Our Many Laws Including Awesome Hygiene Rules to Follow from 3,000 Years Ago

 Nadene Goldfoot                                          

Many people thought that 613 laws were a lot to follow, though we do most of them automatically every day as it is.  The hard ones were the 1st 10 laws that many can't handle even today. Be that as it may, we Jews of today do our best to try.  

What's awesome to me are laws to do with hygiene in a period where people had no idea of science we know about today. So we wonder with awe about the purpose of the ritual prescriptions of the Mosaic code, and there can be no doubt that many of them had a considerable hygienic importance.

         Circumcision in Egyptian days, known to be beneficial

1. Like those in circumcision: and lately people have had a tizzy about doing it, the cutting away the foreskin that was practiced by the Egyptians first as well as other Semites;  though it prevents problems of cleanliness , For Jews, it distinguishes Jewish men from others,  the sign of his covenant with G-d. Circumcision prevents a reduced risk of some sexually transmitted diseases in men. Protection against penile cancer and a lower risk of cervical cancer in female sex partners. Prevention of balanitis (inflammation of the glans) and balanoposthitis (inflammation of the glans and foreskin) 

2. Frequent ablutions, which means washing. Let's look at eating.  First, hands are washed in cold water, easy to get.  No grubby hands at the table here! Of course a quick prayer goes with it.  

3. Segregation of persons suffering from certain diseases, like Leprosy in bible days; and now COVID by using masks, or if in the same family, their own room.  China's overdoing it by their segregation rules concerning Covid.  We've put signs on doors telling people to say away-that a certain disease is being avoided.  

4. Prohibition of the flesh of an animal found dead. The kosher laws (of Kashrut) tell us there are animals we cannot eat, like pigs, and shellfish, etc.  We do not hunt for our meat but kill it under a most painless way, slitting the throat with a very very sharp knife.  So if we find a dead animal in the forest we do not eat it.    For example, the dietary prohibition was extended to animals suffering from serious disease,  Vegetables were washed, not allowing any bugs in the food.  Who would dare eat the meat of cattle with hoof and mouth disease found dead?  Yuck!  

5. The stringent regulations for complete rest on one day of the week (Shabbat)  also had considerable health significance.  Of course one goes to Synagogue on this day as well, but no work.  The mind does not have to work.  (Egypt worked the slaves every day, no resting at all.).  

The Talmud amplified all such regulations in a spirit, perhaps uncritical, which incidentally served to strengthen their hygienic importance.                     

 6. The extended period of menstrual separation are believed to have contributed to the relative freedom of Jewish women from certain forms of cancer.  

7. Even some regulations which ostensibly had a superstitious origin--the avoidance of "spirits" which lurked in certain places--entailed the avoidance of filth, flies, etc; 

8. Similarly a "religious" importance was attached to the regular movement of the bowels, or even where the loo was to be located-outside the walls of Jerusalem, I think it was, and that I found difficult to follow.  I believe this was serious, before sewers, keeping the air sweet, etc.                     

 The Talmud ( teaching) explanations of r Jewish law;  lays down regulations regarding the sites of unpleasant industries and public works, the size of school-classes, maintenance of roads, avoidance of ordure, and the location of latrines:  these rules could be assembled into a comprehensive code of hygiene perhaps unexampled in its age.  The Palestinian Talmud and the Babylonian Talmud were created sometime around 400 and 500 CE.  

I even think that having 10 people in the synagogue, a minion, was psychologically beneficial.  3 was the minimum, but 10 was expected-of men, not women.  This motivated and encouraged the men.  They were not alone.  They felt they were being listened to.  

In the Middle Ages, the Talmudic prescriptions, yet further extended, secured in the Jewish quarters a minimal standard of hygiene, in some ways far above those of their neighbors.  this may have been the reason for the relative freedom from epidemics such as the Black Death. Jews were thought by their neighbors to have been the cause because so often they were not touched by the epidemic, disease, whatever, due to their hygienic customs.   

On the other hand, this was sometimes canceled out by the appalling overcrowding imposed by the ghetto system.  With emancipation and the assimilation of the Jewish way of life to that of their neighbors its distinctive quality has passed, together with some of its undoubted advantages.                                

Ghettos were started in Venice,  Italy, a Jewish quarter only lived in by Jews .  Then the Christian church put it in their legislation to the Lateran Councils of 1179 and 1215 which forbade Jews and Christians to live together in close contact.  It was used in Spain from the 13th century.  Pope Paul IV ordered that Jews in the Papal States should be forced to lived in separate quarters, and was the rule in Italy.  Germans used them in WWII.  Always, it was a space  too small for the population, causing overcrowding and they suffered from lack of hygiene.  

Resource: 

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia