן בבא,
או רבי יהודה בר אילעאי,
[...]
we maintain that
anywhere that it says: There was an incident involving a certain pious man,
the man in question is either Rabbi Yehuda ben Bava
or Rabbi Yehuda bar Ilai.
[...]
דדין כשני דדי אשה - literally: “breasts like the two breasts of a woman”.
סדרי בראשית - literally: “the order of Creation (בראשית)”.
גידמת - literally: “[arm] amputee”.
Compare also my piece on the High Priest punished by having his hands amputated: “From Silken Hands to Severed Hands: The Four Cries of the Temple Courtyard, and the Sins and Eventual Downfall of the High Priest Yissakhar of Barkai (Keritot 28a-b = Pesachim 57a-b)”.
And see also Hebrew Wikipedia, קטיעה, section “גידם ביהדות ובעמי קדם”, for other examples, especially of thumbs amputated for punishment.
See also the grotesque description in Taanit.21a.8, of the sage Naḥum of Gam Zu (c. 100 CE):
He was
blind (סומא) in both eyes
had both arms and legs amputated (גדם / קיטע)
had a serious skin condition (שחין) covering his entire body (כל גופו מלא שחין - “his entire body was covered in boils”)
he lay in a dilapidated (רעוע - “shaky”) house, with his bed's legs placed in buckets (ספלין) of water to prevent ants from reaching him.
The full passage:
אמרו עליו על נחום איש גם זו
שהיה
סומא משתי עיניו,
גדם משתי ידיו,
קיטע משתי רגליו,
וכל גופו מלא שחין.
והיה מוטל בבית רעוע,
ורגלי מטתו מונחין בספלין של מים
כדי שלא יעלו עליו נמלים.
They said about Naḥum of Gam Zu
that he was
blind in both eyes,
both his arms were amputated,
both his legs were amputated,
and his entire body was covered in boils.
And he was lying in a dilapidated house,
and legs of his bed were placed in buckets of water
so that ants should not climb onto him, as he was unable to keep them off in any other manner.
הכיר - literally: “recognized”, i.e. that she was an amputee.
Compare Wikipedia, “Human–animal breastfeeding”, section “Breastfeeding by humans of animals”:
The breastfeeding by humans of animals is a practice that is widely attested historically and continues to be practised today by some cultures
ליסטים - from Greek.
Presumably, alluding to the rabbinic rule cited later: that goats and sheep were banned from settled areas in Eretz Yisrael, due to their tendency to graze on and damage neighbors' property.
On this prohibition, see my piece here, section “Appendix 2 - The Talmudic Literature on Restrictions on raising animals in Eretz Yisrael, especially sheep and goats“
Both are tannaim, who flourished in early- to mid-2nd century Eretz Yisrael.