010 - הִלְכוֹת אִסּוּרֵי בִּיאָה פֵּרֶק י

Laws of Issurei Bi'ah, Chapter 10

1. Every woman who gives birth is tamei like a niddah, even if she did not see blood. It is the same whether she gave birth to a live child or a dead one, or even a nefel (miscarried fetus): if it is male, she observes the laws for a male; and if female, she observes the laws for a female. This is provided that its form has been completed; and the form of the fetus is not completed in less than forty days, whether male or female.

2. A woman who miscarries within forty days does not have the tumah of childbirth, even on the fortieth day. If she miscarried on the forty-first day after relations, she is a safek yoledes (possibly one who gave birth), and she observes the laws for a male, for a female, and for a niddah. If the human form was extremely fine and not clearly recognizable, she observes the laws for a male and for a female; and this is what is called shefir merukam (a formed sac).

3. What is a shefir merukam? At the beginning of a person's formation, his body is like a lentil; his two eyes are like two drops of a fly, far from each other; his two nostrils are like two drops of a fly, close to each other; his mouth is open like a hair; and he has no articulation of hands and feet. If his form is more defined than this, but it is not yet recognizable whether it is male or female, it is not examined in water but in oil, for oil makes it clear. One brings a splinter with a smooth tip and moves it in that place from above downward: if it catches, it is known to be male; and if one sees in that place something like a split barley grain, it is female, and it needs no examination. In all these forms of miscarried fetuses, she is not given the days of tohar until the fetus has grown hair.

4. If she miscarried a white piece of tissue: if it was torn open and a bone was found in it, she has the tumah of childbirth. If she miscarried a sac full of water, full of blood, full of matter of various colors, or full of flesh—since it is not formed, she need not be concerned about a child.

5. A child born through the wall of the abdomen (yotzei dofen): his mother does not have the tumah of childbirth, and he does not bring about days of tumah or days of tohar, as it says, "אִשָּׁה כִּי תַזְרִיעַ, וְיָלְדָה" ("if a woman conceives and gives birth," Vayikra 12:2)—she must give birth from the place where she conceives. If a woman had hard labor and gave birth to a child through the abdominal wall, the blood of hard labor that comes through the womb is zivah or niddah, and the blood that comes out through the abdominal wall is tamei. If no blood came out through the womb, the woman is tahor, even though the blood that came out of her side is tamei; for a woman is not tamei unless her flow comes out through her private place.

6. If the fetus was cut up in her womb and came out limb by limb—whether it came out in the order of the limbs, for example the foot came out, then the shin, then the thigh, or out of order—she does not have the tumah of childbirth until most of it has come out. If its whole head came out at once, that is like most of it. If it was not cut up, but came out in the normal way, once most of its forehead has come out it is considered born, even if it was cut up afterward.

7. If the fetus put out its hand and withdrew it, the mother has the tumah of childbirth by the words of the Sofrim; but she has no days of tohar until the child, or most of it, comes out, as we have said.

8. A woman who miscarries something like a domestic animal, a wild animal or a bird: if its face was like a human face, it is a child—if male, she observes the laws for a male; if female, she observes the laws for a female; and if it is not recognizable whether male or female, she observes the laws for a male and for a female—even though the rest of the body resembles a domestic animal, a wild animal or a bird. If its face is not like the form of a human face—even though the rest of the body is a complete human body, its hands and feet are human hands and feet, and it is female or male—it is not a child, and its mother does not have the tumah of childbirth.

9. What is the form of a human face? That the forehead, the eyebrows, the eyes, the cheeks and the jaw are like the form of a human. But the mouth, ears and nose—even if they are like those of a domestic or wild animal—it is a child.

10. A woman who miscarries the likeness of a snake—its mother has the tumah of childbirth, because its eyeball is round like a human's. A woman who miscarries the likeness of a human that has wings of flesh—its mother has the tumah of childbirth. If it was formed with one eye and one thigh: if they were at the side, so that it is like half a human, its mother has the tumah of childbirth; and if they were in the middle, its mother is tahor, for this is a different kind of creature.

11. If it was formed with its esophagus closed; or it was missing from the navel down and is closed; or its skull was closed; or its face was smeared over with no recognizable features; or it has two backs and two spines; or she miscarried a formed head that is not cut off, or a hand that is not cut off—any nefel of these is not a child, and its mother does not have the tumah of childbirth. But if she miscarried a severed hand and a severed foot, they are presumed to be from a complete child, and they combine toward most of its limbs.

