Q&A: Touching a Niddah Woman in Order to Save Her
Touching a Niddah Woman in Order to Save Her
Question
Am I allowed to touch my wife when she is a niddah in order to save her from a life-threatening danger? (I saw in the Shulchan Arukh that it says one must be killed rather than transgress.)
Answer
There is indeed such an opinion among the halakhic authorities, but in my view there is no logic whatsoever in being stringent about this. As far as I remember, this was not written in the Shulchan Arukh itself but only by the Bayit Shmuel, though that does not change the practical halakhic ruling.
Discussion on Answer
Good question. The Talmud (Sotah 21b) says that this is because it is not proper conduct to look at her. Perhaps according to the Bayit Shmuel the intent is that there is in fact a prohibition of looking, or that it is possible to save her without looking. But if it is a prohibition that falls under the category of accessories of forbidden sexual relations, then one indeed should not save her.
And Tosafot there cites the Jerusalem Talmud, which implies that it disagrees with this, and perhaps it really does prohibit saving her in the case of a sexual prohibition, and only in the case of delaying in order to remove the tefillin is one called a foolish pietist.
But as I said, all this is quite astonishing.
It seems to me that even in the Babylonian Talmud there are passages that disagree regarding the basis of the Ran’s principle that one must give up his life over accessories of forbidden sexual relations, and perhaps according to the Bayit Shmuel the passage in Sotah is not accepted as practical halakhah. In fact, if you look there in the passage, you will see that the law of a “cunning wicked person” is brought as practical halakhah, but not that of a foolish pietist.
According to the Bayit Shmuel’s approach, what is the difference between this and a foolish pietist?