Masechet Keritot Daf 9-10
I have fallen about two weeks behind on Daf Yomi. In fairness, I started about a week late, so I have really only fallen behind one week and failed to catch up a week. Masechet Meilah starts tomorrow, I think, but I don't have as much interest in Masechet Meilah because I don't really understand what Meilah is but it seems needlessly complicated, so I will just spend the next few weeks finishing Keritot.
Daf 9-10
If a woman (or a man, but the Torah uses the language of woman, so let's stipulate that anyone who gives birth probably observes these laws, regardless of gender, but it's maybe an unsettled question of halacha) gives birth, there is a whole process that follows in terms of her evolving ritual purity status. If she gives birth to a boy, she is ritually impure for 7 days afterward. If she gives birth to a girl, she is ritually impure for fourteen days afterward. After that, she goes to the mikvah and immerses herself. After that she is ritually pure for the following 33 days if it was a boy, or 66 days if it was a girl... so that even if she has what seems like menstrual bleeding, she does not become a niddah. At the end of the 33 or 66 days, she offers a special sacrifice and then things go back to the normal laws for women.
The special sacrifice is our link to this Masechet. It's in that class of sacrifices I mentioned yesterday that acts like a chatat but isn't for a sin. Rather, it's a sacrifice that offers cleansing.
The Gemara is really interested in figuring out when you have to offer multiple such sacrifices, and that's what it's going to spend time on here- is there a scenario where a woman is obligated to offer multiple sacrifices after giving birth, or is there a scenario where multiple births/birthlike acts can all be cleansed with a single sacrifice?
It seems to me a partially theoretical exercise, still, the Rabbis just trying to understand the limits of the law by playing thought experiment games. But there are some practical issues involved. I didn't mention it before, but a story from a couple dafs ago keeps coming up, a story of Rabban Gamliel. There was a market condition where the birds being offered as these sacrifices were extremely expensive, to the point that it was keeping people from offering them. So Rabban Gamliel goes into the Beis Medrash and he teaches an apparently incorrect halacha, that in certain cases when you would typically expect to have to offer multiple sacrifices, you only need to offer one. The market price dropped overnight, enabling poor women to start offering these sacrifices again.
This story keeps coming back because it seems clear that the cost of these sacrifices was a legitimate practical concern that the Rabbis were dealing with. If they made the sacrifices too burdensome, women would just stop worrying about the laws of ritual purity. On the other hand, they couldn't compromise halacha. So having a precise understanding of when single sacrifices could cover multiple births was critical.
Some of the cases considered are just odd- a woman gives birth to twins, one before shkiah and one after shkiah, so that they have different birthdays. Does one sacrifice cover her or are two required? And if one is required, how does the counting of the thirty three or sixty six days proceed?
Some of the cases involve navigating what must be a lot of serious, complicated emotion. A woman miscarries, the miscarriage is after the critical 40 day window that means that the fetus is considered a birth for purposes of these laws*, and the fetus was female so she now starts observing the fourteen days and then sixty six days of the cycle of purification. She becomes pregnant again and then miscarries again, before the end of the sixty six days but more than forty days after this new conception. Does the counting start over, or do you add the new fourteen and sixty six days on top? What if this happens a third time, is it the same logic or is there a difference on the third time?
* This idea of 40 days is important in contemporary halachic discussions of abortion. Even halachic decisors who have a halachic problem with abortion generally rule that an abortion done before 40 days poses minimal halachic problems if any... some of the Talmudic and Rishonic language is that before 40 days, the fetus is 'like water' and essentially of negligible concern.
It's not entirely clear to me whether the 40 days idea requires that you specifically know the moment of conception and calculate from there or if it's based on some observation of particular development features that typically happens at approximately 40 days after conception. Ask a responsible halachic authority if you have an actual sheilah, I guess.
This entry was originally posted at https://seekingferret.dreamwidth.org/317807.html. Please comment there using OpenID. There are
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Daf 9-10
If a woman (or a man, but the Torah uses the language of woman, so let's stipulate that anyone who gives birth probably observes these laws, regardless of gender, but it's maybe an unsettled question of halacha) gives birth, there is a whole process that follows in terms of her evolving ritual purity status. If she gives birth to a boy, she is ritually impure for 7 days afterward. If she gives birth to a girl, she is ritually impure for fourteen days afterward. After that, she goes to the mikvah and immerses herself. After that she is ritually pure for the following 33 days if it was a boy, or 66 days if it was a girl... so that even if she has what seems like menstrual bleeding, she does not become a niddah. At the end of the 33 or 66 days, she offers a special sacrifice and then things go back to the normal laws for women.
The special sacrifice is our link to this Masechet. It's in that class of sacrifices I mentioned yesterday that acts like a chatat but isn't for a sin. Rather, it's a sacrifice that offers cleansing.
The Gemara is really interested in figuring out when you have to offer multiple such sacrifices, and that's what it's going to spend time on here- is there a scenario where a woman is obligated to offer multiple sacrifices after giving birth, or is there a scenario where multiple births/birthlike acts can all be cleansed with a single sacrifice?
It seems to me a partially theoretical exercise, still, the Rabbis just trying to understand the limits of the law by playing thought experiment games. But there are some practical issues involved. I didn't mention it before, but a story from a couple dafs ago keeps coming up, a story of Rabban Gamliel. There was a market condition where the birds being offered as these sacrifices were extremely expensive, to the point that it was keeping people from offering them. So Rabban Gamliel goes into the Beis Medrash and he teaches an apparently incorrect halacha, that in certain cases when you would typically expect to have to offer multiple sacrifices, you only need to offer one. The market price dropped overnight, enabling poor women to start offering these sacrifices again.
This story keeps coming back because it seems clear that the cost of these sacrifices was a legitimate practical concern that the Rabbis were dealing with. If they made the sacrifices too burdensome, women would just stop worrying about the laws of ritual purity. On the other hand, they couldn't compromise halacha. So having a precise understanding of when single sacrifices could cover multiple births was critical.
Some of the cases considered are just odd- a woman gives birth to twins, one before shkiah and one after shkiah, so that they have different birthdays. Does one sacrifice cover her or are two required? And if one is required, how does the counting of the thirty three or sixty six days proceed?
Some of the cases involve navigating what must be a lot of serious, complicated emotion. A woman miscarries, the miscarriage is after the critical 40 day window that means that the fetus is considered a birth for purposes of these laws*, and the fetus was female so she now starts observing the fourteen days and then sixty six days of the cycle of purification. She becomes pregnant again and then miscarries again, before the end of the sixty six days but more than forty days after this new conception. Does the counting start over, or do you add the new fourteen and sixty six days on top? What if this happens a third time, is it the same logic or is there a difference on the third time?
* This idea of 40 days is important in contemporary halachic discussions of abortion. Even halachic decisors who have a halachic problem with abortion generally rule that an abortion done before 40 days poses minimal halachic problems if any... some of the Talmudic and Rishonic language is that before 40 days, the fetus is 'like water' and essentially of negligible concern.
It's not entirely clear to me whether the 40 days idea requires that you specifically know the moment of conception and calculate from there or if it's based on some observation of particular development features that typically happens at approximately 40 days after conception. Ask a responsible halachic authority if you have an actual sheilah, I guess.
This entry was originally posted at https://seekingferret.dreamwidth.org/317807.html. Please comment there using OpenID. There are
comments.