12. At times, from the rest of the blood from which a person is formed, a piece congeals like the tongue of an ox and wraps around part of the fetus; this is called a sandal. Such a sandal never forms except together with a child; but a piece that formed by itself without a child is not called a sandal. Most fetuses do not have a sandal with them. At times something strikes a pregnant woman on her belly, and the fetus is spoiled and becomes like this sandal; at times recognizable facial features remain in it, and at times the fetus dries out and changes, and the blood congeals on it until no recognizable facial features remain in it. Therefore, a woman who miscarries a male and a sandal with it—even though there are no recognizable facial features in the sandal—observes the laws for a male and for a female, for perhaps this sandal was a female. They were stringent about it, treating it as a child for tumah even though it has no facial form, since she has the tumah of childbirth because of the child with it.

13. The thick covering, which is like a leather bag, within which the child is formed and which surrounds it and the sandal if there is a sandal with it, and which the child tears when its time comes to go out, and goes out—this is called the shilya (afterbirth). At the beginning of its formation it resembles a woof thread; it is hollow like a trumpet and thick like a chicken's gizzard. A shilya is not less than a tefach.

14. A woman who miscarries a shilya observes the laws for a male and for a female—not that the shilya is a child, but because there is no shilya without a child. If she miscarried a nefel and afterward miscarried a shilya, one is concerned about the shilya, and it is like another child; we do not say, "This is the shilya of the nefel," for one attributes a shilya only to a viable child. Therefore, if she gave birth to a viable child and miscarried a shilya, even after twenty-three days, it is attributed to the child, and one is not concerned about another child, for the child tore the shilya and went out.

15. If she miscarried a shilya first and afterward gave birth to a viable child, one is concerned that the shilya is another child, and it is not attributed to the child that comes after it, for it is not the way of a shilya to come out before the child. If part of the shilya came out on the first day and part on the second, we count for her from the first day, and give her days of tohar only from the second day, to be stringent.

16. If she miscarried the likeness of a domestic animal, a wild animal or a bird, and a shilya was attached to it, one is not concerned about a child. If it is not attached to it, the stringencies of two children are imposed on them; for I say, perhaps a shefir merukam that was in this shilya dissolved, and perhaps the shilya of this sac, which is the likeness of a domestic or wild animal, dissolved.

17. All these women for whom one is concerned about a shilya are not given days of tohar. Any woman who miscarried something that is not a child, or a sac, within forty days, before its form was completed: if blood came out with it, she is a niddah or a zavah; and if it came out dry, without blood, she is tahor.

18. A woman who gave birth to male and female twins observes the laws for a female. If she gave birth to a tumtum (one of hidden gender) or an androginos (one with both male and female organs), she observes the laws for a male and for a female. If she gave birth to twins, one male and the other a tumtum or androginos, she observes the laws for a male and for a female. If one was female and the other a tumtum or androginos, she observes the laws for a female only; for a tumtum and an androginos are in doubt—perhaps they are male, perhaps female.

19. A woman known to be pregnant who gave birth, and it is not known what she bore—for example, she crossed a river and miscarried there, or she miscarried into a pit, or she miscarried and an animal dragged it away—is presumed to have miscarried a child, and she observes the laws for a male and for a female. But if she was not known to be pregnant, and miscarried, and it is not known what she miscarried, she is a safek yoledes, and she observes the laws for a male, for a female, and for a niddah.

20. Wherever we said she observes the laws for a male and for a female, what is her law? She is forbidden to her husband for fourteen days, like one who gave birth to a female—the first seven certainly, and the second seven out of doubt; and she is given days of tohar only up to forty days, like one who gave birth to a male. If she saw blood after forty days, up to eighty, it is not dam tohar, but possibly niddah blood, or possibly zivah blood if it came in the days of zivah, as we have explained. Likewise, if she saw blood on the eighty-first day alone, she is a safek niddah, and observes the seven days of niddah, for perhaps she gave birth to a female; for she has no fixed period of niddah until after the days of fulfillment are complete, as we have explained.

21. Wherever we said she observes the laws for a male, for a female, and for a niddah, what is her law? She is forbidden to her husband for fourteen days, like one who gave birth to a female. If she saw blood on the eighty-first day, she is a safek niddah; likewise, if she saw blood on the seventy-fourth day and on the eighty-first day, she is a safek niddah. Likewise, if she saw blood on the forty-first day—even though she saw on the thirty-fourth day—she is a safek niddah, and she is forbidden to her husband until the night of the forty-eighth, as one who gave birth to a male. She is not given days of tohar at all, like a niddah, and she is as one who did not give birth. Any blood she sees from the day she miscarried until eighty days: if it came in her days of niddah, she is a safek niddah after the seven days from the day she miscarried; and if it came in her days of zivah, she is a safek zavah—for during all the days of fulfillment there is no fixed period. Likewise, if she saw on the eighty-first day, she is still disrupted and is a safek niddah, as we have explained, even though she saw only one day. When her fixed period is established after the eighty days, her disruption is removed, and she returns to being a definite niddah or a definite zavah. Likewise from the day she miscarried until seven days, she is a definite niddah if she miscarried within her days of niddah, as we have explained.