One-Page Learn · The Halachos at a glance
הִלְכוֹת אִסּוּרֵי בִּיאָה
Forbidden Intercourse 10
Sefer Kedushah · Issurei Biah, Chapter 10 • What counts as a birth
40
Days before a form
is complete
14
Days forbidden when
male or female is unknown
23
Days a placenta may
follow a living child
1
Handbreadth, the
smallest placenta
10:1-7When a Birth Begins
- Birth itself defiles. Every woman who gives birth is impure like a niddah even without bleeding, whether the child is living, stillborn or miscarried, provided its form is complete. (10:1)
- Forty days. No form is complete in under forty days, even on the fortieth. A miscarriage on the forty-first day after relations is a doubt: the laws of a male, a female and a niddah. A faintly human form: the laws of a male and a female. (10:1-2)
- The earliest form. Like a lentil, eyes like a fly’s, a hairsbreadth mouth. No days of purity unless the fetus has hair on its head. A white mass with a bone is a birth; a sac of water, blood or shapeless flesh is not. (10:3-4)
- How it emerged. A Cesarean birth brings neither days of impurity nor days of purity. A fetus removed in parts counts once the majority, or the whole head, has emerged; a normal birth, at the forehead. A hand that came out and returned makes her impure only by Rabbinic decree. (10:5-7)
RememberBirth defiles by itself, but only once there is a form, and only by the natural way.
10:8-11A Human Face
- The face decides. A form like an animal, beast or fowl is a birth if its face is human, and not if its face is not, whatever the rest of the body looks like. (10:8)
- What a face is. The forehead, eyebrows, eyes, cheeks and jawline; the mouth, ears and nose may differ. (10:9)
- Unusual forms. Like a snake, a birth, since its eye is round. With wings of flesh, a birth. One eye and one thigh at the side, a birth; in the center, not. (10:10)
- Not viable, not a birth. A form that could never live is not a birth, but a severed hand or foot is assumed to come from a complete fetus. (10:11)
RememberThe law finds the human being in the face.
10:12-21The Placenta and the Doubt
- Never without a fetus. A sandal never forms without a fetus. A placenta, at least a handbreadth, brings the laws of a male and a female: it is not a fetus, but there is no placenta without one. (10:12-14)
- Order matters. After a living child, a placenta even 23 days later is the child’s. After a miscarried fetus, or before a living child, it raises concern for another fetus, and no days of purity are granted. (10:14-17)
- Twins and the unseen. A boy and a girl: the laws of a girl. A tumtum or androgynus: both. An unseen miscarriage: both if she was known to be pregnant, both and a niddah if not. Without form or bleeding, a dry discharge leaves her pure. (10:17-19)
- What the doubts mean. Male and female: fourteen days forbidden, seven certain and seven doubtful, days of purity only to the fortieth day. With niddah added: no days of purity at all. (10:20-21)
RememberWhere the law cannot see, it does not guess; it holds every possibility.