011 - הִלְכוֹת אִסּוּרֵי בִּיאָה פֵּרֶק יא

Laws of Issurei Bi'ah, Chapter 11

1. All that we have said concerning a niddah, a zavah and a woman after childbirth is Torah law. They used to act according to these laws when the Great Beis Din was in existence, and there were great Sages there who could distinguish between kinds of blood. If a doubt arose for them concerning sightings of blood, or concerning the days of niddah or zivah, they would go up to the Beis Din and ask, as the Torah assured concerning them, as it says, "כִּי יִפָּלֵא מִמְּךָ דָבָר . . . בֵּין-דָּם לְדָם" ("if a matter is beyond you… between blood and blood," Devarim 17:8)—between niddah blood and zivah blood. In those days the daughters of Israel were careful in this matter, kept track of their fixed periods, and constantly counted the days of niddah and the days of zivah.

2. There is great difficulty in counting the days, and many times they would come to a doubt; for even if a girl saw blood on the day of her birth, from that day we begin to count for her days of niddah and days of zivah, as we have explained. Therefore a girl does not become tamei with zivah until she is ten days old: for if she saw blood on the day she was born, she is a niddah for seven days, and three days adjoining her niddah—that makes ten days. You have learned that from her first sighting she begins to count days of niddah and days of zivah for all her days, even if she saw while she was a minor.

3. In the days of the Sages of the Talmud, there was much doubt concerning sightings of blood, and fixed periods became disrupted, because not all women had the ability to count the days of niddah and the days of zivah. Therefore the Sages were stringent in the matter, and decreed that all of a woman's days should be treated as her days of zivah, and that all blood she sees should be considered possible zivah blood.

4. Moreover, the daughters of Israel took upon themselves a further stringency beyond this, and all of them practice it in every place where there are Jews: any daughter of Israel who sees blood—even if she saw only a drop the size of a mustard seed and the blood stopped—counts for herself seven clean days, even if she saw at the time of her niddah. Whether she saw one day, or two, or all seven, or more—once the blood stops, she counts seven clean days like a zavah gedolah. She immerses on the night of the eighth, even though she is only a possible zavah—or on the eighth day if there was a pressing need, as we have said—and afterward she is permitted to her husband.

5. Likewise, every woman who gives birth in our times is like one who gave birth while a zavah, and needs seven clean days, as we have explained. It is a widespread custom in Shinar (Babylonia), in Eretz Hatzvi (the Land of Israel), in Spain and in the Maghreb, that if she saw blood during the days of fulfillment—even if she saw it after she had counted seven clean days and immersed—she counts seven clean days after the blood stops, and she is not given days of tohar at all. Rather, any blood the woman sees—whether blood of hard labor or blood of tohar—she counts seven clean days after the blood stops.

6. This law was newly instituted in the days of the Geonim, and it was they who decreed that there should be no dam tohar at all. For the stringency the daughters of Israel took upon themselves in the days of the Sages of the Talmud applies only to one who sees blood that is tamei, for which she observes seven clean days; but blood she sees in the days of tohar after counting and immersion need not be a concern, for the days of tohar are not fit for niddah or for zivah, as we have explained.

7. We have heard that in France they have relations during dam tohar according to the law of the Talmud to this day, after counting and immersion that purify a woman who gave birth while a zavah; and this matter depends on custom.

8. Likewise the law of dam besulim (the blood of virginity) in our times: even if she was a minor whose time to see blood had not yet come, and she had never seen blood, the husband has the relations of the mitzvah and then separates. As long as she sees blood on account of the wound, she is tamei; and after the blood stops, she counts seven clean days.

9. Beyond this, any girl who was asked to marry and agreed waits seven clean days from when she agreed, and afterward she is permitted to have relations; for perhaps out of desire for the man she saw a single drop of blood and did not feel it. Whether the woman was an adult or a minor, she must observe seven clean days from when she agreed, and afterward immerse and have relations.

10. All these things are an extra stringency that the daughters of Israel have practiced since the days of the Sages of the Talmud, and one must never depart from it. Therefore, any woman who agreed when she was asked to marry should not marry until she has counted and immersed. If she married a talmid chacham, she is permitted to marry immediately, and she counts after she has married and immerses; for a talmid chacham knows that she is forbidden and is careful about this, and will not come near her until she has immersed.

11. The law of stains in our times is as we have explained, and nothing new has been introduced in it, nor any custom. Rather, every stain for which we said she is tahor, she is tahor; and every one for which we said she is tamei, she counts seven days from the day on which the stain was found. If the stain was of a size requiring concern about zivah, she counts seven days from after the day on which the stain was found; for one who sees blood is not like one who sees a stain.

12. Likewise, every case of childbirth in which we said that the mother is tahor, she is tahor in our times as well. Likewise a woman who saw white blood or green blood, or who expelled a red piece of tissue with no blood with it, is tahor even in our times; for they were stringent only with one who sees tamei blood, and this woman has not seen tamei blood.

13. Likewise, if she had a wound and blood was oozing from it, or the blood came with urine, she is tahor. Nothing new was introduced except the counting of seven clean days for any woman who sees tamei blood, as we have said, and that all appearances of blood are tamei.

14. What you find in some places—that a niddah observes seven days for her niddah even though she saw blood only one day, and after the seven she observes seven clean days—is not a custom; it is an error on the part of whoever ruled for them this way, and one should not turn to it at all. Rather, if she saw one day, she counts seven after it, immerses on the night of the eighth—which is the second night after her days of niddah—and is permitted to her husband.

15. Likewise what you find in some places, and find in responsa of some Geonim, that a woman who gave birth to a male may not have relations until the end of forty days, and one who gave birth to a female until after eighty, even though she saw blood only within the seven—this is not a custom, but an error in those responsa. It is a way of heresy in those places, and they learned this from the Tzedukim (Sadducees). It is a mitzvah to compel them, in order to remove it from their hearts and to return them to the words of the Sages—that she counts seven clean days alone, as we have explained.

16. A woman does not rise from her tumah and leave the status of ervah (a forbidden relation) until she immerses in the water of a kosher mikveh, and nothing may intervene between her flesh and the water. In the Laws of Mikvaos it will be explained which mikveh is kosher and which is invalid, the manner of immersion, and the laws of chatzitzah (intervening substances). But if she washed in a bathhouse—even if all the waters in the world fell upon her—after the washing she is as she was before the washing, liable to kares; for nothing raises a person from tumah to tahara except immersion in the water of a mikveh, or in a spring, or in seas that are like a spring, as will be explained in the Laws of Mikvaos.

17. Throughout the seven clean days in our times—even though they are only out of doubt—if she immersed during them, it is as if she did not immerse. If she immersed on the seventh day—even though it is forbidden to do so initially, lest he come to have relations on the seventh after the immersion—since she immersed at its proper time even had she been a definite zavah, the immersion is valid for her.

18. It is forbidden for a man to cling to his wife during the seven clean days, even if she is in her clothing and he is in his clothing. He should not come close to her, nor touch her even with his little finger, nor eat with her from one dish. The general rule is: he should conduct himself with her during the days of counting as he conducts himself with her during the days of niddah, for she is still subject to kares until she immerses, as we have explained.

19. All the tasks that a wife does for her husband, a niddah does for her husband, except washing his face, hands and feet, pouring his cup, and making the bed in his presence. This is a decree, lest he come to sin. For this reason she should not eat with him from one dish, and he should not touch her flesh, because of the habit of sin. Likewise during the seven clean days she should not do these three tasks for him. A woman is permitted to adorn herself during her days of niddah, so that she will not become unattractive to her husband.