THE RULES OF FAMILY PURITY require that a husband and wife refrain from sexual relations during her menstrual period and also for some time after, only resuming physical contact after she immerses in a ritual bath (mikveh). Modern scholars usually present these rules in one of two ways: positively, as a strategy for deepening the sexual and also nonsexual aspects of marriage for both husband and wife,1For instance, Rachel Biale, Women and Jewish Law (New York: Schocken, 1984), 172–173 and n. 12. or negatively, as a set of rules that is degrading to women, that regards them as objects, and, in particular, finds them repulsive when menstruating.2Judith Wegner, Chattel or Person? (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 163–165, claims that the rabbis see the menstruant as both object and person. But neither of these two approaches is fully consonant with rabbinic thinking on the subject. The rabbis inherited the rules of the menstruant from the Torah but, as we will see, made significant changes in them. Tracking these changes will help us understand their outlook on the topic of menstrual impurity.
The first thing to note about M Niddah, the Hebrew word for menstruant, is its location: Unlike all the other tractates dealing with women and marriage that appear in the Order of (Married) Women, this one appears in the last division of the Mishnah, called the Order of Purities.3One manuscript of the Talmud (Munich 95) places Niddah at the end of the Order of Women, for reasons that, I think, are obvious. The reason is easy to grasp: In the Talmudic period, the topic of the menstruant is primarily one of ritual purity and only secondarily one of marital relations.4See Michael Satlow, Tasting the Dish (Atlanta, Ga.: Scholars Press, 1995), 296ff.
Since the word “niddah,” as used in the Torah and also later books of the Bible,5E.g., Ezek. 22:10; Lam. 1:8. means one who is distanced or banished,6The JPS translation of the state of niddah is “impurity.” Baruch A. Levine says that the word niddah itself, from the root N-D-H—to cast or throw, connotes, not impurity, but the physiological process of the flow of blood (JPS Torah Commentary, Leviticus, 97). Tirzah A. Meachem, “Mishnah Tractate Niddah with Introduction: A Critical Edition with Notes on Variants, Commentary, Redaction and Chapters in Legal History and Realia” (in Hebrew), Ph.D. diss., Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1989, says that niddah means “distanced.” In time it became a name for the woman herself and then a metaphor for sin and impurity in general (150–152). The Brown, Driver, and Briggs (BDB) lexicon says that it means excluded or expelled. some people have suggested that, in the biblical period, a woman was sent out of the camp during her menstrual period to a house of impurity and returned only when the flow of blood stopped. That may have been true. But there is no evidence of such a practice or place in rabbinic literature.7Lawrence H. Schiffman, “Laws Pertaining to Women in the Temple Scroll,” in The Dead Sea Scrolls: Forty Years of Research, ed. Devorah Diamant and U. Rappoport (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1992), 210–228. One version of M Niddah 7:4 talks about bet ha-tumot and another about bet ha-temeiot. Schiffman understands this text as referring to special houses for menstrually impure women. Yedidya Dinari, “The Customs of Menstrual Impurity: Their Origin and Development,” Tarbiz 49 (1979–80): 302–324, S.J.D. Cohen, “Menstruants and the Sacred in Judaism and Christianity,” in Women’s History and Ancient History, ed. Sarah B. Pomeroy (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991), 273–299, and Schiffman, all argue that isolation of the niddah used to be practiced in the prerabbinic or early rabbinic period but that there is no clear evidence that any Jewish group in the rabbinic period isolated the niddah. Even in the Christian Bible there is no evidence that a niddah was isolated. On the contrary, there are numerous references to the normal life that a niddah leads: For example, she may prepare food for her family, separate hallah,8Ravina (BT Bekhorot 27a). and go out into the public domain on the Sabbath, with wadding to absorb menstrual blood, and not violate Sabbath law (M Shabbat 6:5).9That a niddah, in some Jewish groups, does not enter a synagogue, is a post-Talmudic development. See S.J.D. Cohen, “Menstruants and the Sacred in Judaism and Christianity,” who discusses the post-Talmudic Baraita D’Niddah and its tendency toward stringency and superstition. Even if the institution of niddah in the Bible, and in the Ancient Near East in general, carried with it social or religious implications of isolation, we see that in the Talmudic period that was no longer so.10Cohen (ibid.) says that there is no sign that the purity system was intended to discriminate against women or to exclude them from the sancta: “Women were marginal altogether in the rabbinic Judaism of late antiquity and the Middle Ages, and the rhetoric of impurity only served to strengthen and justify an order which already existed and which, until recently, both men and women accepted” (299).
What is the thrust of this tractate? Like Sotah and Gittin, it is at war with itself. At the same time that it adds new layers of rules to the basic ones presented in the Torah, thus making life more complicated for women and less pleasurable for men and women alike, it speaks out against these stringencies. It erects fences and then tears them down. Since niddah is virtually the only issue of ritual purity that is still in practice today, it is clear that this tractate did not move to abolish it altogether. But we will see certain transforming tendencies. It is possible that the tractate’s self-contradictory aspects can be explained in terms of the historical development of Halakhah. The Tannaim, whose remarkably lenient views appear from time to time in the Mishnah, are reacting to a prior development of the laws of niddah that was excessively stringent and that may have come under attack in their day.11See Sifra (Torat Kohanim) end of Mezora, and BT Shabbat 64b, cited below. The Amoraim, surprisingly enough, reverse the lenient trend and start moving toward stringency.
Niddah in the Torah
The basis for the practice of niddah separation appears in the Torah. In fact, it is often cited by the rabbis as an exceptionally clear case of a Torah prohibition (M Horayot 1:3; 2:4; M Keritot 1:1).
Leviticus 15 (19–24) tells us that if a woman experiences a flow of blood, she is a niddah12The Torah uses the word niddah (Lev. 15:19) to denote a woman’s state—either of impurity or of experiencing a blood flow—not the woman herself. The use of niddah to mean menstruant is a rabbinic innovation that is rooted in the Torah’s language. for seven days;13Note that the Torah does not require a woman to experience a blood flow for all seven days to be a niddah. Even if blood flows for fewer days, she is a niddah for a full week. anyone who touches her will be ritually unclean until evening. She passes on ritual uncleanness to objects and from those objects to people. A man who has sex with her will be ritually unclean for seven days. Although verses 21 and 22 talk about the need for immersion for someone who came into contact with any place where the niddah slept or sat, the Torah does not explicitly require the niddah herself to immerse.
After presenting these rules, the Torah goes on to talk about a related topic, a woman who sees blood for a number of days at a time other than a regular menstrual period (15:25–30). Such a woman, called a zavah by the rabbis,14Although the Torah distinguishes between two kinds of blood flow, the normal and the abnormal, it does not give women experiencing either of these phenomena a name. The rabbis, using the terms or roots appearing in the biblical verses, call the menstruant a niddah and the woman experiencing an abnormal flow of blood a zavah. This latter condition may be referring to one of many gynecological conditions, for example, pelvic inflammatory disease. As we will see later, the rabbis call a man who experienced a seminal emission a ba’al keri, based on the biblical term mikreh laylah (Deut. 23:11), nocturnal emission. is like a niddah, contaminating objects with which she comes into contact. If her flow of blood stops, she counts seven days and then becomes ritually pure. On the eighth day she brings a pair of birds to the door of the tent of meeting and gives them to the kohen who will offer them for her.
All of these rules need to be understood in the context of the first half of the chapter (15:1–18), which, in parallel fashion to the second half, talks about men’s ritual impurity and subsequent return to a ritually pure state. The men under discussion have experienced genital discharges, either because of disease, like a zav, or in the normal course of events, like an ejaculant. Once the flow stops, a zav counts seven days, washes his clothes, immerses himself, and becomes ritually clean. On the eighth day, he brings a pair of birds to the tent of meeting and gives them to the kohen who will offer them before God and atone for him.15Judith Wegner notes that the phrase “before God” is missing in the expiatory rites of the zavah. A woman, she says, can approach God only indirectly (“Leviticus,” in The Women’s Bible Commentary, ed. Carol A. Newsom and Sharon H. Ringe [Westminster: John Knox Press, 1992], 42). An ejaculant immerses and is clean by nightfall. The woman into whom he ejected semen must also immerse in water and wait until evening to become ritually pure. The closing verses of chapter 15 talk about the importance of maintaining a state of ritual purity so that one does not make the sanctuary impure, the penalty for which is death.
The verses in other chapters that mention the niddah warn against a sexual liaison with her, even though in chapter 15 sex with a niddah is not forbidden, only contaminating. Leviticus 18:19 bans it, for no stated reason. Leviticus 20:18 provides a rationale: because he has uncovered the source of her blood, he may not have sex with her. This explanation sounds like male revulsion or fear of menstrual blood. The punishment for sex with a niddah is karet (v. 29), which is defined by the rabbis as either premature death or excision.
We thus see that the Bible prescribes laws for the niddah just like those it prescribes for the zav, except that it does not spell out immersion for her, only for those who contract uncleanness by coming into contact with the place where she slept or sat. Can we infer, as do the rabbis, that she, too, certainly needs immersion? Can we assume that the same rituals apply to both the niddah and the zav, whose need for immersion is explicitly stated? Since the Torah treats them together, as is especially clear in the chapter’s closing verses, I think we can draw these conclusions.16JPS Bible Commentary, Leviticus (97). Levine writes that it is clear that although the requirement of immersion is not spelled out in vv. 20 and 23, only in 21–22, it is also to be applied to the niddah herself. He notes that for an abnormal impurity, such as zav or zavah, a rite of expiation is required, above and beyond bathing and laundering (98). Jacob Milgrom (Anchor Bible, Leviticus) notes the chiastic structure of the chapter, a sign of its literary unity and probably of the consistency of purification ritual.
Since many people do not read the verses or mishnahs about the niddah and zavah in conjunction with those about the zav and ejaculant, they assume that only women can become a source of impurity, and not men. Thus they conclude that these rules treat only women as objects.17Rosemary Ruether, “Feminist Interpretation: A Method of Correlation,” in Feminist Interpretation of the Bible, ed. Letty M. Russell (Philadelphia: West-minster Press, 1985), says that in a male-dominated society, “Menstruation and childbirth are interpreted to them [women] as pollution over against a male-controlled sacred sphere” (113). But that is incorrect. According to the Torah, men, too, need to immerse themselves after a seminal emission. In fact, the purification ritual for the zavah is similar enough to that of the zav to say that the Torah draws little distinction between men and women as sources of impurity. If anything, the Torah sees the zav as more intensely impure than the niddah or even the zavah, as indicated by the greater number of rules that the Torah spells out for him. The issue in the Bible, therefore, is not gender differentiation with respect to ritual purity but ritual purity and its relation to genital discharges of both healthy and diseased men and women.
Even so, differences between impure men and women developed over time. First, the rules of immersion for the niddah, and the ban on sex with her, remained in force throughout the rabbinic period, whereas the rules of the zav, zavah, and ejaculant18As we will see later, the rules of the zavah merged with the rules of the niddah. In BT Berakhot 22a the rabbis report that men found the requirement that an ejaculant immerse before the study of Torah to be a burden. In the amoraic period it was canceled. See also BT BK 82a-b for a discussion of the ejaculant’s immersion. disappeared over time. Second, both Talmuds have Gemara on M Niddah (although the Yerushalmi’s Gemara ends at the end of chapter 3), but neither has Gemara on Zavim, or any other tractate in the Order of Purities. An even more marked difference between the two tractates is that Niddah, in the Mishnah, Tosefta, Bavli, and Yerushalmi, is filled with halakhic anecdotes, whereas Mishnah and Tosefta Zavim contain none at all. The asymmetry of material again leads to the conclusion that Niddah was a set of rules that many people lived by in the rabbinic period, whereas Zavim, and most other topics of Seder Tohorot, after the destruction of the Second Temple, were no longer relevant to their lives.
Why did the rules of Niddah alone survive? First, the Torah makes a separate statement banning sex with her, not relating this prohibition to her ritually impure state. Second, the cross-cultural basis for menstrual separation would have reinforced the rabbinic rules. A fear or revulsion of menstrual blood seems to have been a standard feature of Ancient Near Eastern culture.19According to Levine (JPS Commentary, Leviticus, 223), zav lost its relevance because it was related to the cult. The practice of niddah did not, because it had other applications related to human reproduction that became a major focus of rabbinic purity law. Dinari says that there is a folk opinion that a niddah has destructive powers; for this reason it was common among ancient peoples to distance her. No such powers were ascribed to the zav.
Self-Examination and Sexual Relations
We will now turn to M Niddah to examine the rabbis’ response to the Torah’s legislation about the menstruant. A key concern of this tractate is the question of the retroactivity of the transmission of menstrual impurity. Dealing with this matter is important for several reasons: First, if a woman finds out after sex that she may have been a niddah during sex, although one might think that she and he are both liable for punishment, neither is liable. Sex with a niddah is strictly prohibited by the Torah, but the rabbis, as we will see, do not erect fences around this law, as they do in so many other cases. Second, retroactive transmission of impurity will adversely affect her ability to prepare food for her husband. In addition to kohanim, who were required by the Torah to eat sacred food in a state of ritual purity and to avoid contact with the dead, lay Israelites could choose to adopt some of these same rules. Such people were called haverim (associates). The consequence of this status for associates’ wives was that they had to be ritually pure themselves when preparing food.
Shammai says, all women confer ritual impurity only from the time they see [menstrual] blood; Hillel says: back to the time of their last self-examination [פקידה]. But the Sages say: [The law is] according to neither this view nor that one; [rather,] she confers ritual impurity either back to the time of the last examination or for the last twenty-four hours, whichever is less…. (M Niddah 1:1)
The central concept of the entire first chapter is dayyah sha’atah: Only from the time a woman discovers that she is menstruous does she communicate ritual impurity to whatever she touches, such as food she was preparing, not retroactively, as of the last time she examined herself. This concept simply ignores the possibility that she had been niddah for some time before she saw blood. Whereas Shammai, one of the earliest Tannaim, establishes this concept, thereby showing his willingness to issue a leniency in this matter, Hillel, his colleague, argues for retroactive defilement as of her last self-examination. In a third, middle opinion, the Sages limit the period of retroactive defilement to twenty-four hours. The rest of the chapter, which develops the concept of dayyah sha’atah, clearly accepts the view of Shammai, the most lenient of the three. It would seem to follow that since there is no retroactive transmission of impurity, there is no need for self-examination; the period of ritual impurity begins upon “seeing blood.” But M Niddah 1:8 teaches otherwise:
Even though they said there is no retroactive defilement [for women with regular menstrual periods], she still needs to examine herself regularly [for menstrual blood]…. And she must use checking cloths during marital intercourse…. And twice [a day] she needs to examine herself, in the morning and at twilight, and also when she prepares for marital intercourse….
This mishnah accepts Shammai’s leniency of M 1:1 but imposes self-examination as a new stringency. Its purpose is to offset the far-reaching effects of the leniency. By prescribing frequent self-examination, it reduces two eventualities to a minimum: eating “ritually pure” food that was prepared by a niddah and engaging in sex with her husband while a niddah.
As strict as M 1:8 is, an Amora, in a standard interpretive move, reverses the trend.
“And twice a day she needs to examine herself … ”
––Said R. Judah said Samuel: They taught this only in reference to preparation of ritually pure foods; as for her husband, she is permitted to him without [frequent] examination. (BT Niddah 11b)
In this bold statement Samuel limits the mishnah’s requirement of regular self-examination to food preparation. As for sexual relations, no immediately prior self-examination is necessary: If she has not yet seen menstrual blood, she may have sex with her husband. Note that his rule opens with the formula, “they only taught this in reference to …,” often used by an Amora to limit the scope of a tannaitic statement and to rule otherwise on cases not covered by it. In this instance, Samuel is limiting the mishnah’s requirement of self-examination to the case of food preparation alone, even though the mishnah singles out sex as an activity requiring prior examination! Thus, he can introduce a leniency in reference to sexual relations, allowing them to occur unencumbered by prior examination.
The following passages develop this relationship between examination and intercourse:
––R. Zera asked R. Judah: Need a woman check herself [to see if she is a niddah] each time she has sex with her husband?
––He said to him: She should not check herself [לא תבדוק].
––But let her check herself; what of it?
––He will become uneasy and abandon [אם כן לבו נוקפו ופורש] [the sexual encounter altogether]….
––R. Abba asked R. Huna: should a woman examine herself after intercourse [so that if she finds blood her husband will know that he is liable for a sacrifice]?20This is the second version of his question. The first was found to be faulty.
––He said to him: she should not check herself.
––But let her check herself; what of it?
––He will become uneasy and abandon [future sexual encounters]. (BT Niddah 12a)
These exchanges between Amoraim indicate an extraordinarily lenient attitude to self-examination. Although frequent examination on her part would practically eliminate the chances of him having sex with a niddah, still, the unfavorable outcome would be to reduce the frequency of sex altogether. If they burden the sexual act with examination before and after, the rabbis understand that they will eliminate spontaneity, delay sexual gratification, and ultimately discourage sex. They therefore retreat from the requirement of frequent examination.
