One-Page Learn · The Halachos at a glance
הִלְכוֹת אִסּוּרֵי בִּיאָה
Forbidden Intercourse 7
Sefer Kedushah · Issurei Biah, Chapter 7 • The blood of the throes, birth within zivah, and the arithmetic of long bleeding
14
Days of labor bleeding
still counted as the throes
24
Hours of ease that
make her a zavah
114
Days of bleeding without
becoming a major zavah
1/4
Of her days permitted with
a week on, a week off
7:1-4Not Because of the Child
- The blood of the throes. Bleeding with labor pains makes her a niddah in her days of niddah but leaves her pure in her days of zivah: the blood must come “from herself,” not because of a child. Only for a living birth, not a miscarriage. Later generations treated it as impure. (7:1)
- Fourteen days, and the pain must hold. Up to fourteen days of bleeding with continuous pain before birth is blood of the throes; fifteen or more is zivah. If the pains stop and she is at ease for twenty-four hours after three days, she is a zavah. (7:1-2)
- Difficulty near birth decides. Pain close to the birth attributes the bleeding to the birth; ease close to the birth does not. (7:3)
- The day of birth. The day she gives birth always counts as a day of difficulty, even if it felt easy. A doubtful miscarriage after two days of bleeding leaves her status in doubt. (7:4)
RememberPain that belongs to a coming life is not counted as the mother's loss.
7:5-11Pure From This, Impure From That
- Birth within zivah. She counts seven clean days, immerses at night and brings a zavah's offering and a childbirth offering; only then do the laws of pure blood apply. After a daughter she waits until the fifteenth night. (7:5-6)
- Delayed immersion. If the bleeding never stops, pure blood does not apply. Once she has counted seven clean days, bleeding before she immerses does not change her status. (7:7-8)
- A pregnancy within the pure days. Bleeding before a miscarriage within the eighty days is pure until the miscarriage; with twins she counts from the second. (7:9)
- The count survives the birth. The throes or a birth during her seven clean days do not cancel them, and the Rambam counts those days, against the Ra'avad. “Pure from her zivah”: other impurities do not cancel the count. Only zivah bleeding does, and it costs only that day. (7:10-11)
RememberA setback of one kind does not erase progress of another.
7:12-24Every Permitted Day
- 114 days. Two days of zivah, seven of niddah, two of zivah, fourteen of the throes, eighty after a daughter, seven of niddah and two of zivah: never three consecutive days in zivah. After the days of childbirth, bleeding begins new days of niddah regardless of earlier vesatot. (7:12)
- One on, one off. A woman who bleeds every other day is permitted four nights in eighteen days; with two and two, the eighth, twelfth, sixteenth and twentieth. (7:13-14)
- Three through seven. Three to six impure days alternating with as many pure ones leave her a permanent zavah after a few permitted days. A week and a week permits eighteen days in eighteen weeks, about a quarter. (7:15-20)
- Eight and beyond. Eight and eight: fifteen days in forty-eight. Nine and nine: eight of every eighteen. Ten and ten, or a thousand and a thousand: as many permitted days as days of zivah. In practice, seven clean days are counted after any bleeding. (7:21-24)
RememberThe law does not give up on a hard pattern; it counts every day that can be hers.