Why do I enjoy studying hilchot niddah* as much as I do?
This can’t be healthy.
*Laws pertaining to menstruants (and their historical development).
Why do I enjoy studying hilchot niddah* as much as I do?
This can’t be healthy.
*Laws pertaining to menstruants (and their historical development).
that is wierd. i wouldnt really know though, never looked into it.
Even just all the stuff about how we moved from the Biblical understanding of niddah (one week for bleeding, no mikveh) to what we have in most halakha today (time of bleeding, one week of “white” days, mikveh, which reflects much more the Biblical understanding of zavah, irregular emisson) can keep me entertained for days.
Not even to get into the whole new thing I’m all on about, about why the blood associated with viriginity loss, though not having the tumah status of niddah, is constructed as though it does.
Fun fun fun!
BS”D
Hey Danya, follow this link on T”H. There’s an article called something like “What is all this niddah vs zavah stuff, anyway?” which I think you’ll really get your teeth into.
Ooh, fun. Thanks for this. The article itself seems to be full of readings of the texts that aren’t the same readings that I’d give the texts (The whole “banot yisrael took it upon themselves” business in the gemara is a) more complicated than it seems at first blush and b) there are some other explanations given for how this all happened on that very same ammud,) but is fun nonetheless, and I’m sure I’ll go back to the site every now and again just to read.
YOu know about yoatzot.org, right?
BS”D
Yeah, I’m all over this subject too, Danya. Even before I was married. Also fascinated by tuma’ah in general & its generally magical behaviour ;+>
I am a fan of yoatzot (anything girl-empowering, actually) & have a link to them on my site. Kayama as well.
BTW, I’ve been obssessing about tzitzit ever since I read your article on your tank top talit qatan for women. I’ve even been learning about Karaite tekhelet!
Thanks for the inspiration 🙂
well you are one right ?
oy… stuff like yoatzot.org is “girl-empowering” only in the context of halachic tradition, which is kinda like saying Colin Powell is a radical left-winger (which he was, in the context of the Bush administration).
i understand the desire to keep alive our ancestors’ traditions, to be the keeper of the old ways, but from a feminist perspective, it’s hard not to see laws which identify mestraution as dirty and unclean as anti-woman. even if they are intellectually fascinating… no shame in being a halacha nerd, especially if you’re gonna be a rabbi.
if women choose to take that time to separate themselves or change their hygiene or sexual habits, fine, but being told to do so (and exactly how to do so) by several thousands of years’ worth of men is another matter. I don’t really see these rules as something which can be recontextualized and reclaimed as a “girl-empowering” thing.
Jordan,
It’s a little – actually a lot- more complicated than “dirty” and “unclean.” Actually, the best translation of tumah is not either dirty or unclean, it’s something more like: “that which transmits secularness.”
Yes, that’s pretty weird, but think about it. It can’t be dirty or impure, because:
a. tumah is caused by a whole host of things other than menstruation, including passing near a corpse (not just touching it).
b. tumah occurs in non-human, and even non-animate objects;
c. some of the things that cause tumah are mitzvot – think about it: caring for the dead, preparation of the red heifer for purifying the impure, not to mention that seminal emission has the very same effect as menstruation – all men nowadays who have given up going to mikveh after an emission are completely tamei all the time – if the Temple were rebuilt, they would not be permitted inside.
Secondly, the laws of taharah aren’t “to keep alive our ancestors’ traditions, to be the keeper of the old ways” – they’re laws, that’s what halacha is.They’re about relationships between the human and the divine. We have to do them whether we like them or not. If we start then calling them anti-woman, the implication is that God is anti-women. Not, IMO, a very good way to foster one’s Judaism or one’s relationship with God.
A better way to handle it is to try to find a postiive meaning in what we do. Of course there’s room for reinterpretation of what we thought were the correct ways of doing things, but in general it’s a bad idea to go around changing interpretation outside of a pressing need and obvious misunderstanding of our ancestors about what GOd desired us to do.