Several pages later, at 16b–17a, in conjunction with a statement in M 2:4 about having sex to the light of a candle, to facilitate checking for menstrual blood, we find a lengthy discussion of sex in the daytime. Most rabbis disapprove. R. Hisda, for example, claims that sex in the daytime will cause a man to find something unseemly about his wife. As a result, rather than love her, as mandated by the Torah (Leviticus 19:18)—you shall love your neighbor rei’a as yourself (rei’a also means lover or wife)—he will come to loathe her. Disagreeing, Rava permits sex in the daytime, as long as the room is darkened. He adds that a scholar may be relied on to use his cloak to block the light.21There are several places in the Talmud in which a Torah scholar [תלמיד חכם] is trusted to engage in activities that are forbidden to others. Taking interest on a loan from a gentile is another one of them (BM 71a).
Again we see strong evidence that sex was considered an activity designed in the first instance for a man’s gratification. Since men were heads of household, their needs, according to the rabbis, were more important and pressing than women’s. For this reason the rabbis say, perhaps disingenuously, that too close a look at her may dampen his sexual interest. Elsewhere, this same verse is cited as a prooftext by Rav that a man is forbidden to marry a woman without first seeing her, again so that he does not marry her and only afterwards discover that he finds her physically loathsome and thus inappropriate to satisfy his sexual needs (BT Kiddushin 41a). As already noted in Chapter 2, the rabbis frequently encourage a woman to care for her physical appearance in order to maintain her husband’s sexual interest in her and thereby his potential for sexual release and pleasure. In rare instances do they suggest that he need to act in a certain way to maintain her interest.
Note also that all of the above texts assume that the initiator and terminator of the sexual act is he, not she. Even though the rabbis recognized the existence of women’s sexual needs and required men to meet them (M Ketubot 5:6, 7), they frowned upon wives’ soliciting their husbands (BT Eruvin 100b). According to them, women were meant to respond but not initiate, at least not openly.22Although R. Samuel b. Nahmani in the name of R. Yonatan does encourage a woman to initiate sex with her husband, promising her extraordinarily fine children if she does so, men do not seem to have generally favored it (Nedarim 20b). The contradiction between his recommendation that women initiate and the conflicting one that they not initiate—one who does so is called aggressive [חצופה]—is resolved by the anonymous voice with the statement that she should not initiate or solicit but indicate that she is sexually interested (Rashi, s.v. d’meratzya). Men are warned not to force sex on their wives with the opposite threat, that if they do so they will produce disreputable children (BT Eruvin 100b). Connecting desired or undesired behavior with how one’s children turn out seems to have been a common rabbinic rhetorical tactic. This tells us that people accepted the notion that their behavior, particularly during sex, affected their children’s future. If so, this technique would have been useful in influencing men to conform to certain behavioral patterns. See Satlow, Tasting the Dish, 303ff. It is also possible to view these statements as a way of saying that how a man treats his wife sexually will be as public as the character of their children (Susan E. Shapiro, personal communication, January 15, 1997).
R. Akiva’s Intentional Leniencies
A remarkable feature of tractate Niddah is the attempt to minimize the number of cases in which the dry blood stain a woman sees—not at the time of her regular menstrual period—renders her impure.23The blood stain a woman sees not at the time of her regular period may result from many different conditions, one relatively common one being mittelschmerz, midovulatory spotting. The rabbis’ tendency to be lenient with stains of this sort and not require sexual separation of husband and wife is consistent with preserving her ability to conceive. However, we cannot be sure that the rabbis had precise knowledge of when ovulation took place. Leniency in these matters is also consistent with the desire not to limit the opportunity for sex and to preserve her ability to prepare ritually pure food for her husband. If the rabbi to whom she shows the blood stain determines that the blood is uterine, the woman becomes a zavah, who must observe clean days corresponding to the blood days, as little as one clean day for one day of blood or, at most, a total of seven clean days. Note that these rabbinic laws differ from the Torah rules stated above. The rabbis interpreted the zavah of the Torah as referring to a woman who experiences a flow of blood for at least three days and who must then wait seven clean days before exiting the state of ritual impurity. They then added the notion of a “minor zavah,” a woman who experiences a flow of blood for only one or two days. She needs to wait only one clean day for each blood day (shomeret yom k’neged yom).24See David C. Kraemer, “A Developmental Perspective on the Laws of Niddah,” Conservative Judaism 38, no. 3 (Spring 1986): 26–33, for a discussion of the rabbis’ understanding of the laws of niddah and zavah.
If a woman sees a bloodspot … she may attribute it to anything she can possibly attribute it to…. (M Niddah 8:1, 2)
It once happened that a woman came before R. Akiva and said to him: I saw a blood spot. He said to her: “perhaps you have a bruise [somewhere in your reproductive tract and the blood came from a place other than the womb]?” She answered, “Yes, but it already healed.” He then said to her: “Perhaps it could still open up and ooze blood?” She said, “Yes, [it could].” And he declared her ritually clean.
He then saw his students looking at one another [in surprise at his ruling], and so he said to them: Why is this matter difficult for you to understand? The Sages did not say these things to be stringent but to be lenient [שלא אמרו חכמים הדבר להחמיר אלא להקל], as it says: And a woman from whom blood flows forth … (Leviticus 15:19)—this means a flow of blood, not a [dry] blood stain. (M Niddah 8:3)
This set of mishnahs is amazingly self-critical. The rabbis are fully aware of their knowing and intentional avoidance of declaring a woman to be ritually impure. R. Akiva goes so far as to place words in a woman’s mouth about the origin of a spot in order to dodge the most likely explanation that the blood came from the uterus. His manipulation of the facts so stunned his students that he had to defend his decision by pointing out to them that the rabbis themselves supplemented the core Torah rule of niddah with an overlay of bloodstain rules, as presented above (8:1, 2); even so, they did not intend for their own additions to be applied stringently, but leniently. For R. Akiva, this meant that any stain that could possibly be explained as anything other than uterine blood should be explained in that way. He is saying that when the Sages introduced legislation regarding blood spots, they did not intend to make their own legislation an institution that in and of itself would be dealt with stringently. The Torah, after all, does not declare a woman to be a zavah on the basis of a bloodstain, but only on the basis of a flow of blood. Therefore, as a fence around the Torah, the bloodstain rules were to be applied, but leniently. R. Akiva thus appears to admit that he behaved in a less than intellectually honest way, but he explains his good reason for doing so—not to burden excessively the rules of the Torah, not to interpret them too strictly.
This passage raises serious questions about how one arrives at answers to halakhic queries—with preconceived ideas or in a flexible manner. R. Akiva is closed-minded to any but a lenient answer, but open-minded in his willingness to respond to the reasonable questions of his students. But the mishnah also reveals R. Akiva’s attitude to the set of bloodstain rules. He is rebelling, I think, against the stringencies imposed by earlier generations of Elders25A legacy of the past, as indicated in a number of Dead Sea Scrolls. See discussion of R. Akiba’s rulings at the end of this section. on the rules of the Torah. Not only does R. Akiva thus seek to undermine these stringencies, but so do other Tannaim who rule in similar fashion.26T Niddah 6:17: “She [the niddah] attributes it to anything she can [possibly] attribute it to. It once happened that R. Meir attributed the stain to red eye salve; Rebbe attributed it to the sap of the sycamore.” Note that R. Meir is R. Akiva’s protégé. Even more so does the mishnah itself, which encourages one to attribute a stain to anything except uterine blood. The text presents the bloodstain rules but then immediately proceeds to undermine them. This instance is different from other similar ones in that here, the students, who do not yet know such “hypocrisy,” or, in our terms, “nuanced” or progressive thinking, by looking at each other in surprise, call on the rabbinic legislator to justify his actions. Their behavior provokes R. Akiva to issue an astonishingly candid self-justification. He indicates his awareness that his halakhic decision was somewhat predetermined, somewhat independent of the facts of the case, but also his certainty that his behavior was appropriate in this area of law.
Another clear example of this kind of exegesis, issued again by R. Akiva, appears in Zavim, the “sister” tractate dealing with men who become ritually impure by virtue of seminal emissions.
One interrogates the potential zav regarding seven matters [to find out if he experienced the emission because of any one of these reasons, and, if so, will remain ritually pure]….
R. Akiva says: even if he ate any food, good or bad, or drank any drink, [we can attribute the seminal emission to that and not declare him a zav].
They said to him: But from now on there will be no more zavim!
