Menstruation impurity

[Shana]

Why, in the Old Testament, were women considered impure during menstruation? How do you respond to the objection that the Bible is sexist because of this?

 

[Todd_Easton]

Pretty much any kind of bodily discharge rendered a person ritually unclean.

As far as countering the sexist charge, you might refer them to Leviticus 15:16 where it says that an emission of semen made a man ritually unclean.

 

[Tantum_ergo]

Umm, one could say that charging people of the 10th century B.C. or so as ‘sexist’ because the mores of the 21st century say their actions were sexist is rather silly.

What makes ‘today’s’ definition of what is or is not sexist , so to speak? Suppose that 200 years from now our descendants find our own ‘enlightened’ society guilty of unspeakable abuse against something that we, right now, don’t find ‘abusive’ at all. (For example, let’s say that 200 years from now our descendants insist that children function ‘best’ in a commune and are livid at US for ‘abusing’ our children in forcing them to live in families instead). So. . .we would be judged on their standards even though by our standards our behavior was not only normal, but actually judged to be BEST for the child.

I wonder how comfortable your correspondent would feel about somebody hundreds of years on retroactively judging his/her morality based not on said correspondent’s own knowledge and beliefs but on those he/she had never known or accepted. . .

 

[SaltnPeppa]

Why, in the Old Testament, were women considered impure during menstruation? How do you respond to the objection that the Bible is sexist because of this?

I believe that a big reason for the Levitical laws on when a person was clean and unclean and stuff like that was due to their own ignorance and may have been partly due to hygiene reasons. However, I think that perhaps a part of it was the “ickiness factor”. They thought that such discharges were gross and so they declared people having one of these discharges to be unclean. That said, this is only what I think on the issue and I am sure that someone out there has a better answer than I do.

 

[LilyM]

Remember that ‘ritually unclean’, as much as it sounds like an invariably negative thing, in fact didn’t always have a negative connotation.

What were the implications? A woman had to avoid intercourse and certain other things while menstruating. Well, so did she after childbirth. Are children - is the process of giving birth - icky? Quite the opposite. It’s a beautiful, fantastically sacred thing.

Menstruating women were considered special - as scripture says ‘the life is in the blood’. Hence also the prohibition against eating the blood of an animal.

So it’s because of the sacredness and the connection with life of menstruation that a woman was considered more-than-ordinarily sacred at that time of the month, as she was in childbirth, and as the blood of animals always was.

 

[survive]

LilyM made an excellent point about the meaning of “impurity” or “uncleanness”. Another thing is that the emissions of semen that rendered men ritually unclean happen more often than mentruation does.
Any bodily fluid that leaves the body is dead matter. Dead organic matter can easily putrefy and emit gases that inhibit plant growth, among other things. In many places where winemaking is a long-practiced art, a menstruating woman is not permitted to stand near the grapes; the chemicals the dead matter emits can inhibit fermentation.
I personally often wish there were menstual villages outside modern cities. Imagine spending the whole time among only people who know just how you feel, and resting up a little.

 

[Pug]

So it’s because of the sacredness and the connection with life of menstruation that a woman was considered more-than-ordinarily sacred at that time of the month, as she was in childbirth, and as the blood of animals always was.

I understand the concept of “unclean” and the concept of “sacred” to be different concepts. It is not desirable for the unclean to come into contact with the sacred. I suspect you may have read about this concept that you mention that a menstruating woman is sacred, so could you give me a link or reference to read about this? I suspect this because I think some other poster somewhere once also mentioned this concept and they maybe mentioned Fr. Pacwa? I don’t remember, though. But maybe you have a helpful link about it.

Examples of this same category of “unclean”

Gonorrhea (or the like)
Scale disease (often called “leprosy”)
corpse contamination (being in a tent when someone dies is an example of it)

Although someone mentioned it in this thread, in some ways I do not place the idea of a natural emission of semen in the identical category as being the menstruating woman. Of course, yes it is, but the natural emission of semen only requires the man to be unclean until evening, and doesn’t have that whole seven day thing attached to it and no sacrifices are required. Gonorrhea, scale disease, corpse contamination, and menstruation do.