WHen we’re dealing with homosexuality and the treatment of homosexuals, there’s clearly a pressing need for re-evaluation and the necessity to inquire of God and tradition if there’s another way of doing things. In the case of going to the mikveh, there’s no such clarity. OK, I’ll admit, I don’t get into going to the mikveh. Lots of women find great meaning and depth in it; I find it to be a pain in the neck. But anti-woman? Hardly. At most an mild inconvenience.
Indeed, how could it be about cleanliness, when 1. One waits FAR after bleeding to immerse, and 2. One showers and cleans oneself thoroughly BEFORE immersing. YOu must be physically clean before immersing – immersing doesn’t clean you!
I grant that many people do translate tumah as “unclean” or “impure” but that’s simply incorrect. Granted, in the days of the sages, women probably were dirty during the days of menstruation. Of course, men were not all that clean either. And in fact, a brief sojourn through laws of where one can pray, and what bodily needs must be taken care of beforehand, not to mention rules about using a privy, give a pretty good view of just how dirty people were in general. But no one today – especially here in the USA, where Americans are so finicky about personal cleanliness, that by any view the rabbis of the talmud would definitely view us all as istanis (fussy to the point of extreme delicacy. Not a term of praise)- would consider any American in general to be unclean. NO that I’m complaining mind you. I take pride in my American istanis-ness!
Hey, I learned this stuff as a single guy, I’m not squeamish and not innocent, but some of it was nasty mcnastiness.
TRK
retikhah – you make some very very good points, especially about the exact nature of these ancient taboos. of course hygiene was an important part of these laws in the pre-scientific era, but not the only factor. I meant “clean” and “unclean” in the anthropological sense of “pure” and “impure”.
but i can’t even really have a discussion with someone who actually believes that the halacha is literally dictated by Hashem… which, much to my great disappointment, also seems to be the view of the otherwise thoughtful and brilliant author of this blog.
certainly people are entitled to their faith, but the moment one starts talking about God “telling us” or “wanting us” to do anything, one has crossed over from the realm of the intellectual to the realm of the psuedo-intellectual, from the realm of science to that of pseudo-science, etc…
the fact that halacha was consided a rational intellectual pursuit made sense in its historical context, but buying into on that level (as opposed to studying it as an historical artifact) in 2005 seems like turning one’s back on all the lessons of the past few hundred years.
spirituality/religion is great but there’s nothing rational (or mandatory) about it, in my humble opinion. in the industrialized modern world, it’s a choice. personally, I choose to be a religious Jew who picks and chooses between different practices depending on whether or not they speak to me as an emotional or aesthetic experience and/or a meditative practice.
ok, enough ranting…
I’d like to respond more at length, although I don’t think I can today. However, a sugiya from today’s daf yomi seemed so apprpopos of the discussion, I can’t resist from posting it, even though it’s long (danya, forgive me, please).
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Shabbat 31 a-b
Raba said, When a person is led in for Judgment he is asked, Did you deal faithfully [i.e., with integrity], did you fix times for learning, did you engage in procreation, did you hope for salvation, did you engage in the dialectics of wisdom, did you understand one thing from another. Yet even so, if ‘the fear of the Lord is his treasure,’ it is well: if not, [it is] not [well]. This may be compared to a man who instructed his agent, ‘Take me up a kor of wheat in the loft,’ and he went and did so. ‘Did you mix in a kab of humton?’ he asked him, ‘No,’ replied he. ‘Then it were better that you had not carried it up,’ he retorted. The School of R. Ishmael taught: A man may mix a kab of humton in a kor of grain, and have no fear.
Rabbah b. R. Huna said: Everyone who possesses learning without
the fear of Heaven is like a treasurer who is entrusted with the inner keys but not with the outer: how is he to enter? R. Jannai proclaimed: Woe to him who has no courtyard yet makes a gate for same! Rab Judah said, The Holy One, blessed be He, created His world only that humans should fear Him, for it is said, and God hath done it, that men should fear before Him.