The Fatal Consequences of Disrespect and the Art of Medical Diagnosis: Two Talmudic Tales of Shmuel (Nedarim 50b)
On other parts of this aggadic sugya, see my recent pieces.1
Outline
The Consequences of Disrespecting a Torah Scholar: Rav Yehuda's Judgment and a Woman's Supernatural Death
The Turemita Egg: Medicinal Uses and Shmuel’s Diagnostic Practices
The Passage
The Consequences of Disrespecting a Torah Scholar: Rav Yehuda's Judgment and a Woman's Supernatural Death
A woman came before Rav Yehuda in Neharde’a for judgment and was found guilty.
She questioned whether Shmuel, his teacher, would have judged her similarly and described Shmuel in unflattering physical terms, as “short (גוצא), fat,2 dark-skinned (אוכם), with large teeth.”
Rav Yehuda accused her of disparaging a Torah scholar and placed her in excommunication.3
She then exploded (פקעה) and died.4
ההיא דאתיא לקמיה דרב יהודה מנהרדעא לדינא,
ואיתחייבת מן דינא.
אמרה ליה: שמואל רבך הכי דנן?!
אמר לה: ידעת ליה?!
אמרה ליה:
אין,
גוצא
ורבה כריסיה
אוכם
ורבה שיניה.
אמר לה:
לבזוייה קאתית?!
תיהוי ההיא אתתא בשמתא.
פקעה ומתה.
A certain woman came before Rav Yehuda of the city of Neharde’a for judgment,
and she was found guilty in the judgment of her case.
She said to him: Would Shmuel your teacher have judged me in this manner?!
He said to her: Did you know him?!
She said to him:
Yes.
He was short
and potbellied.
He was dark
and his teeth were large.
He said to her:
Did you come here to disparage him by describing him in this manner?!
Let that woman be in a state of excommunication.
After he excommunicated her, her belly split open and she died, as a punishment for having disparaged a Torah scholar.
The Turemita Egg: Medicinal Uses and Shmuel’s Diagnostic Practices
Shmuel states that a slave who knows how to prepare a turemita5 egg is worth a thousand dinarii.6
It requires meticulous preparation:
It is boiled in hot water and cooled in cold water, a thousand times each, until it becomes small (מתזוטרא) enough to swallow whole.
It is used medicinally, as it adheres (סריך) to lesions (כיבא) in the intestines, enabling doctors to diagnose and treat the patient effectively.7
Additionally, the Talmud recounts that Shmuel would conduct a similar diagnostic practice using a stalk (קולחא) he swallowed. This would weaken him so severely that his household, fearing he was near death, would “tear their hairs out for him” (i.e. react with despair).
ומותר בביצה טורמיטא.
מאי ביצה טורמיטא?
אמר שמואל:
עבדא דעביד לה, שוי אלפא דינרי,
ומעייל לה אלפא זימני במיא חמימי,
ואלפא זימני במיא קרירי
עד דמתזוטרא,
כי היכי דבלע יתה,
ואם אית כיבא — סריך עלה,
וכד נפקא ואתיא,
ידע אסיא מאי סמא מתבעי ליה, ובמאי מתסי.
שמואל הוה בדיק נפשיה בקולחא,
עד דמסתרין אינשי ביתיה עליה שעריהון.
[...]
The mishna teaches that if one said: Cooked food is konam for me, and for that reason I will not taste it, he is prohibited from tasting a loose cooked food but is permitted to taste a thick one, and he is likewise permitted to eat a turemita egg.
The Gemara asks: What is a turemita egg?
Shmuel said:
A slave who knows how to prepare it is worth a thousand dinars.
And this is how one prepares it: He inserts it into hot water a thousand times
and in cold water a thousand times,
until it shrinks enough
so that it can be swallowed whole.
And if there is a lesion in one’s intestines, part of the lesion adheres to the egg,
and when the egg emerges
the doctor knows what medicine the patient requires and with what he can be healed. It is therefore an important dish for medicinal purposes.
The Gemara relates: Shmuel would examine himself with a stalk that he would swallow for this purpose.
This would weaken his body and cause him to look faint to such an extent that the members of his household would tear their hairs out for him in grief, as they would think he was dying.
[...]
“R' Yehuda HaNasi and Bar Kappara: Talmudic Stories of Humor, Wealth, and Reflection (Nedarim 50b-51a)“, final part here.
רבה כריסיה - literally: “large belly”.
A supernatural punishment for her disrespect.
For more examples in the Talmud of death by explosion, see my piece here; one of those stories is specifically excommunication causing death, like here.
טורמיטא. From Greek, see Jastrow:
(τρῆμα [trêma: “hole, aperture, perforation”], ατος, τρημάτιον)
perforation, also eye of a needle; only in (בֵּיצָה) בֵּיצַת ט׳ an egg boiled down to the size of a pill which, on being swallowed by the patient, passes the body unchanged, carrying with it matter which serves the physician for diagnosis.
Compare the story in that sugya where a man lent his slave to someone in order for him to learn how to prepare a thousand types of fig compote, which I quote here, section “Lost Goodness and the Marvel of Fig Compotes: R' Yehuda HaNasi’s Reflection“.
Compare the modern Capsule endoscopy - Wikipedia, which has this same function:
[A] medical procedure used to record internal images of the gastrointestinal tract for use in disease diagnosis [...]
After a patient swallows the capsule, it passes along the gastrointestinal tract, taking a number of images per second which are transmitted wirelessly to an array of receivers connected to a portable recording device carried by the patient.