The Miracle of the Breast-Growing Man

The Talmud Shabbat discusses a story of a man whose wife dies, leaving behind a newborn baby. He is so poor he cannot afford a wetnurse to nurse his child. Lo, a miracle happens and he grows breasts! Now he can feed his baby.

Shabbat 53b:

מעשה באחד שמתה אשתו והניחה בן לינק, ולא היה לו שכר מניקה ליתן, ונעשה לו נס ונפתחו לו דדין כשני דדי אשה והניק את בנו. אמר רב יוסף: בא וראה כמה גדול אדם זה, שנעשה לו נס כזה! אמר לו אביי: אדרבה, כמה גרוע אדם זה שנשתנו לו סדרי בראשית

This launches an amazingly interesting discussion in the gemara over whether it marks the greatness of someone that God needs to step in in a revealed manner to alleviate their problem, or whether it means that he is not so great that the problem had to be there to begin with, and wasn't dealt with in a natural way.

By the way, we know that stress is actually a cause of male lactation. That this poor person started lactating seems not to be miraculous at all, if he was starving and dealing with the trauma of losing his wife and needing to feed his baby. Unless it fits into a Maimonidean approach to miracles where its the timing that is miraculous - as in, it seems miraculous, but doesn't actually break from nature.

Indeed, Maharam Horwitz and others ask the question how this man could grow breasts if the verse in Ecclesiastes says that "there is nothing new under the heavens." The answer they give generally is that men have breasts. The ability to lactate is not a regular occurrence, however, and therein lies the miracle.

Nevertheless, certainly in the time of the Talmud they would have thought this story a miraculous occurrence, wherein Abaye claims that open miracles are bad for a person, "שנשתנו לו סדרי בראשית"

I posed this question on Facebook about 3 years ago.

Adam Friedmann: Interesting conclusion to the gemarah. I'm trying to figure out exactly what the argument is. I've narrowed it down to two possibilities. 

1) Rav Yosef holds that this was not a case of שינוי סדר בראשית. If so, everyone agrees that where there is a change of סדר בראשית the event is not miraculous, or at least a miracle of a lesser quality which is what Abayey means. This person must not have been such a great individual since the miracle done for him required a change in the natural order. If he had been truly great then the miracle would have appeared from within the natural order. This approach is interesting but also means that this is essentially a מחלוקת במציאות. 

Or 2) everyone agrees that this event was not part of the natural order but Rav Yosef still regards such a thing as a proper miracle while Abaye does not since it could have been done without changing the natural order. In this case the argument would be about the nature of miracle which is much more satisfying in terms of "lomdus". Either way Abaye fits with the Rambam's definition. The greatness of a miracle is not the magnitude of change that it causes in the natural order אדרבה! The more it changes the order the less we think of it. In the second version however Rav Yosef would be holding that a miracle which changes the natural order makes it better. Another thing to consider is (please don't shoot me) that they likely did not know that any man could produce milk given the proper biological stimulus. Which raises the question of how much this is a change in natural order after all. Even though we now know that this is biologically possible it certainly is not the דרך הטבע. Thats all I've been able to think of thus far. Let me know if you have any thoughts.

Aryeh: A possibility I'm thinking of that they're simply using this story they heard as a jump-off point to argue about metaphysical concepts about schar and onesh. They're arguing about loss of merit after an open miracle happens. Rav Yosef says "He's awesome, and stays awesome even after an open miracle. You don't lose "merit" for miracles happening for you." Abaye says, "What do you mean? He might have been awesome before, but he loses merit in Olam Haba if his reward takes place here." It's a possibility, which I think I see in the Meharsha.

Rashi says on Abaye's retort: "ולא זכה ליפתח לו שערי שכר" This would seem to indicate possibility number two, that Abaye thinks a better miracle would have been to just give him a parnassa instead of making him breastfeed his child. This could be taken many ways. 1) The obvious one is that a hidden miracle is better than an open miracle. This is probably like the Ran, who says "שחפץ השי"ת לקיים מנהגו של עולם בכל מה דאפשר" If you use my pshat above, its because you lose merit for an open miracle that you wouldn't for a hidden one. 2) Another option is that Abaye sees this miracle as degrading to a man, that he was not created (seder bereishit) to breastfeed a child. 3) Another option is that it is better to teach a man to fish that he can eat every day than to give him a fish that he can eat once. In this context, it might have solved his wet nurse problem, that now he doesn't need one, but he's still dirt-poor. Abaye is saying, sure, he's great, but he still can't feed himself.