He responded: The responsibility for declaring men to be zavim is not on you [אין אחריות זבים עליכם]. (M Zavim 2:2)
It is remarkable that it is again R. Akiva who introduces a transparent leniency. The rules of zav were no longer practiced in his day because the Temple no longer stood; therefore his goal was not practical but ideological. Since the issue of the zav had attracted numerous stringencies over a period of time, as indicated by the first part of the passage, he felt it necessary to introduce an extreme leniency to halt this process and even reverse it. Such halakhic innovation should not surprise us coming from R. Akiva, known for deriving halakhot from parts of words and even individual letters, thus far from the simple meaning of the word or phrase.27See Y. N. Epstein, Mevo’ot Lesifrut Hatannaim (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1957), 521–542; Ephraim E. Urbach, The Halakhah, Its Sources and Development (n.p.: Yad Latalmud, 1986), 104–105, esp. n. 42.
This kind of approach gives enormous power to the legislator to shape Halakhah as he sees fit. We might have expected this method to be adopted by those who wish to burden each successive generation with additional stringencies, whereas those who adhere to the simple meaning of the words would more likely produce a set of rules a person can live by. However, the opposite is generally true: By deconstructing and reconstructing words and phrases the interpreter has extensive opportunity to cast things as he thinks fit, which, in the case of R. Akiva above, is the more livable scheme.
In a similar vein, an aggadah reports that when Moshe Rabbenu (“our rabbi,” so called by the rabbis who saw him in their image) sat in the academy of R. Akiva, he grew anxious because he did not recognize his own Torah in R. Akiva’s exposition, but was calmed when he heard R. Akiva say that the law he was deriving, as far afield from the Torah as it may have seemed to Moshe, was still based on the written law (BT Menahot 29b). The question is, why did R. Akiva, on his own, move to reverse the stringent direction in which the laws of niddah and zavim were developing?28Examples of stringency in the laws of Niddah are the rules of self-examination, dating back at least to Hillel and Shammai, and, as already mentioned, the bloodstain rules (8:1, 2). Examples of stringency in the laws of zav are implied in M Zavim 2:2 and stated in 2:1 and elsewhere in the tractate. It seems that people were provoked by the excessive restrictions of the earlier generations.29See Tosefta Moed Qatan 2:10,14 for two more examples of R. Akiva’s easing earlier restrictions. The issues are drinking certain potions, apparently with medicinal properties, on the intermediary days of a festival, and sitting on a gentile’s merchandise display bench on the Sabbath, presumably because it would appear that a Jew was doing business on the Sabbath. One gets the impression, from these passages and others, that R. Akiva represents a liberalizing force in the history of Halakhah. We find evidence of this in yet another lenient ruling of R. Akiva regarding a niddah: allowing her to dress nicely and apply cosmetics even during the week when she is forbidden to her husband. Until R. Akiva’s day the Elders30Heb., zekenim harishonim. prohibited such behavior, for fear it would lead her husband to sexual arousal that he could not contain.31Cf. Aboth de Rabbi Nathan A, chapter 2 (Schechter ed., 8), where only the rules of a niddah disfiguring herself appear, without mention of R. Akiva’s leniency. But R. Akiva argued in response that a woman who does not make herself attractive—even when a niddah—will repel her husband, and he will seek to divorce her (BT Shabbat 64b; Sifra Mezora 9:12).
The inclusion by the redactor of the Mishnah of these two rulings of R. Akiva, and the inclusion by the redactor of the Talmud of that aggadah, imply that they are sympathetic to the results-oriented approach to Halakhah.
From Tannaitic Leniency to Amoraic Stringency: The Seven “White Days”
The following baraita introduces several more tannaitic leniencies, similar to the kind we saw above. But when the same issues are discussed by the Amoraim, they take a turn to stringency.
We learned in a baraita: If a woman saw blood in conjunction with sexual relations, she may engage in sex a first, second, and third time. From then on, she is forbidden to have sex until she gets divorced and remarried to someone else.
If she married another man and again saw blood in conjunction with sexual relations, she may engage in sex a first, second, and third time. From then on, she is forbidden to have sex until she gets divorced and remarried to someone else.
If she married a third time and saw blood in conjunction with sexual relations, she may engage in sex a first, second, and third time. From then on, she may not have sex unless she first examines herself. [The reason this solution was not adopted earlier, according to the Amoraim, is that one first had to ascertain if the flow of blood was caused by the size of a man’s sexual organ or the strength of his thrusting. Since she saw blood in conjunction with sex three times in a row with three different men, we can assume the problem lies with her, not with them.]
How? She inserts a tube, within which rests a painting stick and to the top of which is attached absorbent cotton: If there is blood on the tip of the wadding, it is from the womb; if there is no blood on the tip, this means that it came from the sides [and it is ritually pure].
If she has a bruise “in that place,” she can attribute the blood to the bruise.
If she has a regular menstrual period, she can attribute the blood to that…. (BT Niddah 65b–66a)
The Tannaim seem to be talking here about a husband and wife who are a poor match for each other, in the physical sense. They recommend divorce in cases in which his activity during sex is too “brutal” for her. The instrument they suggest she use for self-examination is a primitive form of a speculum. As offensive as it sounds to require a woman to use it to determine the nature of the blood she discharged—as much an invasion of privacy as it is—that is also one way of beginning to ascertain the cause of her medical problem.
This baraita takes a very “liberal” stand on blood appearing in conjunction with sex. Only when it becomes definite that each time a woman engages in sexual activity blood will appear is she asked to leave her husband. By “liberal,” I mean within the framework of accepting the rule that blood of the womb confers ritual impurity and thus forbids sexual activity. This limited liberalism is apparent, in particular, in the last section of the baraita, in which all kinds of other explanations are found for the blood, other than having been caused by intercourse, so that the couple may remain married.
Three anecdotes follow about women who see blood in conjunction with sexual relations and come before the rabbis for a decision. Two of the three are dealt with leniently. The Gemara continues:
––Said R. Joseph said R. Judah said Rav: Rebbe enacted in Sadot that if she saw blood for one day that she remain [in a state of ritual impurity] for six [more days] in addition to that one day itself [because we assume it is menstrual blood]; if she saw blood for two days that she remain [in a state of ritual impurity] for six days in addition to those two [because the first day may be the end of zivah and the second the beginning of niddah], but if she saw blood for three days, she must sit for seven clean days [following those three, because she may be in a state of zivah].
––Said R. Zera: The daughters of Israel assumed a stringency upon themselves, that even if they see a blood spot the size of a mustard seed they sit for seven clean days [and not just if they see blood three days in a row and become a zavah do they sit for seven clean days]….
––Said Rava: If they summoned her to get married [at the end of the period of betrothal], she must sit for seven clean days before marrying [Rashi, lest she saw blood because of sexual desire (ta’avat himmud),32This kind of secretion is dealt with in BT Niddah 20b. The rabbis thought that women secrete blood as a result of sexual yearning. There they decide that it does not make her impure; here, they decide that it does. Meachem, “Mishnah Tractate Niddah with Introduction,” explains this blood as an attempt by the rabbis to overlay male physiology onto the female body, assuming that there is a female analogue to erection and ejaculation. The rabbis saw menstrual blood as an equivalent of semen. See 188–190 for an excellent analysis of this entire topic. in anticipating her first sexual encounter].
The first two statements of Rebbe are hard to understand. We can only guess at what they mean. According to Rashi (s.v. shishah v’hu; shena’im), Rebbe treats seeing blood for one or two days like a menstrual period and prescribes a total of seven or eight days of separation. The third statement, a standard rule of impurity, notes that seeing blood for three days, apparently not at the time of the expected menstrual period, turns a woman into a full-fledged zavah who must then wait seven days before returning to a state of ritual purity, in all a ten-day separation. The days that Rebbe requires her to observe are the seven clean days of the zavah, not the seven days of menstrual impurity, and certainly not seven clean days after the seven days of menstrual impurity. In fact, the term “seven clean days,” as it appears in the Talmud, refers in all instances to the days following zivah, not niddah.
