One-Page Learn · The Halachos at a glance
הִלְכוֹת אִסּוּרֵי בִּיאָה
Forbidden Intercourse 9
Sefer Kedushah · Issurei Biah, Chapter 9 • Stains, and every reason to be pure
24
Hours of retroactive
impurity for objects
9
Lentils fit in a gris,
the garment minimum
3
Stains on one tunic
raise a doubt of zivah
7
Cleaning agents test
blood against dye
9:1-5Torah Law and the Sages’ Decree
- Sensation, then blood. By Scriptural Law she is impure as a niddah or zavah only after a physical sensation and bleeding, and only from that moment onward. (9:1)
- The stain decree. By Rabbinic Law a bloodstain on her flesh or clothes makes her impure, even with no sensation and even after an examination that found nothing, since perhaps it came from within. (9:2)
- Twenty-four hours back. Bleeding outside her veset, or a stain, makes her impure retroactively for 24 hours, or back to her last clean examination, regarding pure objects. Not her husband, and she counts only from the discovery. (9:3)
- No reach backward. At the time of her veset, and for a woman who is pregnant, nursing, has never menstruated, or is elderly, impurity begins only at the discovery. Elderly means 90 days without a cycle near old age, when others call her old and she does not protest. (9:4-5)
RememberThe Torah needs sensation; the Sages added the stain, and called it a doubt.
9:6-18Size, Surface and Place
- How large. No minimum on her flesh. On a garment, at least a gris, room for nine lentils; scattered spots do not combine. (9:6)
- On what. A stain on something that cannot contract impurity, stone, earth, dung, fish skin, the outside of earthenware, a cloth under three fingerbreadths square, leaves her pure, as does a stain on anything that is not white. The Sages advised colored garments for this reason. (9:7)
- Where. On her heel, inner calves, toe tip or hands she is impure; on her outer calves or from her thighs upward she is pure. On a garment, below the belt impure, above it pure, a sleeve only if it could reach, and anywhere on a garment used as a blanket. (9:8-11)
- Counting days. Three stains on a tunic worn three days outside her days of niddah raise a doubt of major zivah. A stain followed by bleeding within 24 hours is joined to the bleeding. (9:12-18)
RememberA stain counts only where it could have come from her, on what could become impure, at a size that matters.
9:19-39Every Reason to Be Pure
- Lean toward leniency. If there is a factor to blame, a stain on her garment leaves her pure: slaughtering, handling blood, the butchers’ market. The Sages said to be lenient here, not stringent. (9:19-20)
- The flesh is stricter. A stain on her flesh alone at the belt or below is impure, since outside blood would have hit her clothes first. A wound that could bleed, even under a scab, explains it. On both flesh and garment, every explanation is available, including a louse up to a gris, or a husband or son with soiled hands. (9:21-24)
- Honest limits. No imagined transfer from a shoulder wound to a calf. One fowl’s blood cannot explain two women’s stains. Red cannot explain black. A doubtful visit to the market explains nothing. (9:25-28)
- Shared garments and beds. A stain may be blamed on a niddah who borrowed the garment. Of several women, the one who examined and found blood clears the others; if all were clean, the one likelier to see bears it. (9:29-35)
- Blood or dye. Seven agents in order, three rubs each: the saliva of one who has not eaten, chewed beans, aged urine, lye, natron, cumin, bleach. If it fades it is blood; if it holds, dye. Impurity from a stain follows her niddah or zivah days by doubt. (9:36-39)
RememberSearch hard for the true explanation, and never invent one.