Avodah Zarah 23

Today’s daf continues the discussion from yesterday, in which the rabbis are seeking to resolve the tension between the mishnah, which stated that animals should not be stabled with gentiles because they are suspect of having sex with them, and a beraita, which states that animals can be purchased from gentiles for the purpose of sacrifice without fear that the gentiles have defiled them sexually or ritually.

Though the Gemara already suggested a potential resolution — the mishnah refers to stabling Jewish animals with a non-Jew, where they are suspect, whereas the beraita refers to buying the non-Jews’ own animals, about which they are not suspect — today’s daf proposes several alternative resolutions. One of them is suggested by Rabbi Pedat:

Rabbi Pedat said: This contradiction is not difficult. The mishnah is in accordance with the opinion of Rabbi Eliezer, while that beraita is in accordance with the opinion of the rabbis. As we learned in a mishnah (Para 2:1) with regard to the red heifer of purification: “Rabbi Eliezer says that it may not be purchased from gentiles, and the rabbis permit it.”

Rabbi Pedat explains: What, is it not correct to say that Rabbi Eliezer and the rabbis disagree with regard to this issue, that Rabbi Eliezer holds that we are concerned that a person might have engaged in bestiality with the animal, and the rabbis hold that we are not concerned that a person engaged in bestiality?

Rabbi Pedat makes the radical suggestion that the concern about non-Jews engaging in bestiality might be limited to only one rabbi, Rabbi Eliezer. The majority of rabbis, he asserts, do not harbor this suspicion.

However, the Gemara goes on to complicate this distinction, pointing out that Rabbi Eliezer and the rabbis’ dispute may have nothing to do with the subject of bestiality. Having determined that this is not the crux of their argument, the Gemara goes on to suggest alternative rationales for Rabbi Eliezer’s position:

Sheila teaches in a beraita: What is the reasoning of Rabbi Eliezer? It is as it is written: “Speak unto the children of Israel that they take to you a red heifer.” (Numbers 19:2) This indicates that the children of Israel take the red heifer, but gentiles do not take the red heifer.

If that is so, then when the verse states with regard to the donations for the tabernacle: “Speak unto the children of Israel, that they take for Me an offering,” (Exodus 25:2) so too one can claim that only the children of Israel take an offering for God, but gentiles do not take an offering.

Sheila suggests that Rabbi Eliezer’s position on the red heifer is a drash on the word “take” used in reference to it. However, the Gemara points out that this same drash would seemingly disqualify anything produced by gentiles for use in an offering, and this position is difficult:

But doesn’t Rav Yehuda say that Shmuel says: The sages asked Rabbi Eliezer: To what extent must one exert himself to fulfill the mitzvah of honoring one’s father and mother? Rabbi Eliezer said to them: Go and see what a certain gentile did for his father in Ashkelon, and his name is Dama ben Netina. Once, the sages sought to purchase precious stones from him for the ephod of the high priest for 600,000 gold dinars of profit, and Rav Kahana teaches that it was 800,000 dinars of profit. But the keys to the chest holding the jewels were placed under his father’s head, and he would not disturb him.

It turns out that Rabbi Eliezer himself recounted, with praise, a story in which Jews attempted to acquire a stone for the ephod — a sacred garment of the high priest — from a non-Jew, Dama ben Netina. And not only did he recall their willingness to purchase this ritual object from a non-Jew, but he in fact praised the non-Jew’s character! By refusing to wake his father even for an eye-watering profit, Dama ben Netina becomes an exemplar of the sort of filial piety that Jews should aspire to.

Though the Gemara moves to once again dismiss this challenge by asserting that stones are different from other sacred offerings, it brings us the continuation of the Dama story as a challenge:

In a subsequent year, a red heifer was born in Dama’s herd and the sages of Israel approached him, seeking to purchase the heifer. Dama said to them: I know concerning you that if I were to ask from you all the money in the world, you would give it to me. Now I am requesting from you only that amount of money which I lost by refraining from waking my father.

For the purpose of the sugya’s argument, the relevant point is that the sages were comfortable purchasing the red heifer from Dama, a non-Jew, and Rabbi Eliezer cited this story approvingly. But in Jews, Gentiles, and Other Animals, Mira Beth Wasserman points to the subversive power of this story, situated as it is within a sugya discussing non-Jews’ assumed perversions. Dama is seemingly rewarded for his filial piety with the miracle of a red heifer appearing in his herd, and doesn’t charge the exorbitant price he easily could have demanded for it.

In the Talmud, stories sometimes contextualize and extend halakhic discussions, but they also frequently challenge or even undermine them. Though the sugya on today’s daf continues to pursue its xenophobic line of thought, maintaining that non-Jews are justifiably suspected of routinely behaving in obscene ways toward animals and people, the insertion of this story about a pious, unassuming non-Jew, who seems to exemplify the very moral traits Jews are told to embody, poses a subversive challenge to the Gemara’s presentation of non-Jews as an undifferentiated mass of sinners.

Read all of Avodah Zarah 23 on Sefaria.

This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on July 11, 2025. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.