What I do understand is that life is connected with blood. That part I understand. It is the part about the menstruant being sacred that I have not heard claimed before.

 

[Linda_Marie]

Since blood is life, any discharge of blood was considered to make one ritually impure. If men were wounded, for instance, they also would be ritually impure for a period of time and had to be cleansed before they could worship. Remember the Levite who passed by the beaten man who was helped by the Good Samaritan. He was on his way to Temple and did not want to become ritually unclean by touching the man’s blood.

My only beef was that men were ritually unclean for less time from a wound than a woman was from menstruation. Wounds come from fighting and causing others grevious bodily harm, or death while menstruation is preparing the womb for new life. It seemed to me like they got it backwards. I wonder if there is anything to the belief that a menstruating woman could disturb the fermentation process of wine, maybe bread too which maybe why she was not allowed to cook either. If there is, it could explain why they had a longer period of ritual impurity. I have found that if you look past the biblical language, there usually is a good non-religious reason behind ancient Jewish strictures.

LilyM has a good point though about the break. After having a son, you got 40 days ‘off’, and after a daughter 80. Despite it seeming discriminatory, it is actually beneficial to the woman. I saw something on TV years and years ago about a modern day practicing Jewish woman speaking about her period of impurity. She and her husband spent more time together doing other things, praying and reading Scripture. Her marriage was made stronger by that time of abstention. She also described the ritual bath as spiritually cleansing and how much she looked forward to it.

 

[Pug]

My only beef was that men were ritually unclean for less time from a wound than a woman was from menstruation. Wounds come from fighting and causing others grevious bodily harm, or death while menstruation is preparing the womb for new life. It seemed to me like they got it backwards. I wonder if there is anything to the belief that a menstruating woman could disturb the fermentation process of wine, maybe bread too which maybe why she was not allowed to cook either. If there is, it could explain why they had a longer period of ritual impurity. I have found that if you look past the biblical language, there usually is a good non-religious reason behind ancient Jewish strictures.

Menstruating women were not allowed to cook in biblical times? I thought they could. They were allowed to remain in the house. The deal was that her bed and the chair she sat on became “unclean”, and also this could transmit if another person were to sit on these items or if they were to touch her. Leviticus does not mention that the condition transmits through food (not for menstruation, not that I recall, anyway, I’m not great with recall). Is it that she is not allowed to cook in the Mishna or one of those other places? I mean regular food for the average family, like a kugel or something, not the kind of food that is sacred.

I thought in modern times an orthodox Jewish man and woman would not touch during niddah, but she could make his food? (but they can’t eat off each others plate, maybe, lest they touch?) I can see how the modern practice of niddah might make couples happy, sort of like NFP does for some Catholics. The modern practice seems to take longer, though, seven days past menstruation, instead of seven days as in the bible?

BTW, I don’t know about wounds, but if the man had killed in battle, it took seven days, just like menstruation (corpse contamination again, see Numbers 31, somewhere around verse 19 for a scene of returning from battle).

 

[LilyM]

I understand the concept of “unclean” and the concept of “sacred” to be different concepts. ** It is not desirable for the unclean to come into contact with the sacred**.

No, not just the unclean - anyone! Hence Moses (who wasn’t unclean, presumably) and the Burning Bush. Hence no-one at all being allowed to touch the Ark, or enter the Holy of Holies except the High Priest once a year. Hence the period of seclusion for a woman who’d given birth, which was not ‘unclean’ in any negative sense.

I suspect you may have read about this concept that you mention that a menstruating woman is sacred, so could you give me a link or reference to read about this? I suspect this because I think some other poster somewhere once also mentioned this concept and they maybe mentioned Fr. Pacwa? I don’t remember, though. But maybe you have a helpful link about it.

