Q&A: Women Ate Sour Grapes, and the Teeth of Their Educated and Upright Great-Granddaughters Are Set on Edge?
Women Ate Sour Grapes, and the Teeth of Their Educated and Upright Great-Granddaughters Are Set on Edge?
Question
A great many years ago, the daughters of Israel took upon themselves the stringency of observing, after the days of menstruation, another 7 forbidden days of the seven clean days.
And exactly as appears in the Talmud: a. this came from them and not necessarily from the study hall; b. they were stringent with themselves, and of course this was not the law, nor was it ever claimed that this should be the primary law; c. how developed were they then in understanding the implications and consequences? I have a double doubt about this: both what science knew then about the full range of consequences (to the extent that the meager science of that time can even be considered science…???) and what share women had in that knowledge. According to the Sages, they were not exactly the shining pinnacle of wisdom back then… d. they were stringent upon themselves and not upon the men, because the simple assumption is that a decent and proper Jewish male could then live with several women (and apparently in many cases that really was the reality), so if this one now is being stringent on herself for 7 days or 70 days, good for her—there are plenty of women waiting for him.
Today, when the damage is enormous and the slide into serious prohibitions lies at the door of the men because of such a long interruption of this basic human matter, maybe the time has come to say: enough?
A great many women really have no interest in this manufactured distancing, and apparently many men do not either.
The feeling is that this has destroyed, is destroying, and will continue to destroy many good and proper couples.
What are we guilty of, that some of the women of Israel a very long time ago were so backward and shortsighted?
How long will we keep paying cash and dismantling more and more families because of that nonsense?
Can nothing be done about it?
Answer
This is a complicated topic, and this is not the place to enter into it in depth. In general, I do not think this breaks up families and couples. One also has to distinguish between custom and Jewish law in this context. And of course one has to distinguish between this and the basic laws of a menstruant, etc., which is quite hard to do. But the custom in itself, where it is only a custom, can certainly be discussed as something to abolish, at least when necessary.
With God's help, 2 Adar I, 5782
The stringency of the “daughters of Israel” to sit seven clean days for every drop of blood can be implemented only when the Temple does not exist, because then there is no practical difference between the “days of menstruation” and the “days of abnormal discharge.” But when the Temple is rebuilt, every woman and girl will need to know clearly whether she is in the “days of menstruation,” in which six days and a bit are enough and no offering is required, or whether she is in the “days of abnormal discharge,” in which a woman who sees blood for three consecutive days requires seven clean days and an offering.
Even more complicated will be reviving the halakhic tradition capable of distinguishing between pure and impure shades of red, a tradition that, because of its weakening and perhaps its complete disappearance, no longer allows us to determine with certainty whether the woman is in the days of menstruation or the days of abnormal discharge.
It would seem that Elijah the Prophet and/or an assembly of sages, who will clarify all the doubts and forgotten traditions that currently prevent the ability to build the Temple, are the ones who will also revive the ability to distinguish between pure and impure red. When we succeed in formulating a halakhic ruling agreed upon by all Israel, the Temple will be rebuilt, and the daughters of Israel too will know to distinguish when six days and a bit are enough and when seven clean days are required.
Awaiting the rebuilding of the Temple and the renewal of the Sanhedrin, Hasdai Bezalel Duvdevani Kirshen-Kwas