Gittin 60a ~ Queen Helena and Her Gift to the Temple

All or Nothing?

In today's page of Talmud, there is an interesting (and most welcome) digression from the laws of divorce and the ownership of slaves. The Talmud asks whether just a part of the Torah may be committed to writing, or if the text must be produced as a whole. Here's the original question:

בעא מיניה אביי מרבה מהו לכתוב מגילה לתינוק להתלמד?...  א"ל אין כותבין 

Abaye asked Rabbah: "May a scroll containing only a portion of the Torah text be written for a young child to be taught from?" Rabbah answered: "We may not write portions of the Torah." 

The Talmud then questions Rabbaha's ruling: 

איתיביה אף היא עשתה טבלא של זהב שפרשת סוטה כתובה עליה

They asked a question on this: She also made a golden tablet on which the Sotah passage was inscribed.

Someone, some she, had presented to the Temple a copy of a portion of the text of the Torah carved out on a golden tablet. It was the text of the rite of the Sotah, which was then copied from this golden tablet onto a scroll and later dissolved in water. From the story of this golden tablet, the Talmud challenges Rabbah's ruling, because it shows that it is indeed permitted to reproduce only part of the text of the Torah. 

We won't dwell on how this issue is finally resolved. Instead, let's find out more about the woman who made the donation.  Her identity is revealed in a Mishnah in the third chapter of Yoma:

King Monobaz had all the handles of all the vessels used on Yom Kippur made of gold. His mother Helena had a golden candlestick made over the door of the Hechal.  She also had a golden tablet made, on which the portion about the Sotah was inscribed. 

So that's who it was. Queen Helena. 


We first met the Queen when we studied Nazir, of all places, where it turns out she was a Jew-by-choice:

 מעשה בהילני המלכה שהלך בנה למלחמה ואמרה אם יבוא בני מן המלחמה בשלום אהא נזירה שבע שנים ובא בנה מן המלחמה והיתה נזירה שבע שנים ובסוף שבע שנים עלתה לארץ והורוה ב"ה שתהא נזירה עוד שבע שנים אחרות ובסוף שבע שנים נטמאת ונמצאת נזירה עשרים ואחת שנה

A story happened with Queen Helena. Her son went to war and she declared "If my son returns in peace from the war I will be a nezirah for seven years." Her son returned from the war and she was a nezirah for seven years At the end of these seven years she went up to live in the Land of Israel, and Bet Hillel ruled for her that she must be a nezirah for another seven years [because Bet Hillel ruled that the time period of nezirut observed outside of Israel does not count.] At the end of the [second] period of seven years she became impure [which meant she needed to serve the entire period again], and so she was a nezirah for a total of twenty-one years...(Nazir 19b)

In this passage Queen Helena, who died around 50 CE.,  is one of the few people in the Talmud identified as having become a nazarite, and quite possibly the only one who became a nazarite three times over.  But there is a lot more to her story.  Elsewhere in the Talmud (בבא בתרא יא, א) her son is credited with saving Jerusalem from famine (at least according to Rashi there). And in the Mishnah in Yoma (37a), from where the brief quote in today's Daf-Yomi comes from, the Queen dedicated to the Temple both a golden candelabra and a tablet on which the section of the Sotah was written.   


While the Talmud records a number of stories about Queen Helena, the great Jewish historian Josephus provided some additional information about her life, which corroborate some of the stories told about her in the Talmud.

But as to Helena, the king's mother, when she saw that the affairs of Izates's kingdom were in peace, and that her son was a happy man, and admired among all men, and even among foreigners, by the means of God's providence over him, she had a mind to go to the city of Jerusalem, in order to worship at that temple of God which was so very famous among all men, and to offer her thank-offerings there. So she desired her son to give her leave to go there; upon which he gave his consent to what she desired very willingly, and made great preparations for her journey, and gave her a great deal of money, and she went down to the city Jerusalem, her son conducting her on her journey a great way. Now her coming was of very great advantage to the people of Jerusalem; for whereas a famine did oppress them at that time, and many people died for want of what was necessary to procure food withal, Queen Helena sent some of her servants to Alexandria with money to buy a great quantity of corn, and others of them to Cyprus, to bring a cargo of dried figs. And as soon as they were come back, and had brought those provisions, which was done very quickly, she distributed food to those that were in want of it, and left a most excellent memorial behind her of this gift, which she bestowed on our whole nation. And when her son Izates was informed of this famine, he sent great sums of money to the men in Jerusalem...(Josephus, Antiquities, XX, 2.)


In 1964 the (then young) historian Jacob Neusner published a paper in the Journal of Biblical Literature titled The Conversion of Adiaben to Judaism: A New Perspective.  Neusner claimed that the account of Josephus about the conversion of Queen Helena and the Adiabene's ruling family to Judaism "cannot reasonably be rejected,"  and he located Adiabene in ancient Assyria, in what is today called Armenia.  He reminded his readers that the Queen was married to her brother Monobazus (which is apparently what royalty did in that part of the world) and that it was Monobazus who was first converted to Judaism.  But he goes one step further, and asks what political motivation lay behind this conversion.

His answer is this: the Jews of the Near and Middle East in the first century were "a numerous and politically important group" and "in Armenia, as well as in other areas, Jewish dynasts held power, if briefly..."  In addition, "Palestinian Jewry was a powerful and militarily significant group. It was by no means out of the question for Palestine to regain its independence of Rome, perhaps in concert with the petty kings of the Roman orient." By converting to Judaism, the House of Adiabene might position itself as a powerful player should the Roman empire fall. In this way, noted Neusner, Queen Helena and her royal house were repeating a maneuver made half a century earlier by Herod, who, while remaining loyal to Rome, had "tried to win friends in other Roman dependencies, as well as Babylonian Jewry." In fact the Adiabenes went a step further than had Herod, and encouraged the revolution against Rome in 66 CE. They may have done so, suggested Neusner, in order to gain the throne in Jerusalem itself.

 If the Jews had won the war against Rome, who might expect to inherit the Jewish throne? It was not likely that Agrippa II could return to the throne, for he and his family were discredited by their association with Rome and opposition to the war. Some Jews probably expected that the Messiah would rule Judea, but this could not seriously have effected the calculations of the Adiabenians. Indeed, from their viewpoint, they might reasonably hope to come to power. They were, after all, a ruling family; their conversion could not matter to the Palestinian Jews any more than Agrippa I's irregular lineage had prevented him from winning popular support. Their active support of the war, their earlier benefactions to the city and people in time of famine, their royal status, and the support they could muster from across the Euphrates, would have made them the leading, if not the only, candidates for the throne of Jerusalem.


Rehov Helena Hamalka.jpg

Neusner concedes that the conversion of Helene and Izates was not only a political act. Rather, he suggests that is is important to take note of the political consequences of their religious action.  It would seem though, that Queen Helena's family recognized the deeply religious consequences of her decision to embrace Judaism.  Josephus later records that when, having returned to Adiabene, the Queen died, her son "sent her Jerusalem, and gave order that they be buried at the pyramids their mother had erected" (Josephus, Antiquities, XX, 4). This suggests that, whatever else it was, Queen Helena's conversion was also recognized by her family as a religious act; her son recognized her connection to Jerusalem, and arranged for her to be interred there, near what is now the American Colony Hotel. Today, we remember the Queen with a street named after her in downtown Jerusalem. We also remember her as as the convert Queen who became a nazarite, and as the only women in the Talmud who is recorded as having made a donation to the Second Temple.

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