Mayim Rabim

Husband? Cook? I didn't just giggle at that, I laughed out loud. Not in my house.

But I do seem to remember learning something in t'h classes about not swapping beds - at least not *during* a niddah period - that's how your comment came across.

And as far as the Torah, (also vague, sorry) I remember hearing something about how a woman who does NOT usually go to shul sort of shouldn't make a point of going for Torah reading while she's niddah, which leads me to believe that there IS some issue of ritual impurity involved.

I would guess with the food as well, although it is probably more likely that some other woman in the extended family prepared the meals - unless all the women became niddah together? Nah, *someone* was probably pregnant. . . although Yaakov did make his own lentil soup. . .

I *just* went and read the link - oh, my! and it's not worth commenting there, because I get the distinct feeling she isn't interested anyway!

Michal, we've checked our bed arrangement out with our own Rabbi - he said it was absolutely no problem (in fact he thought it was ingenious). I'm not telling anyone else what to do, of course, but you don't need to worry about us.

As far as I understand the issue is for each of you not to use the other's bed (presumably because this will arouse thoughts of the other). But if *neither* bed is specifically yours or his, that doesn't apply.

I'd be interested to hear a source for the torah reading custom! Whenever I've asked, I've been told any hesitation about touching the Torah during niddut is due to lack of education. A sefer torah is not mekabel tum'ah (cannot become impure).

If there were still a Temple we probably would be very careful, but the same cautiouness would apply to a multitude of other people who were ritually impure, including any man who had had sex. I personally cannot fathom those days.

Someone asked me once if I had ever heard of a woman in niddah not coming to shul, because a new mother wasn't sure she should be at her son's bris, since it's in shul, after all. I think it comes from the thing about a niddah not setting foot on the Temple mount... but am more sure that it doesn't apply to going to synagogue.

I was told not to look directly at the words of the Torah (when it was lifted up) while I was actually menstruating, but whether or not I had been to mikvah and gotten out of niddah was irrelevant.

The food thing... well, I've seen it in the Zoastrian menstrual laws that some people like to claim our T"H laws are based on... after a menstruating woman touched the food, (and then stopped touching it?) she couldn't eat the leftovers either. It was totally forbidden to everyone thereafter. Not a Jewish custom, that's for sure! The Torah goes out of its way to make sure cheap earthenware vessels won't be contaminated if a house is declared to have tza'aras (bad translation: spiritual leprosy, and yes, houses and clothes could get it too, not just people) by removing them from the house before a Kohein examined it. Food touched by a niddah forbidden as an offering, maybe. Invalidate teruma, possibly. But make unkosher? No way!

eden -

I'm glad to hear your Rav OK'd it - and it had not occurred to me that the regular swapping made them both not "your" bed. . . I'm curious what ramifications that may have with regards to the "can't sit on her bed", etc. type harchakos. . . do they not apply? The concept that you can choose to not designate hadn't occurred to me. I guess that's the ingenious part.

And about the Torah - I've heard what Desde says, about not looking - maybe that's related to what I'm remembering about sort of "going out of your way" to go hear leining then?

"I'm curious what ramifications that may have with regards to the "can't sit on her bed", etc. type harchakos. . . do they not apply?"

Right. I suppose we could go by who slept in the bed last night, or who's going to tonight, but which? It's usually not the same person. I kind of felt like we were cheating, getting out of a bunch of harchakot like that, but I felt much better after we asked.

This whole sefer torah thing is getting curiouser and curiouser! I've never heard anything about not looking at a sefer torah, or not coming to shul specifically to hear torah reading. A google search yielded the following results (please feel free to correct me if I've mis-cited or misunderstood anything, I'm doing this in a hurry, for the sake of further research rather than conclusions):

According to this and this (I should go look it up inside myself, but I haven't yet), the Rambam says anyone may hold AND read from a sefer torah, including a niddah, because a sefer torah is not mekabel tum'ah. The Shulchan Aruch apparently brings that down as halacha. Rabbi Aaron Soloveitchik is quoted as paskening this way in practice.

