The General and the Particular: Epidemics and the Medical Orientation in the Babylonian Talmud

Abstract: This article investigates how rabbinic sages conceptualized plagues, their origin, development, and countermeasures. Mining the biblical text for knowledge, rabbinic sages saw plagues as divine punishments executed by an angel, which rabbinic literature individuated as the angel of death. The preventive measure against an epidemic was generally seen as a communal, atoning fast, yet the Babylonian Talmud nevertheless expands on the physical presence of the angel of death and discusses how individuals can avoid his touch. The Talmud thereby focuses not on the broader scope of epidemics but on individuals. This tendency, which is reflected in the rabbinic interest in case law rather than generalizations, is even more apparent in the way rabbinic sages expand the catalogue of noninfectious diseases. To the standard recipe formula “for X take Y,” for example, rabbinic sages added singular conditions introduced with “the one who.” Moreover, the common therapy, asuta , is complemented with the taqanta , which is shown to be a solution that relies on the clever and educated mind trained in rabbinic exegesis and wisdom.