Study Avodah Zarah folio 44B with parallel Hebrew-English text, traditional commentary, and modern study tools. Free access to Babylonian Talmud online.
Mishnah: A wise non-Jew, Proclus ben Plospus, once asked a question of Rabban Gamliel in the city of Akko when he was bathing in the bathhouse of the Greek god Aphrodite. Proclus said to him: It is written in your Torah: “And nothing of the proscribed items shall cleave to your hand” (Deuteronom
Rabban Gamliel said to him: One may not answer questions related to Torah in the bathhouse. And when he left the bathhouse, Rabban Gamliel gave him several answers. He said to him: I did not come into its domain; it came into my domain. The bathhouse existed before the statue dedicated to Aphrodite
Rabban Gamliel continued: Alternatively, there is another answer: Even if people would give you a lot of money, you would not enter before your object of idol worship naked, or as one who experienced a seminal emission who comes to the bathhouse to purify himself, nor would you urinate before it. T
Talmud: The Mishnah relates that Rabban Gamliel first told Proclus that he cannot answer a question related to Torah in a bathhouse. The Talmud asks: And how could he have acted in this manner? How could Rabban Gamliel have stated even this halakha in the bathhouse? But doesn’t Rabba bar bar Ḥana s
And if you would say that Rabban Gamliel stated this ruling to him in a secular language, and therefore it was permitted for him to do so, this would not be a satisfactory answer; but doesn’t Abaye say that it is permitted to say secular statements in a bathhouse or latrine in the sacred tongue, H