[with respect to] the use of the
root זמה in its literal as well as its applied meanings in the answer given
by R. Yoḥanan to the question addressed by his disciple R. ḥiyya b. Abba to another disciple R.
Assi, and answered by the master after the unsatisfactory reply of R. Assi, ‘Why
are the Gentiles polluted? Because they eat abominable and creeping animals; R.
Yoḥanan said, Because they stood not at Mountain Sinai; for when the serpent
had carnal intercourse with Eve, it threw into her filth; this was removed from
the Israelites, when they stood at Mount Sinai’. As the acceptance of the revelation
by the Israelites purged away from Israel the filth common to all humanity, the
impurity could not have been physical in the ordinary sense, so that the
question of the teachers and their answers dealt with the religious and moral
uncleanness of the Gentiles. And R. Assi’s account of it by their eating of
creeping and other animals did not view levitical impurity conveyed by unclean
food, but, in accordance with Lev. 11, 43.44; 20, 25, 26, a defilement of the
soul, which is the reverse of holiness, unholiness. Similarly, R. Yoḥanan’s explanation
by the semen of the serpent did not think of a merely physical contamination transmitted
by Eve to her children and descendants, but of the low natural character of the
beast with its manifestations in immorality, violence and Canaanite enormities.
That the filth meant sin may also be inferred from the statement of R. Neḥemiah,
of the middle of the second century, that the revelation freed the Israelites
from the angel of death. So also his colleague R. Yosé expressed it. The
Israelites stood at Mount Sinai in order to become free from the power of the
angel of death, but by corrupting their actions (by the golden calf) they lost
that privilege, Psalm 82, 6, 7; or at R. Eliezar, the son of R. Yosé the
Galilean said, If the angel of death should complain to God that he was created
for no use, God will answer him that he has power over all the nations except
Israel, to whom He granted freedom from death, Psalm 82, 6, 7. (Adolf Būchler, Studies
in Sin and Atonement in the Rabbinic Literature of the First Century [Library
of Biblical Studies; New York: Ktav Publishing House, Inc., 1967], 317-18)
