The Stain You May Explain

About This Talk

Chapter 9 is the chapter of stains. By Scriptural Law a woman becomes impure only with a physical sensation and bleeding, and only from that moment; by Rabbinic decree a bloodstain on her flesh or clothes makes her impure because of doubt, retroactively for 24 hours or back to her last clean examination with regard to pure objects, though not with regard to her husband, and she counts only from the discovery. That retroactive reach does not apply at the time of her veset, or to a woman who is pregnant, nursing, elderly, or has never menstruated. A stain on her flesh has no minimum, while one on a garment must be the size of a gris; a stain on something that cannot contract impurity, such as stone, earth or a tiny scrap of cloth, or on anything that is not white, leaves her pure, which is why the Sages advised colored garments. Only places that could have been reached count: her heel, inner calves, toe and hands, but not her outer calves or above her thighs; a garment below the belt, but not above it. Three stains on a tunic worn three days raise a doubt of zivah, and a stain followed by bleeding within 24 hours is joined to it. The Rambam then states that the Sages were lenient here, not stringent: a stain on her garment may be attributed to slaughtering, to handling blood or to the butchers' market, and a stain on her flesh to a wound, to a louse up to a gris, or to a husband or son with soiled hands, though a stain on her flesh alone below the belt cannot be blamed on the market, and no explanation may be invented. The chapter closes with shared garments and beds, the seven agents that test blood against dye, and what a woman impure because of a stain must observe.