Rabbinic Attitudes towards the Hot Springs

These synagogues and their accompanying inscriptions attest to the presence of Jews in the immediate vicinity of the baths and to their thanksgiving for cures experienced there. However, rabbinic attitudes toward the hot springs were far from straightforward and must be addressed in order to substantiate the claim the Jewish visitors came in search of ritual healing.

One of the more controversial judgments ascribed to R. Judah allowed the residents of Gadara to visit the thermae at Hammat Gader on the Sabbath, but did not permit the people who lived at the settlement surrounding the bath complex itself to go up to the town of Gadara (t. Erub. 4.16; cf. y. ‘Erub. 5.7; b. Erub. 61a). At issue in this ruling was the distance one was allowed to travel on the Sabbath; the Torah indicates that one was to remain in “his place” (Exod 16:29), which the sages of the Mishnah defined as two thousand cubits from one's town (m. ‘Erub. 4.3; 5.7). Later rabbis offered several possible interpretations, including the relative shapes and sizes of the two towns and the behavior of their inhabitants, for the decision attributed to R.

I suggest that these later attempts to explain the ruling preserved under R. Judah's name did not take into account the sacred nature of Hammat Gader. If the activities that took place at the hot spring were considered to be ritual in nature, then it is plausible that the inhabitants of Gadara would have been permitted to exceed the normal travel restrictions on the Sabbath to participate in them. In contrast, no such ritual activity would have necessitated travel from Hammat Gader to Gadara. The objections of later sages to the ruling were not strictly about bathing at Hammat Gader on the Sabbath, but rather about traveling to get there. This presupposes that bathing at the hot springs on the Sabbath was sanctioned in the first place. The Bavli reveals that earlier rabbis had once tried to rescind permission for Jews to use the thermal-mineral baths on the Sabbath, since it had been taken as license to bathe in artificially heated water as well, a clear violation of the Sabbath (b. Sabb. 39b-40a). However, the prohibition could not be maintained and the rabbis relented (b. Sabb. 40a). Thus despite the multicultural and often promiscuous atmosphere that pervaded the thermae, visits were allowed, even on the Sabbath.^[350] A later decision attributed to R. Nahman b. Isaac took up the issue of bathing on the Sabbath in natural bodies of water and determined that quick immersion was permitted, but that the bather was not allowed to linger in the water (b. Sabb. 109a-b). The former was allowed because it was done to produce a state of ritual purity, while the latter was likely understood to be a form of leisure. Hot springs were not normally used for purification, which means that these two notable exceptions to the restrictions that governed bathing on the Sabbath—purification and visiting the thermae—must be linked in some other way.^[351] The best explanation can perhaps be found in their shared ritual nature.

In addition to bathing, most medical remedies were strictly limited on the Sabbath. Only in a life-threatening situation could this principle be contravened. To save a life, one could administer any necessary treatment, even if doing so would ordinarily violate Sabbath restrictions (t. Sabb. 9.22, 15.11-17). However, rabbinic opinions were rarely unanimous, and this ruling was no different, as some sages professed unease with medical care in even these most critical cases. In fact, several centuries earlier, the Damascus Document preserved a particularly strict interpretation of the Sabbath rule, authorizing only life-saving measures that could be performed using implements that were ordinarily carried on the Sabbath (CD 11:16-17).^[352] The treatment of non-life-threatening conditions, on the other hand, was unmistakably restricted; broken bones could not be set and cold water could not be applied to reduce swelling (m. Sabb. 22:6). Numerous examples confirm that for noncritical ailments, the issue was not simply one of avoiding work that was banned on the Sabbath. The prohibition against medical remedies applied equally to activities that belonged to the thirty-nine categories of forbidden work (m. Sabb. 7:2), as to those that did not, such as the ingestion or topical application of herbs (m. Sabb. 14.3-4, 22.6; t. Sabb. 12.8-13).^[353] In general, if the sole purpose of an action was to treat a minor illness or to alleviate pain, it was not permitted on the Sabbath. The attention that rabbinic literature gives to a wide variety of medical remedies in formulating this principle suggests that proper observance of the day of rest was of greater importance than relief from minor maladies.

In light of these sweeping prohibitions against medical treatments on the Sabbath, the rabbis' permission to visit the hot springs is exceptional. Common complaints such as digestive problems and skin conditions attributed in literary sources to visitors at the hot springs were not life-threatening. As a result, one would expect the rabbis to have forbidden their treatment on the Sabbath. Since both medical treatments and leisurely bathing were curtailed and could not be the purported justification for visiting the hot springs, one plausible explanation remains. On a day set aside for rest and ritual activities, Jewish visitors to the hot springs must have come in search of a miraculous cure, one that was assigned completely to God with no human agent who was subject to Sabbath restrictions. A parallel for this type of divine healing on the Sabbath can be found in permission to whisper over snakes, scorpions, and body parts (t. Sabb. 7.23; y. Sabb. 14.3), and to wear certain amulets on the Sabbath (m. Sabb. 6.2; t. Sabb. 4.9; b. Sabb. 61b-62a). Like visits to the hot springs, apotropaic whispering and the use of amulets relied solely on the divine intervention of God, and therefore they were not prohibited on the Sabbath.