But according to footnote 15 of this , and footnote 30 of this, the Ramah and the Magen Avraham and maybe some others say a woman who's a niddah (doesn't mention any distinction between actively menstruating or not, Desde) should not look at a sefer torah during hagbahah.

According to this Yoatzot Q&A, those who say a woman should not hold a torah when she's a niddah, do so based on custom (and there is room to permit it nowadays). Makes me wonder if the Ramah & Magen Avraham were citing a custom about not looking at it, too.

And of course I should have known to look here first, but Aviel (of Netivat Sofrut) has done an in-depth post on all this! It sounds that blog I originally linked to didn't invent this stuff herself: there is a sectarian text which says not only should a woman "not enter a beit kneset (synagogue) or touch a Sefer Torah or say G@d's name when she is in niddah" , but also "a Niddah needs to have separate dishes, sheets, clothing, as well as her own room, & nobody can eat her cooking or benefit from her work." The former is cited by the Ramah, but we definitely do not pasken (and have never paskened) like the latter.

Which leaves me, and I think Aviel too, wondering whether the customs of not touching or looking at a torah while in niddut are remnants from this non-normative tradition, too.

Here is the comment that I left for Aziza:

Hi Aziza,

I'm curious about the source of this information. What were you reading? It sounds to me like most of it comes from a a certain anonymous medieval Jewish text called Beraita deNiddah, which prohibits menstruants from touching food or utensils used by others, attending synagogue, coming into contact with sacred texts, or praying or reciting blessings of any sort. It also states that the breath or gaze of a menstruant can be dangerous, causing crop damage, illness, etc.

Fortunately, Beraita deNiddah is not considered authoritative by contemporary Orthodox authorities. In fact, today's Orthodox rabbis would generally agree that women are required to pray and recite blessings while menstruating. Some women do have the custom of not touching Torah scrolls, either at any time or during their periods, but the custom is not derived from Jewish law.

Many Israeli women of Middle Eastern origin maitain the custom not to pray or recite blessings while they are menstruating, even though the practice it was declared incorrect by their chief rabbi. I have heard that these communities learned the practice from neighboring Muslims, but I don't know enough about Muslim practice to be able to surmise whether this is correct. From what I have heard, Muslim laws regarding menstruation are generally less stringent than Jewish laws, except that they forbid prayer and contact with the sacred (which contemporary Jewish law does not). I have also heard that some muslim women enjoy having a break from their religious duties, although one can understand why others would find this sort of "break" offensive.

As one of your commenters has already pointed out, the biblical laws of purity and impurity are no longer considered binding since the destruction of the second Jerusalem temple in 70 A.D. Orthodox women are prohibited from touching their husbands, sharing beds, and, in some circles, sharing food, but the rationale given for these prohibitions is not to prevent the spread of impurity, but rather, to prevent sex, which is forbidden by rabbinic law from the onset of menstruation until seven days after bleeding ceases, at which point the woman immerses in a ritual bath, called a mikvah (or mikveh, or miqweh).

Do these regulations still seem misogynistic to you? If so, you are certainly not alone. (I am somewhat ambivalent myself.) However, many observant Jewish women find the practice of using the mikvah spiritually uplifting; they see it as vehicle for recognizing the holiness of their bodies and sanctifying their sex lives. So I guess it's all a matter of perspective.

We moved when I was 8 months pregnant at that time I didn't want to decide which bed would be mine (both big so no competition) we asked a rav and he said that after i had the baby if I didn't like the one I picked, I could switch back. But I had to technically have "my bed" and although if I didn't like it, I could switch it, but I can't do as the rav above switched of every night taking turns..i guess it depends who you ask...

Great letter, Ruchama. Nicely non-inflammatory. Hopefully it will make the blogger rethink her position, but even if it doesn't, it will hopefully encourage her readers to consider all aspects of this before rabidly latching on to an carved-in-stone opinion.

"the Ramah and the Magen Avraham and maybe some others say a woman who's a niddah (doesn't mention any distinction between actively menstruating or not, Desde) should not look at a sefer torah during hagbahah."

Ah, but this was when a niddah was such for 7 days and then immersed and was no longer, right? No such thing as our extended niddus during "white" days.