If we now read R. Zera’s statement in the context of the preceding one by Rebbe and the following one by Rava, we see that he is referring to cases of zivah, not niddah.33Meachem (ibid., 176) and S.J.D. Cohen (“Menstruants and the Sacred in Judaism and Christianity,” 278–279) interpret R. Zera as saying that what the women did was consider any blood they saw, menstrual or otherwise, to be blood of zivah, and hence requiring seven clean days. I do not find that warranted by the words of R. Zera himself. There is no need to attribute to R. Zera two restrictive practices—seven clean days of the full-fledged zavah for seeing even one bloodspot of a minor zavah (which would require only one clean day) and seven clean days after every menstrual period—instead of one restrictive practice. The context of R. Zera’s comment is the seven clean days of the zavah. Rebbe was apparently saying that seeing blood for one or two days may be considered menstrual blood and will not require seven clean days, only that she count seven niddah days. But seeing blood three days in a row, presumably not at the time of one’s expected menstrual period, necessitates counting seven clean days. It is only a little later, as we shall see, that the rabbis erase all differences between the zavah and niddah. His terminology—seven clean days—is the terminology of zivah. Were he saying that women added seven white days to the seven niddah days, he would have had to be more explicit. Thus, he is not saying that Jewish women lengthened the menstrual separation period each month by adding seven white days to the seven days of menstrual impurity, as they have often been blamed for doing,34R. Biale (Women and Jewish Law, 153) says that women turned to their own stringency and ceased to rely on rabbinic experts. but that they adopted a stringency in reference to zivah only. According to the rabbis, a woman becomes a full-fledged zavah only if she sees blood for three days in a row. Once the flow stops, she must sit for seven clean days, as prescribed by the Torah. R. Zera is thus saying that Jewish women decided that for any irregular bleeding (that is, not at the time of the menstrual period and not necessarily for three days duration), they will sit for seven clean days. Even one tiny spot makes them a full-fledged zavah. This is certainly a stringency, but not one that approaches the level of stringency to which many have thought R. Zera refers.35That R. Zera was understood as also referring to menstrual blood, and hence to a longer monthly separation, is already suggested by Rashi and Rambam: “Even a niddah counts seven clean days; for the women adopted a stringency upon themselves, like the statement of R. Zera” (Rashi, BT Niddah 67b, s.v. safeq zavot shavinhu).
“The daughters of Israel accepted upon themselves the following additional stringency, that if she sees even a small blood spot she will sit seven clean days, even if she saw this blood at the time of niddah. Since she saw the blood for one or two or seven days or more, when the blood stops she counts seven days like a full-fledged zavah and then immerses herself on the night of the eighth day….” Rambam (Hilchot Issurei Biah 11:4)
I think it clear that both Rashi and Rambam extend R. Zera’s statement to include the case of niddah, even though there is no need to do so. See note 33.
It is of interest that M 4:1 already makes a reference to women invoking stringencies (or leniencies) of their own in matters of seeing blood. It says that the Kuthean women, a rabbinic name for the descendants of the Samaritans, and considered partly Jewish, would sit seven days if they saw any blood whatsoever, whether or not it proved to be menstrual blood, and thus necessary.36Alternatively, that they would count the last of the three days of zivah as the first of the seven clean days (BT Niddah 33a). It is also true that women refused to go to the mikveh when angry with their husbands, as did the wife of the exilarch Abba Mari (67b).37Rashi (s.v. d’kut) explains that she had a fight with him and did not want to go to immerse. The rabbis seem to have sensed that in the area of niddah women had taken matters into their own hands.38See also the relevant anecdote from PT Ketubot (2:5; 26c) cited at the end of the Conclusion. Did the rabbis view this with equanimity or not? It is hard to say.
Since the statement by R. Zera is not the origin of the “white days,” the name for the seven days added to every menstrual separation period, then where do they come from? Aside from one reference to them in BT Shabbat 13a, in an anecdote in which a pious and scholarly man died young because he did not observe the seven white days as scrupulously as the seven days of menstrual impurity,39The following story (BT Shabbat 13a-b) does not appear to be mainstream Halakhah. It is the only “tannaitic” reference to white days. The term for white days, yemei libbun, appears nowhere else in the Talmud.
“Tana d’vei Elijah: A certain disciple who studied much died young. His wife looked for an answer to his premature death. None was forthcoming. Elijah [he is only mentioned explicitly in the parallel versions, which will be referred to] visited her one day and asked her how her husband behaved toward her when she was a niddah. She said, he did not even touch her little finger. And in her white days? He ate and drank with her and slept with her in physical contact. And yet he never thought of engaging her in sexual activity. And Elijah said to her, thank God for killing him, for he paid no respect to the Torah, which says, ‘Do not draw near to a woman who is in a menstruous state’ (Lev. 18:19).
––“When R. Dimi came [from the land of Israel], he said: [They slept in only] one bed [and the husband thought that that was sufficient, but it was not].
––“In the West they said that R. Yitzhak bar Yossi said: A garment separated the two of them [and that was not sufficient].”
Meachem, “Mishnah Tractate Niddah with Introduction” (186), claims that this story has to postdate R. Zera, which means that she does not consider it a tannaitic source. The version of the story found in Aboth D’Rabbi Nathan B (chap. 2, p. 9, Schechter ed.) has a slightly different wording. Instead of “niddah days” and “white days,” Elijah asks her about the “first days” and the “last days.” Such a reading need not mean that women were observing seven white days after the seven niddah days but that they were distinguishing between the early days of the seven, in which there is a blood flow, and the later days of the seven, in which there may not have been any flow at all. Alternatively, if the term does refer to seven additional white days, it may represent pietistic behavior in the tannaitic period or later. Note also that the victim is a Sage and the wise man is Elijah, the prophet (Cohen, electronic communication, November 22, 1996). the standard assumption throughout the Talmud is that menstrual separation is seven days only. In fact, when an Amora seems to suggest that a niddah count seven white days after the blood flow has stopped, the Gemara immediately asks, “What need has a niddah for counting [seven white days]?” and replaces the word niddah with zavah (69a). Is there any evidence of white days following a menstrual period aside from that story? Not explicit evidence, but there is one suggestive reference.
In discussing the possibility of immersion in a mikveh in the daytime, the following statement appears:
––Said R. Pappa to Rava and Abaye: Now that the rabbis have made all niddot into doubtful zavot [Rashi, and require them to count seven clean days after the seven niddah days], let them immerse on the seventh day [of the clean days; Rashi, this would be acceptable for a niddah because she could immerse any time after her seven days of impurity; and a zavah is permitted to immerse in the daytime].
==Because of R. Simon’s dictum [they may not]…. (BT Niddah 67b)
R. Pappa refers here to a significant change in the rules of niddah: The rabbis consider all menstruants to be doubtful zavot, which means that they must sit for seven clean days when the flow of blood stops. Thus they may not immerse on the night following the last blood day, but rather at the end of seven additional white days. R. Pappa is saying that the rabbis eliminated the distinctions between a niddah, who sees blood for about seven days in a row, and a zavah, who sees blood for three days in a row not at the time of her menstrual period. This change is remarkable and far-reaching: both niddot and zavot, according to these rabbis, will have to sit seven clean days after the blood stops. We thus see that it was men and not women who extended significantly the monthly menstrual separation period, in many instances doubling it from seven to fourteen days!
It seems clear that the addition of the seven clean days to the seven days of menstrual impurity was made in the latter half of the amoraic period. There are no tannaitic references to it. We know that men imposed the stringency, probably because it did not make sense to them to differentiate between the zavah and the niddah, because the light irregular bleeding of many a zavah was being treated so much more stringently than the regular and longer flow of a niddah.40See BT Niddah 69a, where a serious critique is issued against treating lighter cases more strictly than serious ones. See next note.
This entire segment, then, begins with what I consider to be leniencies regarding a woman who sees blood in conjunction with sex. The rabbis do not decide to prohibit such a woman from ever having sex again just because they fear that the man who sleeps with her may violate a rule of the Torah. Instead, they provide ways for her to continue having sex. They finally suggest that she always examine herself and, based on the outcome and the associated leniency of interpretation of the results, either continue or discontinue sex. Following several related anecdotes, the sugya takes a sharp turn toward stringency. R. Zera mentions women’s self-imposed stringency, and Rava decides to declare every bride, once the wedding date is set, a zavah.41S.J.D. Cohen suggests that Rava’s ruling may not be a stringency at all but a way of guaranteeing an interval between the agreement to marriage and the marriage itself, during which time the bride could change her mind. Calling her a zavah gives the delay halakhic enforceability (electronic communication, November 22, 1996). The trend seems to be that as time passes, the rules of niddah become more strict. It is possible that the surrounding Zoroastrian culture pushed the rabbis in this direction.42I first learned this point from the undergraduate thesis of Lauren Eichler (Princeton University, 1994). For further discussion see Meachem (“Mishnah Tractate Niddah with Introduction,” 190) and BT Shabbat 110a and Pesahim 111b. Studies show that the tendency to deal strictly with this area of Jewish law continued and even grew stronger in the post-Talmudic period.43See S.J.D. Cohen, “Menstruants and the Sacred in Judaism and Christianity,” and note 9, this chapter.
