More than just watching where you step TB Berachot 25

Back in the Talmudic times people obviously didn’t have bathrooms like we have today with toilets and flushes with running water to remove our bodily wastes. They went outside sometimes to a latrine, but more often they just went behind a bush or a tree. The closest experience I had to this was when I was in my junior year abroad in Israel. I went on a weeklong tour of the Sinai desert. Of course, there were no bathrooms in most places we hiked or camped; consequently, we went behind a rock or a tree to relieve ourselves. The Gemara TB Berachot 25 discusses under what circumstances you’re allowed to say the Shema in the vicinity of excrement and of urine.

The Gemara notes that it was taught in a baraita in accordance with the opinion of Rav Ḥisda: A person may not recite Shema opposite human excrement, dog excrement, pig excrement, chicken excrement, a foul-smelling dung-heap or anything repulsive. However, if the filth were in a place ten handbreadths above or ten handbreadths below him, he may sit alongside it and recite Shema, as a height disparity of ten handbreadths renders it a separate domain. And if the filth were not ten handbreadths above or below him, he must distance himself until it remains beyond his range of vision. And the same is true of prayer. However, from a foul odor with a visible source, he distances himself four cubits from the place that the odor ceased and recites Shema.

Rava said: The halakha is not in accordance with this baraita in all of these rulings, but rather in accordance with that which was taught in another baraita: One may neither recite Shema opposite human excrement under all circumstances, nor opposite pig excrement, nor opposite dog excrement into which skins had been placed for tanning, but other materials do not defile the venue of prayer. (Sefaria.com translation)

You might think that these laws are not so applicable today. Maybe they are and maybe they aren’t, but they were certainly applicable when I was in Israel that same year back in 1972. One of my dearest friends and classmates, David Goldstein, came from New York during his winter break to visit us in Israel. He and I traveled down to Eilat. To save money we slept underneath some kind of concrete covering near the very beginning of the beach. To our dismay, we discovered in the daylight animal excrement not too far where we laid down our sleeping bags. Needless to say, we neither davened the Shema nor the Amidah there, but moved way more than 4 amot (6 feet) away!