Commentary for Avodah Zarah 44:11

I think we hear here a rabbinic ontological understanding of non-Jews, one that has echoes in many cultures trying to delineate and separate themselves from whomever they define as “the other.” Non-Jews are irreparably full of lust. This terrible pollution is their genetic heritage from the time of Eve, and was put into her by the snake [yes, I think this is a sexual allusion.] Thus all non-Jews are full of incontrollable lust. I should note that I am in the middle of reading a book by Stephen Greenblatt called “The Rise and Fall of Adam and Eve.” Christians throughout the medieval period identified the Jews with Eve, who was fallen, whereas the Christians were identified with Mary, mother of god, redeemed from original sin through Christ . Thus we see both religions using the figure of Eve in a misogynistic means of pointing out the pollution of the other—the Jews identify Eve with the non-Jews, and the Christians identify her with the Jews.

This seems to be some sort of acknowledgment that Jews and non-Jews all come from the same essential genes—from Eve. But the Sinai revelation, accepted only by the Jews, was a redeeming moment for the Jews and ended “their pollution.” In this context R. Yohanan’s means that Jews, having accepted the Torah at Sinai, no longer have the same lustful desires (here to have sex with animals) that non-Jews do. Of course there is no way of empirically testing such a statement. But it is nevertheless an interesting conception of Torah—Torah changes the essential inner being of a person. It is not just an overlay of laws meant to keep one in line. Rather, by accepting it, Jews changed the core of their identity and no longer have the same desires as do others.