That info came from my kallah teacher, and was supposed to be relevant before I was actually married and hence not actually using the mikvah.

And Ruchama, thank you... excellent summary and response.

The Kitzur Shulchan Aruch (153:16) says:

"The custom is that a woman who is a Niddah, during the days of her bleeding before she begins to count (7 Clean Days), does not go to Shul and does not Daven. However, on the High Holidays (from the first day of Selichos and on), when many people come to Shul and she will be upset if she cannot go, she may go and Daven."

My little Kitzur Shulchan Aruch (from high school!) has a note pointing to Shulchan Aruch Orach Chaim 88, where the Mishnah Berurah mentions (among other things) that a woman who has given birth may attend Shul, and that a Niddah clearly needs to Daven and say all Brochos even if she doesn't go to Shul -- but if she does, she shouldn't look at the Sefer Torah itself.

Just for the record -- our Rav said that I definitely can go to Shul and Daven, but that I shouldn't look at the Torah (and definitely not touch it). Obviously, it comes from somewhere...

Oh, excellent! I didn't realize anyone was leaving feedback on the other blog. Good job, one and all. (And I'm glad to see from Ruchama's response that my quick run-through was at least somewhat on target.)

I once heard someone say that nowadays we tend to think of ritual impurity as something much more negative than it can possibly be. Because there's no Temple, to us it's associated only with menstruation (which in so many other societies has been considered dirty or dangerous, and even for us, means being deprived of physical affection), or with death (which of course no one wants). We think of it as a state we should be sad that we're in, maybe even a state that reflects badly on us, and that we should get out of as fast as we can.

We don't think about the fact that in the old days there were so many forms of it, built into daily life, that most people (unless they regularly worked in the Temple) probably spent most of their time in a state of impurity. And in fact some of the ways one can become impure are not just daily events, but mitzvot! For instance, a man having sex with his wife.

Anyway, might not be a novel perspective to anyone else, but it was to me.

To FYI: I guess my husband and I got lucky then! :-) I'm certainly not advocating that anyone do what we do without checking it out with your own rabbi first.

Desde, I'm a tiny bit confused - when you say "this was when a niddah was such for 7 days and then immersed and was no longer", what are you referring to? I assume you don't mean when the Ramah and Magen Avraham lived. (Maybe you mean when the Baraita DeNiddah was written?)

I'm also puzzled by your kallah teacher's rationale, but of course you don't need to defend her (or whatever custom she based it on.) To me it doesn't appear that the sources support any conceptual difference between when you're menstruating and when you're not, only between niddah and tehorah.

This is all fascinating and answering a lot of my questions, but I'm still wondering about whether/how inanimate objects become ritually impure; whether the niddah state makes more types of objects impure (or for longer) than the impurity a man would have due to sex; and whether/how it can be removed from those objects (because clearly you can't immerse everything in the mikvah!)

There's a Q&A on the Yoatzot website that says mattresses can become impure, for instance. I would guess most of the time that wouldn't be such a big deal, and a man or woman who had slept on that mattress could just make sure to go to mikvah before they went to the Temple. But I wonder if it did mean women used to always be the ones to leave the marital bed, when they were niddah?

Can anyone give us an overview? It can be a new post, if it gets too big!

Desde, I'm a tiny bit confused - when you say "this was when a niddah was such for 7 days and then immersed and was no longer", what are you referring to? I assume you don't mean when the Ramah and Magen Avraham lived. (Maybe you mean when the Baraita DeNiddah was written?)

saw this again because of comment spam... as Sara said, maybe they are sometimes useful! Anyway, eden, my knowledge of Jewish history is a bit hazy, so it's probably just that I was confused. However, I do have some recollection (from a story in the Genorah, I bleieve) that in the times past (time of the Mishna? Gemorah?) women actually immersed twice, once when they made a hefsek taharah and once after the 7 white days, so perhaps that "in-between" stage of no longer niddah but not yet available to their husbands went by another name? I haven't looked at the actual sources, but if there is an in-between stage, then that might better explain the conceptual difference that seems to be missing.

(And I still owe you a post about the permissability of making a hefsek taharah up to three days ahead... I haven't forgotten, just haven't gotten to it.)