Where is Tevel?

You’ll have to excuse my ignorance, where does this story come from? I know the other story with Shlomo Hamelech and Ashmedai is from Gittin, but where’s this one from?

“am I right?”

No

If it is dominant then you only need one bad copy. Father has a bad copy and good copy. Mother has2 good copies. 1/2 of possible offspring will have the bad copy from father and good from mother so they have the condition. Half will have good from both and wont have condition

It could be recessive and she is a carrier so one of their kids inherited a 2-headed gene from each parent

It could be X-linked so father has it and his only son has it (genders of offspring arent noted)
Ditto if it is Y linked (not common, but hey neither is having 2 heads)

Of course spontaneous mutations are possible too. If it is recessive and already have a bad copy from father may have spontaneously mutated the second copy

Just wondering CS, the only thing about this story that you wondered about was wear was Tevel? The rest you were ok with?

CA- if two-headedness is a dominant gene, then the “guy from Tevel” could have had 1 gene for two-headedness, and 1 for one-headedness. Since he only gives one copy to each kid, each kid has a 50% chance of inheriting the dominant gene and being two-headed. If he had a large number of kids, the two headed variety would be close to 50%. But in a regular size family, it could very well be that only 1 got the gene- just like you sometimes see a family of all/mostly boys or all/mostly girls, even though it should be 50/50. Of course, this might not be a 1-gene trait, or there may be incomplete penetrance, so the laws of inheritance would be more complicated.

“does that apply to Siamese twins too, if one feels pain the other one does too”

short answer it depends

Longer answer pain is perceived/recieved by nocioreceptors in the skin and travels to spinal cord via nerves then to the brain where it is “felt” ie sensed

So if there is one brain then certainly any pain received by either bod will be felt by the one brain.

If there are two brains it depends on where the nerves travel. Generally bellow the level of where they are conjoined pain will be sensed by both. though even there rt sided pain may be percieved by one brain and left by the other.

Pain above the level of where they are conjoined like hot water on one head of a two headed set. would generally not be sensed by the other head

for example wit hone of the most famous such sets Abby and Brittany Hensel each has touch on one side (I beleive it is the ipsilateral ie same) side

The source is a Midrash brought in the Eisenstein Oitzer Midrashim. Tosfos in Menachos brings this story as well.
http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=2585&st=&pgnum=261
The story starts halfway down the left column

My problem with the “story” is that it is not meant to be a story. Medrashim are not meant to be read over like some fantasy fairy tale that are entertaining. Medrashim like the one described above are hard to understand based on our rational way of life as it currently exists. To me, the concept of a sheid pulling out a 2-headed person from some nether world calls out “explain me”. I wonder- is it meant to be literal? If not, what does it symbolize? If it is literal, why was it important for chazal to pass on this event to future generations- What is it supposed to be teaching us? What do the meforshim say on it?
I would love to hear more on this, not just the details of the “story”.

To clarify: I didn’t meant to say it was a problem in of itself, i said it is a problem when it is treated as a story devoid of its real meaning. My problem isn’t in believing in the concept of a golem or techiyas hameisim or a sheid, I just want to know and understand what value stories about these very esoteric concepts brings to me. I never understood how people could produce comic strips on the Golem of Prague or Shlomo Hamelech and Ashmadia, which were around when I was younger.
When I learned about the 10 makkos/splitting of the sea, and I’m not referring to kindergarten, I learned about how these events were critical for the formation of klal yisroel, and learned some of the wealth of meforshim on these topics. These are not mere stories. we are not meant to just open a chumash and read the text and say, oh that was a nice story. Kal V’chomer with medrash.

CS, can you explain what you mean by practical halacha coming to play? Are you referring to the fact that they brought a shaila to Shlomo about the inheritance? I don’t follow the logic of why it must mean that it took place literally. Couldn’t that also be part of the mashal? Are we paskening halacha based on this medrash?

As to the oddity of the story, first of all, this is not in Gemara or even Medrash Rabbah. So, if you have a hard time with it ignore it. There are other weird stuff about Shlomo Hamelech out there which, given the obsession of other nations about Shlomo Hamelech, I assume there are stories that originate from without.

This is what happened with the famous story of the two brothers trying to lighten the load of the other in the middle of the night, on the spot of the future Bayt al-Maqdis. It appears to be an Arabic story that made its way in a couple of centuries ago.

However, being that Tosafos mentions it, I’ll regard it as legitimate.

Now, a Sheid is not completely a physical being. They drive physical things and are basically related to the material world, but they aren’t actually composed of matter. Perhaps it can be said that just like our soul is manifest in a body, their personality is manifest in motion, changes, and action. Therefore, the whole story about the capture of Ashmedai should be read in this light. Shlomo Hamelech knew how to capture this non-physical being to be able to utilize it’s resources. To the outside observer, there was nothing to see other than amazing success.

In this story too, this strange guy showed up from nowhere, or perhaps he was born to a local family this way (which would explain the marrying and application of Jewish law) and the Medrash is informing us that this was Ashmedai’s doing. He pulled up this form of human from other worlds and applied it here.

Chabadshlucha,

Anyway I’m curious where is Tevel today? Any sources address this?

According to Google Maps, it’s in southwestern Hungary, in Tolna County.

Ubiquitin, yes the Rambam says that a king has the right to create laws on top of the Torah, for the sake of society. And he may create his own punishments as well. In fact, even Beis Din can punish more severely than what is prescribed in the Torah if they see that the times call for it.

However, deciding between two people who is the rightful owner is different.

http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=42422&st=&pgnum=42
See the last three lines or so

This also makes sense with the midrash, which does not say mefurash that they live in the centre of the earth