Yevamot II 81: Androginos, Eunuch, Aylonit &Tumtum Kohenim/ot and Teruma; Seven Important Foods

Before beginning a new Mishna, we are told about the fate of a widow who has intercourse ("behaves licentiously") while waiting for her yavam.  We also learn about an aylonit who has intercourse with her yavam.  The first is not forbidden to her yavam, but is forbidden to the man with whom she was with as punishment.  The aylonit is permitted to marry a priest, but only because she is not forbidden to him as a harlot.  In both of these cases it would seem that the rabbis hold varied opinions about each women's status and the reasoning behind that status. 

A new Mishna teaches us that priests who are eunuchs from birth and priests who are androginos both enable their Israelite wives to partake of teruma.  Rabbi Yehuda brings some thoughts that are disturbing to my modern sensibility: a tumtum who has been torn open and found to be male cannot perform chalitza for he is treated as a eunuch.  An androginos, who has both male and female genitalia, may marry a woman but not a man.  In fact, a man who has intercourse with an androginos is liable to the punishment of stoning for having sexual relations with a male - even though that male has female sexual organs (as well).  Rabbi Eliezer concurs with this ruling.

The Gemara begins by explaining that men who can father children enable their wives to partake of teruma.  This is true whether the reasoning has to do with the men's genitalia or whether it is based on another factor, such as impotency.

Next, the rabbis tackle the question of whether or not an androginos priest entitles his wife to partake of teruma.  Rabbi  Yochanan and Reish Lakish enter into a significant debate about this question.  Reish Lakish believes that she can eat teruma but not of the breast and thigh offerings that are reserved by Torah law for the priests.  Rabbi Yochanan disagrees.  She is able to eat of the breast and thigh (of peace-offerings) as well as other teruma.  

Is this because rabbinic law is not strong enough to maintain the sanctity of the breast and thigh offerings now that the Temple has fallen?  Reish Lakish and Rabbi Yochanan argue about the status of fig cakes and whether or not they are currently permitted to be intermingled with other, non-sanctified, non-teruma foods.  Clover and other crops are compared with fig cakes.  

The rabbis argue about which foods are so important that they cannot be nullified in a mixture of one part to two hundred parts.  Rabbi Akiva suggests that there are seven such foods:

• Perech nuts
• badan pomegranates
• sealed barrels of wine (and possibly sealed barrels of oil)
• shoots of beet (chard)
• cabbage stalks
• Greek gourds
• Homeowner's loaves

Rabbi Yochanan teaches Rabbi Meir's ruling: these important foods are those sold by unit.  Reish Lakish explains this by saying that any object that is usual to count - he is less stringent on this point. The rabbis continue to argue about whether or not a ritually pure item can be nullified if lost in a grouping with one hundred ritually impure items.  They ask similar questions as well: if a piece of ritually pure sin offering is intermingled with ritually pure but non-sacred items, wouldn't the first item maintain its status?

We are so far from the original questions asked earlier in today's daf that I can hardly remember those first questions.  Though I found them quite fascinating at the time... the rabbis seem to be arguing about in what ways we should include those who do not fit into the binary gender categories.  I have to wonder how common it might have been to experience these questions within the community.  It would seem that kohanim and kohenot must have been more carefully protected if they had less regular genitalia.  And it would make sense that this particular community would have many such community members as they were encouraged to intermarry quite closely.