Certainly Fr Pacwa has mentioned it - which is where the idea first came to me.

Examples of this same category of “unclean”

What ‘same category’? Lepers had to totally isolate themselves from society altogether, were banished from the community, had to show themselves to the priests to prove that the leprosy was gone before they were allowed back in. Doesn’t sound at all like the same category as a menstruating woman to me!

Of course, yes it is, but the natural emission of semen only requires the man to be unclean until evening, and doesn’t have that whole seven day thing attached to it and no sacrifices are required. Gonorrhea, scale disease, corpse contamination, and menstruation do.

What of it? Childbirth required 40 or 80 days as well as a ritual bath and a sacrifice - was a mother who’d given birth more unclean in any icky, negative sense? Or simply more sacred? All sorts of sacrifices were given for all sorts of reasons - thanksgiving being one. Baths were taken in fact before ANY temple worship, if I remember rightly, as well as these other occasions outside. Again, just a symbol of their reentering normal life and recommencing normal worship practices.

What I do understand is that life is connected with blood. That part I understand. It is the part about the menstruant being sacred that I have not heard claimed before.

Menstruation is so intimately linked with reproduction, as is childbirth, that it makes sense to put the two together in terms of how they were viewed.

 

[Linda_Marie]

Menstruating women were not allowed to cook in biblical times? I thought they could. They were allowed to remain in the house. The deal was that her bed and the chair she sat on became “unclean”, and also this could transmit if another person were to sit on these items or if they were to touch her. Leviticus does not mention that the condition transmits through food (not for menstruation, not that I recall, anyway, I’m not great with recall). Is it that she is not allowed to cook in the Mishna or one of those other places? I mean regular food for the average family, like a kugel or something, not the kind of food that is sacred.
QUOTE]

It’s one of those things that I just picked up somewhere but I understood it to be no food, including the family meals. I always viewed it as a matter of sanitation in food preparation.
I’ll see if I can find something to back it up.

 

[Pug]

No, not just the unclean - anyone! Hence Moses (who wasn’t unclean, presumably) and the Burning Bush. Hence no-one at all being allowed to touch the Ark, or enter the Holy of Holies except the High Priest once a year

You are right that touching the holy was a problem for people, unrelated to the concept of clean. In fact, they had Levites around the tabernacle to slay people on sight who were going to enter somewhere because that would cause wrath to fall upon Israel due to the person not supposed to be there, I assume. I was thinking of things like a priest normally eats certain holy offerings, but he can’t if he is unclean. Or how a woman after childbirth is told not to touch consecrated things while she is still unclean.

Certainly Fr Pacwa has mentioned it - which is where the idea first came to me.

Ah, my memory is less faulty than usual. Too bad no link is available to explain/study his line of thought.

What ‘same category’?

Connection to death is one. Loss of blood (blood is an image of life, so a loss of life points to death, or to life that was not), loss of semen (again an image of loss of life), scale disease (described as making the person look like a dead person), corpse contamination (connection to death obvious). Contagiousness is another. Menstrual impurity is contagious, so is scale disease impurity (I’m not saying scale disease is contagious or not. I’m saying the “unclean” can transmit by touch), and maybe corpse contamination is strong as well, seeing as how even a grave can transmit it, and detoxifying the person seems to cause others to become unclean (red heifer ceremony), also gonorrhea impurity is contagious. Also they are similar in terms of sacrifices required and the need for seven days to be clean, as I already stated.

I’m not trying to imply there is a nice category system that the bible has all worked out. I just see that some are similar in a number of ways. Note that if a woman has a uterine blood discharge for 12 years, she will be unclean that entire, long, annoying time, just like scale disease. She just isn’t banished. She will make unclean anyone she touches in that time. That seems like an isolation of touch (to me). I find it rather sad to imagine.

was a mother who’d given birth more unclean in any icky, negative sense?

