ABSTRACT
How many sacrifices shall a poor woman bring after childbirth? This text (and its discussion in the Babylonian Talmud Baba Batra 166a–b) address the overpricing of birds in connection with the commandment to offer a sacrifice for purification after childbirth or genital impurities. These texts do not provide a clear ruling on the matter but rather “make an exception” from the biblical norm on account of “poverty”: a woman who is extremely poor and thus unable to fulfill the letter of biblical ruling of offering one or more bird offering (Lev 18:6) may be exempted from enforcing a rabbinic decision. Notably, the rabbinic decision is ascribed to a first-century rabbi from the Land of Israel: Rabban Shimeon ben Gamaliel—mentioned also in the New Testament as the former Jewish Law teacher of Paul (Acts 22:3)—who rules in opposition to most of the Sages. The procedure by which intervention in the market is achieved is left unspecified. The ruling appears to be driven more by exegesis than by a desire to make a social or economic impact, although the source comments explicitly on the impact such a ruling would make.
