-
7 The Interplay between Myth, Science, and Law
- Brandeis University Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
98 7 The Interplay between Myth, Science, and Law Medieval kabbalists derived some aspects of their understanding of menstruation from contemporary science. Medieval physicians and natural philosophers used ancient Greek philosophy to justify women’s physical inferiority. Certain thirteenth-century kabbalists adapted these ideas to prove Jewish women’s spiritual inferiority. These mystical ideas filtered into sermons and ethical literature to the detriment of medieval Jewish women. Science and faith were inextricably intertwined in the Middle Ages.1 Clerics would attend to both spiritual and physical needs because the need to care for the body coincided with the need to care for the soul.2 Until the rise of universities in the twelfth century, monasteries were the centers of scientific knowledge, and even after the professionalization of medicine in the thirteenth century, Christian physicians continued to look to the Bible, in addition to their license, as the source of their authority.3 Indeed, many Christian physicians who received medical degrees went on to pursue higher degrees in theology.4 It is not surprising that several Christian theologians used medical theories in the service of theology.5 This nexus between science and faith was not limited to Christianity. Although Jews were excluded from universities, some aspiring physicians studied medicine unofficially with members of the medical faculty while others studied privately.6 Just as many Christian physicians were theologians, many Jewish doctors were also rabbis who could employ scientific theories in support of theological and legal arguments.7 In fact, Kabbalah emerges contemporaneously with the rediscovery of Galen and Aristotle in the Latin West, and some thirteenth-century kabbalists endeavored to discern divine secrets with the aid of the “new” Greek knowledge. There is, however, no such thing as knowledge in the abstract. Michel Foucault has taught us that no knowledge exists outside the confines of a given Interplay between Myth, Science, and Law · 99 cultural context. And medieval culture was patriarchal. Thus, when a misogynist theology is wedded to scientific theories that justify female inferiority, the results are devastating. The kabbalistic understanding of the laws of the menstruating woman is a prime example of this failed marriage. In Leviticus, menstruants were deemed ritually impure for cultic practice (15:19) and prohibited to their husbands in a catalog of forbidden sexual relations (20:18). After the destruction of the Temple, sexual relations with menstruants continued to be forbidden on the basis of Leviticus 20:18. Isaac the Blind (1165– 1235), one of the first kabbalists in Provence, and Nahmanides (1194–1270), the leader of the Jewish community in Barcelona, both used medieval natural philosophy and science in the service of kabbalistic theology to explain the mystical secret inherent in this prohibition. Isaac the Blind adopted a Galenic model of menstruation to locate the menstruating woman within the sefirah of Judgment, the locus of evil in the sefirotic realm. Nahmanides, by contrast, used, with far more devastating results, an Aristotelian model in which medieval medicine, natural philosophy, and Kabbalah reinforce one another to create an image of the menstruating woman as the human incarnation of the demonic other side (sitra ah . ra). The restrictive laws of the Beraita d’Niddah (BdN) were the only means to forestall her dangers. isaac the blind and the origin of menstrual blood The Mishnah identifies five different types of impure menstrual blood. These flow from the “room” or “fountain” (maqor), terms traditionally used for the uterus.8 In one of the earliest kabbalistic discussions of gynecology, Isaac the Blind refines this anatomical description by defining the term maqor as the left section of the uterus. According to this reading, impure menstrual blood flows not from the entire womb but rather from the left section alone. Isaac explains that only sinister blood is impure because “all things which come from the left, the side of stern Judgment, are governed by impurity, as it is written, ‘from the North shall evil break loose’” (Jer. 1:14).9 The menstrual flow is the material manifestation of the powers of stern Judgment; its red hue reflects the fiery color of its source. Isaac the Blind’s theology of menstruation demonstrates an intersection of kabbalistic theosophy, medicine, and natural philosophy governed by ancient Greek science and philosophy. The low esteem in which women were held in [3.135.195.249] Project MUSE (2024-04-17 07:18 GMT) 100 · Medieval Kabbalah ancient Greece expressed itself in contemporary gynecology in a dichotomy of left and right.10 In his article “On the Pre...