Behavior During the Week of Niddah
When M Shabbat 2:6 says that women who are not careful about niddah deserve to die in childbirth, it is probably referring to a woman who had sex with her husband on a day she saw blood. Similarly, M Ketubot’s law (7:6) that a woman should be divorced and forfeit her ketubah if she had sex with her husband while she was a niddah seems to refer to the simple requirement of separating from him for seven days. As M Keritot 1:1 says, there are thirty-six transgressions in the Torah for which one is punished with karet: one who has sex with his mother, his father’s wife, or, among others, a niddah. The rule prohibiting sex with a niddah is therefore clear and, like the other forbidden liaisons, needs no further elaboration. In fact, the Tannaim do not give it any. To what extent a married couple can interact with each other, socially and possibly physically, when she is a niddah, comes up for discussion only among Amoraim.
We should also note that M Niddah’s omission of this and other key topics indicates that this tractate is primarily concerned with one thing and one thing only: blood that does or does not confer ritual impurity—coming from a niddah, a zavah, a woman who spontaneously aborts, and a woman who gives birth. There are many anecdotes about women who come to rabbis to find out the ritual consequences of the blood they saw. But M Niddah shows very little interest in the home life of the couple when she is a niddah. Although scattered references to this topic are found in the Gemara—not in Tractate Niddah, but elsewhere—there is no sustained discussion of it anywhere. This lack of material leads me to believe that the laws of niddah, as they were observed in the early amoraic period, when ritual purity for the preparation of food was no longer an issue in Babylonia,44In Palestine, preparing and eating food in ritual purity continued into the amoraic period. I. Ta Shma, “Niddah,” Encyclopedia Judaica (12:1145). were a simple matter of refraining from sexual relations for the week of the blood flow. As we saw above, with the addition of the seven white days, a turn toward stringency began at some time in the later amoraic period.
We will now look at a well-known passage on the subject of the interaction between a husband and a wife who is a niddah. Talking about the household chores that a woman must perform for her husband, the rabbis say that even if she has a full complement of servants, there are still some small tasks that she herself should carry out for him.
––Said R. Yitzhak bar Hananya said R. Huna: Even though they said that she sits in a katedra [an easy chair, if she has servants who will perform all the housework for her], she still mixes his wine, makes his bed, and washes his face, hands, and feet.
––Said R. Yitzhak b. Hananya said R. Huna: All the labors that a woman performs for her husband, a niddah performs for her husband, except for mixing the wine, making the bed, and washing his face, hands, and feet.
––Rava said: That only means in his presence; but if done not in his presence, we have no problem [with her mixing and serving the wine and making the bed].
“Mixing the wine:”
––Samuel’s wife changed it [her regular practice, and handed the wine to him] with her left hand [and thus did not transgress R. Huna’s rule that a niddah does not serve wine to her husband].
––Abaye—she [his wife] would put it on the mouth of the barrel.
––Rava—on the pillow.
––R. Pappa—on the stool.45Some see in this passage a discreet way for a woman to inform her husband that she is a niddah (R. Biale, Women and Jewish Law, 160). This is not what the passage is saying.(BT Ketubot 61a)
Were the rabbis concerned about the possibility of a niddah transmitting ritual impurity to her husband, they would have spoken of her inability to prepare food for him when a niddah. Here, all she may not do is mix his wine in his presence, which implies, says Rava, that she may mix it for him not in his presence. As R. Huna notes above, all other household labors, such as baking and cooking, are permitted. Furthermore, when not a niddah, she is specifically bidden to perform these three “special” tasks herself—mixing his wine, making his bed, and washing his face, hands, and feet, apparently because they create a sense of sexual intimacy. Therefore, when she is a niddah, the reason she may not perform these tasks is that they are likely to lead to sexual arousal on his part. Each of the four women mentioned above, when a niddah, either handed wine to her husband in a different way from usual or left it for him to drink without handing it to him directly.46Rashi (s.v. mihlefa lei) says that she did it in this manner in her white days, implying that she did not serve him wine at all in the seven niddah days. Cf. Tosafot s.v. mahlefa d’bithu. Notice that it was the women themselves who figured out how to serve him his wine when a niddah but still fulfill the letter of the law of not doing so in a sexually intimate manner. We thus see that a wife who is a niddah is not hampered in any way from carrying out her household duties. As for the couple’s relationship with each other when she is a niddah, not only is sex per se forbidden, but even, this source indicates, any kind of activity that would lead to sexual arousal.47See BT Sanhedrin 37a for a statement about the permission for a niddah to be alone with her husband, despite the ban on sex between them. The Gemara notes that even a hedge of roses is sufficient to restrain people from violating Jewish law.
What also emerges clearly from this passage is one aspect of the nature of the relationship between a husband and wife in general, not just when she is a niddah: She is to serve him, cater to his needs, and perform even the small gesture of washing his face, hands, and feet. (This is still a practice of many women in the Middle East today.) He is not asked to do any of these tasks for her. According to the Tosefta (Kiddushin 1:11), washing the face, hands, and feet is one requirement of the honor due parents. By extension, a wife is to treat her husband as someone superior to her, deserving of her respect.
Niddah’s Benefits to Men: Sexual Strategies for Giving Birth to Sons
In discussing the period of ritual impurity following a spontaneous abortion, R. Ishmael and the Sages debate the issue of when the fetus forms (M Niddah 3:7). All agree that there is no fetus to speak of for the first forty days of gestation. R. Ishmael holds that a male is formed by the forty-first day and a female by the eighty-first. But the Sages say that all fetuses, male and female alike, are formed by the forty-first day.48See David Feldman, Marital Relations, Birth Control, and Abortion in Jewish Law (New York: New York University Press, 1968), who comments on the implications of this belief for therapeutic and elective abortion (251–294). See also my article “Abortion: Where We Stand,” United Synagogue Review 42, no. 2 (Spring 1990).
This mishnah triggers a lengthy aggadic discussion (30b–31a) on pregnancy, fetal development, sex during pregnancy—recommended only in the last trimester, when, the rabbis believed, it was good for both mother and fetus—and birth.49Permission for sex during pregnancy is a rather clear indicator that sex is permitted for its own sake. This was a matter of debate among the Dead Sea sects. See Lawrence H. Schiffman, Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls (Philadelphia: JPS, 1994), 129. The sugya then turns its attention to strategies for sex determination of the fetus.
We learned in a baraita: … if a woman gives forth seed first [i.e., if she reaches orgasm before he does],50The word in the Talmud, le-hazri’a (to give forth seed), refers to orgasm and not just ovulation. This definition is suggested by R. Yitzhak, who says that if a man holds himself back from release until the woman “gives forth seed” first, the offspring will be male (BT Niddah 31b). the outcome will be a son. If a man gives forth seed first, the outcome will be a daughter….
––Said R. Katina: I could have made all my children males.
––Said Rava: If someone wants only sons, he should engage in repeated intercourse [in the same night].
––Said Rebbe: A woman conceives close to the time of her menstrual period….
––Said R. Yohanan: A woman conceives close to the time of immersion [in the mikveh], (BT Niddah 31a-b)
Even though the strategy of satisfying a woman first is suggested for men’s sake, to produce sons, rather than for women’s, it is still beneficial to women. It is hard to say if men who wanted sons would follow this recommendation, but those who formulated it certainly were strongly encouraging men to satisfy their wives.
R. Katina boasts that he could have had all sons (but did not!). By this he means that he was so skilled that he could postpone reaching climax at will, an endorsement of the baraita’s advice on how to produce sons. Rava proposes that repeated intercourse in the same night is another strategy for producing sons, thereby implying that he is able to do so himself, also evidence of his virility.51In Eruvin 100b repeated sexual intercourse in the same night is frowned upon. But the contradiction between what is said there and what Rava says here is resolved by the anonymous Talmudic voice in terms of securing his wife’s consent. Note that this same rabbi says elsewhere in the tractate that repeated intercourse in the same night is permitted, without worrying in the interim if the woman has seen menstrual blood (16b). In a similar self-congratulatory vein, later in the tractate (64b), Samuel describes his own sexual agility, saying, “I can perform several acts of intercourse [with a virgin] without causing her any bleeding!”
Why do the rabbis make these self-congratulatory comments? Not only to make a halakhic point. More likely they represent a form of locker room talk, or male bonding. Given the discussion of women’s bodies, menstrual blood, and sexual restrictions, it is not surprising that talk of personal sexual accomplishments follows. Even so, elsewhere we see them express the opposite feelings: intense anxiety about their ability to please women sexually and fear of humiliation. One of the starkest statements on rabbinic sexual anxiety is the following:
“Do not cook in a pot your friend has already cooked in.”
To what does this refer? [To a man who married] a divorcee in the lifetime of her [ex-]husband.