Icky? I’ve said nothing about icky. Icky has nothing to do with “unclean”, as far as I know. Unclean has to do with the presence of God in the sanctuary, and how things affect the sanctuary, or so it has seemed to me. It was important to have purification offerings (usually translated sin offerings, but perhaps not the best choice of word) to keep the sanctuary from impurities. A purification offering was offered after all of the things that I called similar, and also childbirth. (A purification offering was not required for natural emission of semen.) This means something about how these affected the sanctuary, perhaps. The sanctuary (and sometimes the land) seems to be affected by things:

Leviticus 15:31 Thus you shall keep the people of Israel separate from their uncleanness, so that they do not die in their uncleanness by defiling my tabernacle that is in their midst. (note: context is bodily discharges)

Menstruation is so intimately linked with reproduction, as is childbirth, that it makes sense to put the two together in terms of how they were viewed.

Agreed. Also, both menstruation and childbirth involve a loss of blood. I wonder if they viewed uterine blood as special, different from other blood, maybe like the female half of producing life?

 

[Mintaka]

Clean/unclean isn’t just a Jewish thing, either. It was a concern all across the world, and generally did deal with spooky threshold conditions, where you were close to the line between life and death. Most traditional cultures were, if anything, a lot more hardline about the distinction, or there was no way to get over certain kinds of uncleanness. If I recall correctly, Romany women are always unclean, for instance; they are never to walk upstream of anybody. Apaches have extremely strong ideas about contact with death and corpses. Hindus have the full Indo-European clean/unclean thing going, and the Japanese used to have a lot of it too. But Israel didn’t have to spend a lot of time worrying about all the days when it was forbidden to travel in a certain direction, or lucky and unlucky days. All they had was the Sabbath, kosher, and clean/unclean. They got off light.

Of course, the really amusing stuff is when the guys do have to follow the exact same rules as the women. In pre-Christian times, the men of Ulster notoriously had to spend a certain time every year helpless to defend themselves, because they were “in labor”.

Re: women with discharge disease

Well, every time somebody else was unclean, they could socialize with her. And for all the adult women, that was once a month for a good long time.

 

[puzzleannie]

I once heard this explanation from a conservative rabbi, who was explaining Jewish laws on family purity to a non-Jewish audience. Since blood specifically menstrual blood and that issuing from childbirth is the sign of life, and therefore sacred, the woman’s body has been sacred, in the connotation of being set aside for God’s work, during the time of the issue of blood, and during pregnancy and the prescribed period after childbirth. Before her body can be returned to the more mundane wordly use, that is relations with her husband and even contact with her family, it must be cleansed, purified. That is why Jews moving to a new place will build the ritual bathhouse even before they build a synagogue, so that women can take the required bath every month, otherwise family and marital life would be disrupted. The purification is in the same sense that we purify altar vessels after the sacrifice of the Mass, or that such vessels or sacred objects in a church would be de-sacralized before being returned to a secular use (such as if a church building was sold). It does not necessarily connote (except in some cultural and historical contexts) purification from being soiled or dirty. If my understanding of what I heard or the way I present it is faulty I rely on our good Jewish members to correct me.

 

[Linda_Marie]

It appears I was mistaken. I found this site that details the rules which govern behaviour during niddah. The rabbi specifically mentions that she may cook for him.

1. If the woman normally works in the house she may do all of her normal household chores, even those specifically done for her husband, even in his presence. For example, she may cook or bake for him, set the table or serve him food. Excluded from this is serving him glass of wine, which is absolutely forbidden, unless it is done in a different way than normal, like serving with the left hand. All other liquids may be poured and served in the normal way.

milknhoney.co.il/holy/7.html

In my search, I also found this site which has more information about blood and Family Purity laws.
myjewishlearning.com/life/Relationships/Spouses_and_Partners/Menstruation_and_Family_Purity.shtml

Blood is holy. It symbolically carries the soul of animate creatures. That is why it is spilled out for sacrifices, and why meat, in order to be kosher, is salted so that all the blood is removed. It is also why niddah (separation of the menstruant) occurs not just during blood flow, but instead extends until she goes to the mikveh and consciously changes her status. One’s self is occupied with the things of the world, and one’s touch can transmit that mundane outlook to others.

