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Young Israel of Westside Shiurim

Shabbos 110

  1. Snakebites can be cured by the embryos of white donkeys, as long as the donkey is not a treifa. This is for regular snake bites, but special snake bites that occur for punishment for disobeying Rabbinic decrees cannot be cured.

  2. Snakes go after the scent of a persons footsteps, and one should avoid giving a scent when a snake is after him. Also, snakes don’t go on sandy terrain.

  3. Sometimes snakes desire women and that can be tested by seeing if snake wraps itself around her clothing with her scent.

  4. The Gemara has remedies for a woman who was entered by a snake.

  5. One may not drink urine on Shabbos for medicine bc it’s not a regular drink. Only regular drinks are permitted bc they’re not apparent they’re for medicines

  6. It’s forbidden to drink special medicine water from “between the palm trees” that cleans out the bowels. It’s forbidden to drink the “water that pierces” - a certain Egyptian beer that pieces the bile of the gallbladder.

  7. There’s a medicine called כוס עיקרין- the cup of sterility. It’s a medicine used for irregular blood flows of a woman and for jaundice. It has sap, alum, and saffron, and be mixed with wine and beer. When it’s mixed with wine, it does not cause sterility and is used to help stop irregular flows of blood. When it’s mixed with beer, it’s used for jaundice but it does cause sterility. This medicine cannot be taken on Shabbos. The Gemara provides many alternatives for curing זבה and jaundice.

  8. It is forbidden to castrate animals and also forbidden to castrate humans. ובארצכם לא תעשו is the source. The Gemara is unsure whether the prohibition is only to mutilate the reproductive organs themselves or even to cause one to be steril (like drinking this potion). Ultimately, the Gemara favors that it’s forbidden even to cause it without harming the reproductive organs.

  9. It is forbidden to further mutilate reproductive organs that have already been hurt. If the testicles were crushed, detaching then would cause a second obligation.

  10. The prohibition is even for old men who seem impotent bc that impotence can be cured.

  11. Whether the issur applies to women depends whether they are commanded to have children. This is a dispute. Certainly it does not apply to an old woman or a barren woman.

Broadcast on:
23 Jun 2020