For it has been stated: If a divorced man marries a divorced woman, there are four people in bed. If you like, even marriage to a widow [is not recommended], because not all “fingers” are the same. (BT Pesahim 112a-b)
Rashi (s.v. she-ayn) explains this cryptic reference: Since not all male sexual organs are the same size, sex [with her second husband] may not be as good as sex with her first, and she will come to belittle him.52Rashbam comments (s.v. she-ayn): since sex with the second husband is not as pleasing to her as with the first, she will come to hate him. A minor but telling difference in formulation. It is hard to imagine a more insecure statement on the part of men with regard to their own sexual abilities, especially in the correlation between a woman’s sexual pleasure and the size of a man’s penis. However, speaking openly about these matters among themselves enables men to deal with anxieties and expectations.
Another aspect of men’s insecurity is the fear that their inability to satisfy their wives will lead their wives to seek more satisfying relationships with other men. Then, in the ultimate act of deception, the wives will attribute the illegitimate child to their husband.53In BT Yevamot 118b, Resh Lakish says that it is better for a woman to live with anybody than nobody. In that context, he is saying that a woman would rather be married, even to a lower-class man, than live alone. In other words, having sex with a coarse man is better than living alone and having no sex at all. The sugya ends, and the chapter ends, with a tannaitic statement: “And all women who marry coarse men will conduct extramarital affairs, become pregnant, and then attribute the offspring to their husbands.” Does this mean that women will behave in such a deceitful manner because men like this will not know any better or that these men will not know how to satisfy their wives sexually and their frustration will push them to find satisfaction elsewhere? Is this a statement about women or about men? Cf. BT Nedarim 91a-b, where women are portrayed as having extramarital sex but as acting as if it happened without their knowledge and, thus, without any intention on their part. Legitimacy is a universal concern of ancient society.
There are a number of other places in the Talmud where advice is given for producing sons. In BT Shevuot 18b, R. Yohanan says that if a man refrains from sex with his wife close to the time of her menstrual period, he will produce sons. R. Elazar says that if he sanctifies himself during the sexual act (which means, according to Rashi,54S.v. hameqadesh atzmo. that he behaves modestly), he will produce sons. The existence of so many statements of this sort indicate that men, and probably also women (as we will see), had a clear preference for sons over daughters.
In all these instances the rabbis exploit a man’s wishes in order to get him to behave in ways they deem worthy. They dangle the reward of sons in front of his eyes so that he will observe the laws of niddah scrupulously, engage in sex in a sanctified manner, allow himself full sexual expression, but also see to it that his wife reaches orgasm. That they needed to admonish men about these forms of behavior may suggest that it is precisely these matters that men neglected. Although eschewing them did not constitute transgression of the law, the promise of a reward might get men to change.55See Satlow, Tasting the Dish, 7ff., for a fascinating discussion of the various legal and nonlegal techniques that the rabbis used in order to persuade people to comply with norms and mores of private activities that the rabbis were not in a position to enforce. See also his discussion of eugenics, 303ff.
The sugya continues with a series of questions and answers, located here because several address the topic of niddah. The most important source for our purposes is the one that explains why a couple is required to separate for one week each month.
R. Simon b. Yohai’s students asked him:
1. Why does a woman who gives birth have to bring a [sin] offering?
—because she swears she will never have sex again;
2. Why seven unclean days following the birth of a boy and fourteen following the birth of a girl?
—because everyone is happy at the birth of a boy, and so she relents after seven days, and sad at the birth of a girl, and so she only relents after fourteen.
3. Why does the Torah say that circumcision is on the eighth day [and not sooner]?
—so that it won’t happen that all are happy and the parents of the boy are sad [Rashi: For the first seven days they are forbidden to engage in sexual relations because she is ritually impure56S.v. shelo yihyu.].
4. … R. Meir used to say, why does the Torah separate a niddah for seven days?
—so that her husband will not come into constant contact with her and thereby come to loathe her [מפני שרגיל בה וקץ בה]; so that she will be to her husband like a bride entering the huppah.
R. Dostai b’R. Yannai’s students asked him:
5. Why do men chase after women and not women after men? …
6. Why do men face down [during sex] and women face up?
—Each according to the manner of creation [since she was created from him, she looks up at him; since he was created from the ground, he looks down at it].
7. Why does a woman become appeased57BT Niddah 66a: To become appeased means to accept an offer of marriage. This statement apparently means that it is easier to gain a woman’s consent to a proposed match than it is to gain a man’s. but not a man? …
8. Why is a woman’s voice pleasing but not a man’s? … 58It seems that all eight of these questions relate to sex and birth of children. The only one that appears to deviate from this topic is the seventh, but if it means to appease for marriage and sex, then it fits in. (BT Niddah 31b)
The first four questions are serious ones about Torah rulings. Three are almost feminist in tone: Why a sin offering after giving birth? Why the excessive period of ritual impurity after the birth of a girl? Why separate a wife from her husband for seven days a month (implying that fewer would be more reasonable)? But the answers are not feminist: One should punish a woman for vowing never to have sex again; boys are preferred over girls; were it not for the week of separation each month, husbands would find wives repulsive—it is the separation that allows him to maintain sexual interest in her.
Questions five to eight are more frivolous than one to four and not Torah based in the same way. But they complement the first four by describing men’s endorsement of the sexual status quo: Men initiate sexual relationships with women; men assume the superior position during sex.
When we examine R. Meir’s explanation of niddah separation in this context, we are not surprised that his answer is sexual, because this question, like the others in this series, is sexual and not biological. But his answer is also sexist. The theme of the entire unit is the superiority of and preference for males. Therefore, R. Meir’s statement, read in context, does not say that a couple that practices the rules of family purity, as they are now called, will enhance their sexual satisfaction and intimacy, an acceptable rationale for following them often cited today. Rather, in context, R. Meir is saying that, like other rules of the Torah that benefit men, so does this one, in that the separation will enhance a man’s pleasure when his wife is once again permitted to him. According to this logic, the woman’s sexual pleasure is an incidental derivative of the man’s. Thus, although it may be true that both he and she benefit sexually as a result of the monthly separation, the genesis of this notion is sexist.
Niddah as Didactic Construct
The commandment of niddah serves, as noted above, as a prime example of a mitzvah clearly stipulated by the Torah, unlike so many others that the rabbis themselves introduced. Because of niddah’s role as a paradigm, the rabbis issued rulings about it that they constructed for didactic purposes only. These rulings cannot, therefore, be considered practical instruction. The reason that it is necessary to identify and document this phenomenon is that a passage like the following could easily be understood as saying that women, in the eyes of the rabbis, were no more than sex objects.
The following passage from M Shevuot deals with the punishments levied on a court for issuing mistaken teachings. It uses the example of niddah to illustrate the principle of the doubling of punishment.
… What is the positive mitzvah regarding a niddah for which the rabbinical court, if it issued a mistaken ruling about it, must bring a sacrifice [called par he’elem davar shel tzibbur]?
If a man was engaging in sex with a woman who was ritually clean and she said to him, I just now became ritually unclean, and he immediately withdrew, he is liable, because withdrawing [erect] gives him as much pleasure as entering [erect]. [If the court instructed him to behave in this manner, it incurs a liability.] (M Shevuot 2:4)
==What should he do?
––Said R. Huna in the name of Rav: Dig his nails into the ground [i.e., bed] and wait until it [his penis] dies [i.e., until he loses the erection]. (BT Shevuot 18b)
When read in context, we see that this mishnah has two goals. The secondary one is to teach that the ban on sex with a niddah is so extreme that if she became a niddah in the course of sexual relations, he must terminate the encounter in a way that minimizes his physical pleasure. But the primary goal is to teach something else, namely, that in addition to the negative rule—do not draw near to a niddah—there is a positive one as well, that a man must separate himself from her if already involved with her. The surrounding mishnahs make similar claims for other mitzvot. Although it is not obvious that this doubling is what the Torah had in mind,59It was the rabbis themselves who decided that there was also a positive mitzvah associated with the niddah; it is not explicit in the Torah. We read in M Horayot 2:4, “What is the positive mitzvah associated with a niddah? To separate oneself from her [פרש מן הנדה]. What is the negative mitzvah? Do not draw near to a niddah [לא תבא אל הנדה].” Shevuot 18b attempts to derive it from the Torah itself, citing and expounding on “ותהי נדתה עליו” (Lev. 15:24). But the verse hardly supplies us with a source for the positive rule of “separate from a niddah.” See also M Yevamot 6:1. it is a standard technique of the rabbis to increase the number of Torah admonitions in order to double the corresponding punishments for behavior that they were especially interested in eradicating. Therefore, to demonstrate the existence of a positive mitzvah associated with the ban on relations with a niddah, they needed to create a case illustrating it—not an easy task at all. For this reason they constructed a scenario that, to the reader, may seem preposterous. Nevertheless, the rabbis had little choice. Only by reading this mishnah in context can one understand it in this way, and even, to my mind, understand it at all.