Interestingly, the Mesoras Hashas brings down the תוס' ישנים that says:ובבראשית רבה על פסוק "ויהי אומן את הדסה" שנפתחו למרדכי שני דדים כדדי אשה ליכא למיפרך הכי, דהכי קאמר נשתנו דלא ה"ל שכר מניקה, ומרדכי ה"ל שכר אך לא היה מוצא מניקה". Tosafot Yeshenim quotes Bereshit Rabbah (Genesis Rabbah 30:8) on the verse (Esther 2:7) "He brought up Hadassah" that Mordechai grew breasts - but surely he was a good person! So how can Abaye say that such a person is bad? Rather Mordechai had the funds but simply couldn't find a wetnurse anywhere, so he was forced to grow breasts to feed her. Whereas this man didn't have the funds, and instead of getting funds, grew breasts instead.

That midrash is actually very interesting, Genesis Rabbah 30:8 and also Esther Rabbah:

מרדכי - זן ופירנס. אמר רבי יודן פעם אחת חזר על כל המניקות ולא מצא לאסתר לאלתר מניקה והיה מניקה הוא. רבי ברכיה ורבי אבהו בשם רבי אליעזר בא לו חלב והיה מניקה כד דרש ר' אבהו בציבורא גחוך ציבורא לקליה אמר להון ולא מתניתא היא רבי שמעון בן אלעזר אומר חלב הזכר טהור:

Basically, Mordechai couldn't find a wetnurse. So he nursed Esther himself. Several rabbis had this tradition, says the Medrash. One time Rabbi Abahu said it and the congregation laughed at him! Ostensibly they can't believe in such a weird miracle occurring, even to a biblical character (goes to show how much we allow in derashas today). He responds, we have a mishnah (Machshirin 6:7) that talks about male milk as not a liquid that allows the imparting of tumah! So it can happen, its not too weird. So says Rabbi Abahu.

Chashukei Chemed Bechoros 41a writes an interesting comment that would solve Tosafot Yeshenim's question. He states that there are many rabbis in Chazal who had miracles happen to them, and we wouldn't claim them as bad, like Abaye does with this guy. Rather, it must be that since he remains just an "echad", instead of a "chassid echad" or other moniker of having deserved the miracle, that he is considered bad from Abaye's perspective:
וקשה באמת הלא מצינו לחז"ל מעשי נסים הרבה ולא אמרו עליהם "כמה גרוע" חלילה, אבל התירוץ הוא כי על האיש שנודע לקדוש, לא יפלא שיעשה לו הקב"ה נס אף למעלה מהטבע, אבל במאמר הנ"ל לא נאמר "מעשה בחסיד אחד" כי אם מעשה "באחד", לכן שפיר אמר אביי "כמה גרוע",

It is interesting that there is another part of the machloket, after Rav Yosef and Abaye:
אמר רב יהודה בא וראה כמה קשים מזונותיו של אדם שנשתנו עליו סדרי בראשית אמר רב נחמן תדע דמתרחיש ניסא ולא אברו מזוני:

The last opinion, Rav Nachman, uses the words "mitrachesh nisa", miracles occuring, which reminds me of the story on Megilla 7b about Rabbi Zeira's response to Rabbah, where he says nisim are not mitcharesh all the time:
אמר רבא מיחייב איניש לבסומי בפוריא עד דלא ידע בין ארור המן לברוך מרדכי רבה ורבי זירא עבדו סעודת פורים בהדי הדדי איבסום קם רבה שחטיה לרבי זירא למחר בעי רחמי ואחייה לשנה אמר ליה ניתי מר ונעביד סעודת פורים בהדי הדדי אמר ליה לא בכל שעתא ושעתא מתרחיש ניסא

I wonder if there is a connection.

And this sounds like a very good reading of Rashi:
לדעת בעל ה"ישועות יעקב" (או"ח סימן ריח), אין כאן בעצם מחלוקת בין רב יוסף לבין אביי. שניהם מודים שמי שנעשה לו נס כזה, אדם גדול הוא. אביי שאמר כמה גרוע אדם זה, נתכוון לגריעות מזכויותיו. הדבר גם מדוייק מלשון הגמרא שנקטה: "כמה גרוע" מלשון גרעון (ולא נקטה "כמה פחות" וכדומה).

Basically, the Yeshuot Yaakov claims that Rav Yosef and Abaye aren't arguing that this person is good or bad. Rather, whether such a miracle detracts from one's merits. He argues that's why Abaye uses the word "garua", as in a detraction.