Body and Soul: Breastfeeding in the Torah

The act of breastfeeding is woven through the Torah, exploring the fundamental link that connects generations of mothers and children from ancient times all the way to our current day.  From Sarah to Yitzchak, Yocheved and Moshe, and Chana and Shmuel, we find the tales of women sustaining their children through their bodies. We can also expand our understanding of nursing from the personal to the spiritual through the commentaries of our Sages, relating our fundamental connection to Hashem. Through exploration of the texts, we can discover greater spiritual truths about the act of nursing. 

Despite being the first Jewish people, we know little about what Avraham and Sarah did or did not do in their private life, at least not in the pshat. But we know that Sarah nursed Yitzchak for 24 months, setting the halachic standard for what typifies a normal period for nursing. The Torah even specifically mentions that after two years, Yitzchak was weaned and Avraham “held a great feast” on that day¹. The Bava Metzia explores this further–Avraham specifically had a ceremony to prove to the nay-saying world that Yitzchak was truly their son. While the great men and women of the other nations arrived at this feast, they beheld Sarah who was able to nurse the children of these noble families, proving once and for all that she had borne Yitzchak of her flesh². The Jewish act of nursing is further explored through the stories of Moshe and Shmuel. Moshe, after being recovered from the Nile river, refused to nurse from the gentile wet nurses–thus, Miriam offered to “call a wet nurse from the Hebrew women” despite the halachic legality of nursing from a non-Jewish woman³. But as Shemot Rabbah explains, it was more proper for the mouthpiece of Hashem to nurse from a Jewish sort⁴. 

Similarly, Chana prays “from the heart” which the Gemara interprets as “on her heart: “Rabbi Elazar said in the name of Rabbi Yosei ben Zimra: Hannah spoke to God concerning matters of her heart. She said before Him: Master of the Universe, of all the organs You created in a woman, You have not created one in vain. Every organ fulfills its purpose; eyes to see, ears to hear, a nose to smell, a mouth to speak, hands with which to perform labor, feet with which to walk, breasts with which to nurse. If so, these breasts that You placed upon my heart, to what purpose did You place them? Was it not in order to nurse with them? Grant me a son and I will nurse with them⁵.” On the merit of this prayer, Chana was redeemed and bore a son. She took her duty to nurse him so seriously that she refused to travel to the Beit Hamikdash with her beloved husband until he was fully weaned at 2 years old. After both Moshe and Shmuel reached 24 months, they rarely saw their mothers– Moshe went to the house of Paroh and Shmuel went to live in the Mishkan. But both women merited to nurse their children themselves, earning them and their sons the merit of all their subsequent deeds and mitzvot. Sarah, Yocheved, and Chana each demonstrated that nursing in and of itself is a worthwhile pursuit. 

Just as a baby tastes different flavors from the breast, since the taste of the milk changes somewhat depending on what foods his mother eats, so too with the manna, every time that the Jewish people ate the manna, they found in it many different flavors, based on their preferences.” The correlation between Hashem providing mann and the nursing mother feeding her baby is a natural one, a human embodiment of Hashem’s chesed.

But why? Our Sages recognize the importance of nursing not only as a physical act but also as a spiritual one. The Gemara discusses how the mann is described as “the taste of a cake [shad]” baked with oil⁶. “Rabbi Abbahu said: Shad means breast. Just as a baby tastes different flavors from the breast, since the taste of the milk changes somewhat depending on what foods his mother eats, so too with the manna, every time that the Jewish people ate the manna, they found in it many different flavors, based on their preferences.”⁷ The correlation between Hashem providing mann and the nursing mother feeding her baby is a natural one, a human embodiment of Hashem’s chesed. She becomes an extension of her Creator, nurturing life both in her body and with her body. And her nursing becomes the foundation for a lifetime of Torah, as the Gemara asks: “Who is zocheh to the butter of Torah? He who brings out from himself the milk that he nursed from his mother as a baby.”⁸ 

Rebbetzin C.N Schrieber further explores the connection between Torah and nursing in Much More Than Milk: “[He] who uses his very deepest and inner strength to learn Torah […] The milk that he suckled becomes refined and processed becomes butter, the very best of milk. The milk with which a woman nurses her baby becomes the very essence of his bones.”⁹ Two years, she argues, is the ideal amount of time to nurse as laid out in the Torah. Schreiber brings down a kabbalah that the child receives more parts of their neshama through this extended nursing period. First, the child receives energy from the lower parts of his mother during his gestation. The following twenty-four months after birth are “actually a continuation of the pregnancy because the child is still unfinished, like a fruit that is still unripe and connected to the tree.”¹⁰ This is the period when the child draws energy from the upper parts of their mother’s body, their arms and breasts, and thus receive additional neshama energy that they wouldn’t otherwise. The mother’s sacrifice of her time and bodily autonomy forges an easier path for the child to connect to their Creator, creating tracks for their descendants to follow. 

Just as nursing was a major avodah for our imahot  and ancestors, so too it remains for Jewish women today. Nursing connects us both to our Creator and to each other, a chesed that extends from the spiritual to the physical. It is no wonder that King Shlomo describes the Torah itself as milk in Shir HaShirim, as it is what sustains us and connects us to our Source. 

1. Genesis 21:8 ↩︎
2. Bava Metzia 87a:12 ↩︎
3. Exodus 2:7 ↩︎
4. Shemot Rabbah 1:25 ↩︎
5. Berakhot 31b:23 ↩︎
6. Numbers 11:8 ↩︎
7. Yoma 75a:20 ↩︎
8. Brachos 63b ↩︎
9. C.N Schreiber, Much More than Milk, 38 ↩︎
10. Much More Than Milk, 45 ↩︎