T.3:3
V. An Israelite woman does not provide wet nursing for the child of
a Gentile woman (úéøáð),
W. because she nurtures someone for idolatry,
X. but a Gentile woman provides wet nursing for the child of an
Israelite woman in her [the Israelite’s] domain.
Y. An Israelite woman does not perform midwifery for a Gentile
woman,
Z. because she delivers someone for idolatry,
AA. And a Gentile woman does not perform midwifery for an Israelite
woman,
BB. because they [Gentiles] are suspect with respect to homicide
(úåùôðä ìò íéøåùç),
CC. the words of Rabbi Meir.
DD. And the sages say,
EE. a Gentile woman does perform midwifery for an Israelite woman,
FF. when others are standing by her.
Obviously, for both the Toseftaand the Mishnah,Samaritans are not
Israelites. The Tosefta,like the Mishnah,assumes that an Israelite is not to
participate in the Samaritan cult, among other restrictions. Tosefta,never-
theless, radically distinguishes Gentiles (that is, idolaters) from Samaritans
with respect to other spheres. More to the point, the means by which these
two non-Israelite groups are distinguished from one another is through
different definitions, in sphere after sphere, as to whether co-participation
with each is permitted or forbidden.
In my treatment of these passages, I have not given primacy to either
theMishnah’s or the Tosefta’s stated reasons for a particular ruling, but have
rather advocated viewing individual rulings within a larger pattern of map-
ping that has its own implicit logic or rationality, apart from, and more
determinative than, explicit reasons offered at any one juncture in the
texts. This procedure stems from my own and others’ research into the
nature of the Mishnahand the Tosefta,which sees these documents’ preoc-
cupation with systems and systemic mapping as the fundamental and gen-
erative foundation of their content. I tend to view the proffering of
individual reasons, including proof-texts, as secondary (both logically and
generatively), even if they are not necessarily secondary accretions in lit-
erary terms.
Tosefta Avodah Zarah3:1–3 thus permits us to see the variety and rich-
ness of the socially mapped landscape inhabited by oneself and a variety of
others. This complexity and richness, in turn, suggests another concep-
tual-theoretical corollary, which was already prefigured at the outset of
My Rival, My Fellow 101