Avodah Zarah 26

Today’s daf features another mishnah that reads as xenophobic to most modern readers:

A Jewish woman may not deliver the child of a gentile woman, because in doing so she is delivering a child who will engage in idol worship. But one may allow a gentile woman to deliver the child of a Jewish woman.

Similarly, a Jewish woman may not nurse the child of a gentile woman, but one may allow a gentile woman to nurse the child of a Jewish woman while the gentile woman is on the Jewish woman’s property.

The Gemara pushes the fear of gentiles further, bringing other sources that suggest a gentile woman should not be allowed to deliver the child of a Jewish woman, as they are suspected of bloodshed. While the mishnah’s primary concern appears to be not abetting idolatry —however distantly — the Gemara and the beraitot it cites build directly upon the assumptions that have predominated throughout this chapter, in which non-Jews are constantly suspect of violent, immoral behavior.

The Gemara also softens some of the prohibitions on offering assistance to non-Jews, though not out of concern for them. For example:

A Jewish woman may deliver the child of an Aramean woman in exchange for payment, but not for free. Rav Yosef said: It is permitted in exchange for payment due to enmity.

While the mishnah ruled that one may not deliver a gentile woman’s child, the Gemara recognizes that refusing to help birth the baby, even in exchange for payment, is an unambiguous display of bigotry, and might inspire further violent enmity from non-Jews. Therefore, ultimately for the safety of Jews, one may act as a midwife to a non-Jewish woman for a fee.

Rav Yosef even suggests that a Jew is permitted to deliver a gentile woman’s child on Shabbat (for a fee), even though this would likely involve desecration of Shabbat. He cites the same reasoning: preventing enmity. Abaye, Rav Yosef’s student, dismisses the suggestion, arguing that a Jew could reasonably claim that they only violate Shabbat on account of those who keep it (i.e., other Jews); therefore, refusal to deliver a non-Jew’s baby, even for a fee, wouldn’t be perceived as inherently bigoted and thus inspire enmity.

Rav Yosef continues to suggest similar exceptions, where one might be permitted to violate Shabbat to save a non-Jew for a fee, and Abaye continues to dismiss him. One particularly stark example is brought from a beraita:

With regard to gentiles and shepherds of small domesticated animals, one may not raise them out of a pit and one may not lower them into a pit. Rav Yosef suggested that even so, it is permitted to raise them from the pit in exchange for payment, due to enmity.

Rabbi Abbahu, later, adds the grim addition that while most non-Jews we simply opt not to save, heretics and informers should in fact be pushed into the pit.

All of this is doubtless troubling to those who value all human life, Jewish and non-Jewish, as sacred. It also might scan as incorrect: Don’t observant Jewish doctors deliver babies all week and serve everyone in the hospital on Shabbat?

This deviation from the ruling of the Gemara is in part thanks to the Meiri, a 13th century Provencal rabbi. He wrote an extensive commentary on the Talmud, though it was almost entirely lost until its rediscovery in the 19th century. On this sugya, the Meiri wrote: “Many are astonished and note that people do not take care about these [various prohibitions] in our time at all; but I’ve explained that the fundamental focus of this sefer and its rules … are about the peoples of earlier times, who were not within the bounds of [ethical] religiosity, and were constantly worshiping other gods, and stars, and talismans, which are the essence of idol worship.”

The Meiri has a radical view: The rules in Tractate Avodah Zarah that are either premised on avoiding association with idolatry (like not trading with non-Jews right before their holidays), or on assumptions of unethical non-Jewish behavior (such as not stabling animals with them due to fear of bestiality, or not letting them deliver Jewish babies), were only applicable to the non-Jews at the time of the mishnah and the Gemara. The non-Jews of the Meiri’s day, on the other hand, are understood as being part of a shared moral and religious universe. This doesn’t erase the distinction between Jew and non-Jew: The Meiri clarifies that prohibitions premised on concerns of intermarriage — such as prohibitions on eating food cooked by non-Jews, as well as their bread and wine — are still applicable even to the non-Jews of his day; he doesn’t believe that  the boundaries between Jew and non-Jew have been erased. But the most starkly xenophobic rules found in Tractate Avodah Zarah are, according to him, applicable only to non-Jews who do not share the same basic ethical assumptions and practices. The Meiri confidently states that the non-Jews of his time do not fall within this category.

Read all of Avodah Zarah 26 on Sefaria.

This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on July 14, 2025. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.