Again, it is hard not to notice the male perspective from which this rule, and many others, are written. In this case the woman is little more than an object or prop, conveniently present for his sexual gratification and conveniently niddah in order to generate halakhic tension. But since this mishnah, as already noted, is more interested in teaching the principle of a double punishment for a serious transgression than a particular halakhic rule, it need not consider the effect of its rule on all the parties to the act. In this instance of insensitivity to women, is it apologetic to say that all that is relevant is the halakhic principle? I do not think so. The likelihood of such a case arising is so slight, and the possibility of seeking a rabbinic opinion before sexual disengagement is so logistically complicated, that this source can only be viewed as a didactic construct and not practical advice.
Immersion
M Niddah makes no reference to immersion at the end of a menstrual period. In fact, when the Mishnah mentions immersion, it refers to other cases, such as the immersion of a kohen before eating sacred food or the immersion of utensils in order to render them ritually pure. Only a few passages, in other tractates, refer to the immersion of a woman at the end of her menstrual period.
A niddah who… went down and immersed... If she put her hair in her mouth, or made a fist, or pursed her lips tightly, it is as if she has not immersed. (M Mikvaot 8:5)
The Tannaim here assume that women must immerse at the end of the menstrual period and state several specific restrictions. But they seem to have found no need to elaborate on the details of this ritual. This silence probably means that women knew what to do. Unless the rabbis were changing the rules or adding to them, there was no need to spell things out.
The Amoraim, however, do discuss issues related to the immersion of a niddah. Three topics merit much attention: whether a niddah may immerse in the daytime or only at night, what constitutes an interposition that invalidates the immersion (because some part of her body did not come into contact with the water), and how close to the time of immersion is it necessary for a woman to wash her hair (66a–68a).60It seems likely that the rabbis are referring to pubic hair. One of these, a discussion of the time of immersion, is relevant to our discussion of the development of the laws of niddah in the amoraic period.
––Said Rav: A niddah who immerses herself on time [at the end of the seventh day], only immerses herself at night. But one who immerses not on time [only later], may immerse either in the daytime or at night.
––R. Yohanan said: Whether she immerses on time or not, she only immerses at night, because of the possibility of misleading her daughter [סרך בתה, who may mistakenly immerse on the seventh in the daytime, Rashi].
––And even Rav retracted, as reported by R. Hiyya bar Ashi in the name of Rav: A niddah, on time or not on time, only immerses at night….
––R. Iddi arranged in Naresh for women to immerse on the eighth day [in the daytime] because of the lions.
––R. Aha b. Jacob [did the same] in Papponia because of thieves.
––R. Judah [did the same] in Pumbedita because of the chill.
––Rava [did the same] in Mehoza because of abula’ei [אבולאי].61This word has a number of interpretations. See the Jastrow dictionary. One possible interpretation is “city gates” or those who loiter there.
––Said R. Pappa to Rava and Abaye: Now that the rabbis have made all niddot into doubtful zavot [and require them to count seven clean days], let them immerse on the seventh day [in the daytime]…. (BT Niddah 67b)
This small section illustrates two important points, one of which, the addition of seven clean days to the niddah separation, is discussed above. The other is the alteration of an already determined halakhah. In this case, since it was considered dangerous for women to go out at night in order to immerse, the rabbis of a long list of Babylonian towns declared it permissible for them to immerse in the daytime of the eighth (or any later) day. As the Talmud recounts, daytime immersion was at first permitted by Rav but later abandoned by him in favor of the more stringent position, proposed by R. Yohanan, a rabbi in the land of Israel. This led, in the course of time, to difficulties in Babylonia, leading many rabbis to revert back to the more lenient opinion.
This is a rather interesting case of the real needs of the people, in this case women, serving to influence the course of halakhic development. The stringency that was exported from Palestine to Babylonia had to be abandoned because of the difference in life circumstances.
Conclusions
Unlike many other issues surveyed in these chapters, niddah moves from leniency to stringency, but not evenly and not without contradictory trends. The rabbis seem to be affected by the fact that the niddah is grouped in the Torah with the zav and zavah. And since it is hard for them to distinguish between a flow of blood during a menstrual period and at other times, they erase the Torah’s distinction and mesh the two institutions: Any uterine blood, seen at any time during the month, necessitates, with the termination of its flow, a set of seven white or clean days. On the one hand, this absolute rule simplifies matters enormously, in that a woman need not distinguish between the blood of niddah and zivah. On the other, the rule moves in the direction of stringency by maximizing the number of days each month during which a woman is forbidden to engage in sexual relations with her husband. Three distinct time periods seem to have occurred in the development of the laws of niddah: early tannaitic stringency, later tannaitic and early amoraic leniency, and later amoraic stringency, beginning about the time of R. Zera.
The leniencies found in these chapters are more prominent than the stringencies. The requirement of cumbersome self-examination is limited to the issue of the preparation of ritually pure food, which itself disappeared not later than the amoraic period and most likely sooner. For sexual relations, excessive self-examination was eliminated. Great efforts are made to call the blood that a woman sees not menstrual and not zivah, but simple pure blood that came from a source other than the womb. Anecdotes affirm that the rabbis actually ruled leniently in these matters. Moreover, R. Akiva seems bent on easing some of the rules of niddah and zav, possibly because of people’s rejection of the stringent excesses of previous generations. Such a phenomenon can be seen in other rulings of R. Akiva and also in tractate Shabbat, in which the old prohibitions of moving utensils from one place to another on the Sabbath are relaxed by the later Tannaim.62T Shabbat 14:1; BT Shabbat 123b; PT Shabbat 17:5; 16a. See Yitzhak Gilat, The Teachings of R. Eliezer Ben Hyrcanos and Their Position in the History of the Halakha (Tel Aviv: Bar Ilan University, 1968), chap. 1.
It is also noteworthy that all of the texts talk about the niddah in her own home, preparing food for the family or refraining from engaging in sexual relations with her husband. There is no reason to believe that her state as a niddah or zavah in any way affected her dealings with the world outside her home. There is no mention of her inability to enter a synagogue or to perform any rituals. The picture that is drawn of a niddah is of a woman who lives her life rather normally, goes out as much as she does at any other time, engages in the same activities and chores, but separates sexually from her husband for seven days a month.
In the course of time, when eating food in ritual purity was no longer relevant, the only parts of the laws of niddah that remained were the menstrual separation, the added days, and immersion. Aside from immersion, these laws affect men in the same way they affect women in a monogamous society, which rabbinic society apparently was.63Tal Ilan (Jewish Women in Greco-Roman Palestine [Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1995], 86–88) suggests that polygamy was not common among the poorer classes but was common among the well-to-do. That is, although this tractate is about women, the trajectory of the rules includes men almost as much as women. The longer she is considered ritually impure, the longer the period of abstinence from sexual activity for both of them.
What does all this say about a woman’s body? Not necessarily that men considered it an object. Rather, biblical religion regarded genital discharges, from men and women alike, with fear or revulsion. The cult of purity seems to transcend gender. Minor differences are established between men’s and women’s purification rites and even their ability to transmit impurity, but in general, ritually unclean men and women are treated in a similar manner. The situation of relative parity changed in the rabbinic period. Niddah remained a topic of practical relevance but zav became a subject of theoretical interest only. Even if we ascribe the beginnings of niddah to a blood taboo (and the beginnings of zav to a semen taboo), it later was transformed into a set of rules governing food preparation for those who chose to eat only ritually pure food and a way of regulating sex for married couples. Niddah, at the beginning of the rabbinic period, or in the prerabbinic period, was thus a less sexist institution than it was at the end, both because the rules of zav became inoperative over time and also because additional layers of rules, many of them stringencies, were superimposed on the biblical core throughout the rabbinic period.
Since the topic of sex came up fairly frequently in this tractate, it is also important to note that the standard assumption here is that a man initiates sexual activity for his own pleasure. A woman’s being a niddah stands in the way of his gratification. Women’s needs are acknowledged and men are instructed to satisfy them, but only, for the most part, as an incidental outcome of meeting his own sexual needs. None of this is surprising in a patriarchal culture. As for the theory that the rules of niddah were instituted in order to deepen marital sexual pleasure for both husband and wife, we see that this is not wholly true. Enhancing a man’s sexual pleasure in marriage is an after-the-fact rabbinic explanation for the Torah’s mandated menstrual separation. That women, too, benefit from the separation was not mentioned by the rabbis.
It is also possible that an interest in promoting procreation underlies some of the legislation on this topic. The likely result of bringing a couple back together after a one or two week separation, exactly at the time that she is most fertile, is increased opportunity for conception. It is not clear that the rabbis knew these facts in a precise manner, but some of them pointed to a correlation between these biological phenomena.