 

[budgie2]

Why, in the Old Testament, were women considered impure during menstruation? How do you respond to the objection that the Bible is sexist because of this?

In Leviticus there are lots of things that make a person unclean and sometimes involving blood, skin diseases, mildew, food. I think Jews also drain blood from animals to make Kosher so they must have a problem with it. Regarding Niddah, which is not to touch a woman during discharge, it reminds me suspiciously of the Billings method form of NFP although all NFP could be compared to a niddah if used to prevent pregnancy. I’ll send you a link of the Billings Method:

woomb.org/bom/lit/teach/index.html

Observation of cervical mucus or discharge is used in all NFP and for a couple who abstain they may avoid sex during peak mucus or discharge symptoms. NFP is a modern niddah and not really part of the Catholic Christian religion although within a couples’ individual rights.

 

[Pug]

I found this site that details the rules which govern behaviour during niddah. The rabbi specifically mentions that she may cook for him.

milknhoney.co.il/holy/7.html

Linda Marie,

Thanks for looking that up. I started searching some more on this topic as a result of this thread, and I’ve requested my local library to interlibrary loan a book that the reviews claimed wasn’t too scholarly about the purity laws. We’ll see if it is decipherable when it arrives.

My library actually had a book of essays on niddah, but it was more about how each couple handles or experiences the event, sort of like a collection of personal viewpoints.

 

[Pug]

Linda Marie,

I got the book, and haven’t gotten very far yet, BUT I found something of interest to you. There is a reason you thought about women and a time when they could not cook. So I thought I’d report that to you. Here is a cut (hand-typed, so may be typos) from book, red mine:

Even in rabbinic circles, there is evidence of a minority opinion that menstruants should be treated as a kind of social outcast. This evidence is in a curious work, discovered only in 1890, called Baraita di-masseket Niddah (Horowitz, 1980), …probably dates from…ninth or tenth century. Its material, however, probably has an even earlier history, and the work as a whole represents a dissident, or even hertical view about the menstruant (niddah). The work is severe in the extreme, forbidding the menstruant to perform her usual household tasks, to enter the synagogue, or even to light the Sabbath lights. Even this work does not demand that the nenstruant should be isolated in a special dwelling during her period, but it does demand that her husband also should be debarred from the synagogue…This work appears to stem from a minority group among the rabbis of the second century…[he explains, though, various uncertainties with that]…Unfortunately, once this illiberal tract began to circulate in rabbinic circles from the tenth century onward, it began to have an influence…Maimonides…rejected the practice of isolating of the menstruant (when put forward as having Talmudic authority) as heretical and contrary to Talmudic teaching…Ashkenazi Jews eventually ceased to isolate the menstruant, but certain customs of isolation lingered among Sephardi Jews…

Ritual and morality; the ritual purity system and its place in Judaism
Hyam Maccoby
pp 33-34

 

[Linda_Marie]

Thank you,Pug. That is interesting.

 

[Primox]

To answer why women were considered unclean during menstruation seems pretty speculative, yeilding an infinite number of follow up whys.

How do you respond to the objection that the Bible is sexist because of this?

I wouldn’t necessarily jump to the conclusion of sexism. It might be easy to do that with the argument that

1. Women menstruate
2. Lev. says menstruation is unclean
3. The Bible is sexist towards women

A better way to look at it would be

1. Menstruation is unclean
2. Women Menstruate
3. A woman becomes regularly unclean

If men menstruated, they would probably be considered unclean. The Bible, then, is not exclusively critical of female impurity, but of impurity in general, of which females, through no volition of their own, partake in.