JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

Rachel preferred death to childlessness (Gen. 30:1), which
prompted the comment of the amora Joshua b. Levi that to
be without children is death (Ned. 64b). A childless scholar is
not eligible to sit on the Sanhedrin (San. 36b. However, teaching
Torah to the son of another person is equivalent to having
fathered him (Sanh. 19b, 99b). Ben Sira said that it was better
to die childless than to have children who were without
the fear of the Lord (Ecclus. 16:1–4). According to a rabbinic
story, King Hezekiah had refrained from procreation
because he had foreseen that his children would be sinners
but was rebuked by the prophet Isaiah, “What have you to do
with the secrets of the All Merciful? You have to do your duty
and let God do what it pleases Him” (Ber. 10a). The cause of
sterility may lie as much with the husband as with the wife;
this is suggested by Abraham (Gen. 15:2) and by the Talmud
for both Abraham and Isaac (Yev. 64a; cf. Num. R. 10:5). A
husband should divorce his wife after ten years of childless
marriage; though she may marry again (Yev. 6:6; Sh. Ar., EH
154:6). Some men in childless marriages chose to take a second
wife rather than divorce an apparently infertile spouse (Yev.
65a). Conversely, the Talmud records instances of childless
wives who successfully petitioned rabbinic courts to compel
their unwilling husbands to divorce them after 10 years of
infertile marriages based on their fears of an impoverished
widowhood and old age without the support of offspring
(Yev. 65b). Aggadic texts generally deplore dissolution of
marriages, even when male procreation is at stake, presenting
preservation of a loving childless marriage as a situation
where human needs and feelings overrule legal prescriptions.
Such midrashic traditions emphasize instead the efficacy of
prayer and the necessity of faith in God (Pesikta de-Rab Kahana
22:2; Song R. 1, 4:2).
Distinction ought to be made between accidental sterility
and congenital or self-inflicted impotence or barrenness.
Deuteronomy 23:2 prohibits an impotent man to marry a
free-born Israelite (see Yev. 8:2) when the impotence is selfinflicted
(ibid., 75b; cf. Jos., Ant., 4:290). A priest who “hath
his stones crushed” is unfit for Temple service (Lev. 21:20).
The Talmud defines an eilonit (“ram-like, barren”) as a woman
who by the age of 18 or 20 is without the symptoms of feminity
(ET, 1 (1947), 243–46 and ref.). According to some authorities,
marriage to an eilonit, when contracted in ignorance of her
condition, is invalid. Impotence and sterility may be only temporary,
due to undernourishment (Ket. 10b). Certain foods,
such as eggs, fish, garlic, wine, milk, cheese, and fat meat increase
sexual potency (Ber. 40a; Sot. 11b; Yoma 18a–b, BK 82a),
while salt, egg-barley, sleeping on the ground, bloodletting,
and crying are detrimental to it (Git. 70a–b; ARN1 41:132). The
duda’im (mandrakes, “love-flowers”), which Reuben brought
to his mother Leah, who gave them to her sister Rachel (Gen.
30:14ff.), have been interpreted to be an aphrodisiac flower,
though this is far from certain (see B. Jacob, Genesis, ad.
loc.). The Talmud suggests that the suppression of the urge to
urinate is a cause of sterility in men, and many pupils of the
amora Huna (third century) became sterile on account of his
Barrett, David
over long lectures (Yev. 64b). See also *Birth Control; *Castration;
*Vital Statistics.
Add. Bibliography: J.R. Baskin. Midrashic Women: Formations
of the Feminine in Rabbinic Literature (2002); M. Callaway. “Sing,
O Barren One”: A Study in Comparative Midrash (1986); J. Cohen.
“Be Fertile and Increase, Fill the Earth and Master It.” The Ancient and
Medieval Career of a Biblical Verse (1989); J. Hauptman, Rereading the
Rabbis: A Woman’s Voice (1998).
[Alexander Carlebach / Judith R. Baskin (2nd ed.)]
°BARRÉS, AUGUSTE MAURICE (1862–1923), French
writer and politician. His extreme individualism and nationalism
greatly influenced his generation. He contributed regularly
to the nationalist antisemitic daily La Cocarde (founded
in 1888), which he edited for a while, and there propounded
many of the views on blood purity, the state, and the individual
which were later developed and put into practice in Germany.
He also expressed these opinions in his novels. Like
Charles *Maurras, Barrès was influenced by H.A. Taine, who
emphasized race and environment as the determinant factors
in history, and by *Proudhon, who identified capitalists with
bankers and bankers with Jews. With Maurras, Barrès laid
the ideological foundations of the *Action Française, a forerunner
of the Fascist movement. At the time of the *Dreyfus
case, Barrès was among the most vehement of Dreyfus’ accusers.
During World War I, however, he became an ideologist
of the “Union sacrée,” and temporarily setting aside his
prejudices accepted the Jews as members of the “spiritual family”
of France.
Bibliography: P. de Boisdeffre, Maurice Barrès (Fr., 1962),
incl. bibl.; M.R. Curtis, Three Against the Third Republic (1959), incl.
bibl. Add. Bibliography: Z. Sternhell, Maurice Barrès et le nationalisme
français (1972); C.S. Doty, From Cultural Rebellion to Counterrevolution:
The Politics of Maurice Barrès (1976).
BARRETT, DAVID (1930– ), Canadian social worker, politician.
Barrett was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, and
raised in a secular Jewish home on the city’s east side, where
his father ran a produce market. Barrett studied philosophy
and social work in the United States. He returned to Canada in
1957 and began work for the British Columbia Department of
Corrections. Angered by what he regarded as wretched working
conditions in an archaic prison system, he was soon an
outspoken critic of the provincial penal system and organizer
of a prison employee union. He was fired.
Carrying his battle into the political arena, in 1960 Barrett
was elected to the provincial legislature for the Co-operative
Commonwealth Federation (CCF), forerunner of the democratic
socialist New Democratic Party (NDP). In 1969 he was
elected leader of the British Columbia NDP and in 1972 led his
party to victory with a major reform agenda. His was the first
NDP government in British Columbia history and Barrett was
the first Jewish provincial premier in Canadian history.
Defeated in 1975, he served for a time as leader of the
opposition followed by a stint in broadcasting. He went on to
ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 3 175