Life and Death and Defilement: Convergent & Divergent Paradigms of Blood and Semen

Charlotte Fonrobert, Menstrual Purity p. 2

Like few other cultures, rabbinic Judaism in [Masekhet Niddah] transforms blood and bodies into language, analyzes the nature of blood and pads, of births and abortions or miscarriages. One detects no sense of embarrassment, shame, or disgust in those pages of the Talmud, feelings familiar to those of us who have grown up in the cultural context of the West, which allows mostly only euphemistic, hidden references to bodies and their messiness. The texts in Tractate Niddah might just as well be about zoology, astronomy, physics, or mathematics, judging by their tone.

Both are Existent or Potential Life Forces that Cannot be Consumed/Wasted

• Does it feel like there's a difference between life & potential life?
• Can we group together fear of losing one's own vitality with loss of potential other life?
• Why do you think this notion of life force generates such a powerful taboo?

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Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 1-16, at 767:

"[I]n the Israelite mind, blood was the archsymbol of life (17:10-14; Deut 12:23 [note omitted]). Its oozing from the body was no longer the work of demons, but it was certainly the sign of death. In particular, the loss of seed in vaginal blood [note omitted] was associated with the loss of life. Thus it was that Israel---alone among the peoples---restricted impurity solely to those physical conditions involving the loss of vaginal blood and semen, the forces of life, and to scale disease, which visually manifested the approach of death [note omitted]. All other bodily issues and excrescences were not tabooed, despite their impure status among Israel's contemporaries, such as cut hair or nails in Persia and India and the newborn child as well as its mother in Greece in Egypt.

Both Impart Tumah

• In what ways do these models feel parallel? In what ways do they seem to differ?

Charlotte Fonrobert, Menstrual Purity p. 46

The priestly text of Lev. 15 seems to suggest itself as a case of dual sexual symmetry, in spite of its location in a patriarchal culture: men's bodily fluids transfer a status of impurity to anyone, including the woman who has sexual relations with him (Lev. 15:17), just as women's bodily fluids transfer a status of impurity to anyone, including the man who has sexual relations with her. A man's seminal discharge during intercourse transfers his status of impurity to the woman (Lev. 15:18), just as women's bodily fluids during intercourse transfer her status of impurity to him (Lev. 15:24).

Are They Gross?

• What kind of grossness/disgust do you think is represented in these sources? Do you think those are the right words for it?
• Does the distaste feel similar for blood and semen?
• How does this affect how people experiencing these emissions interact with society?

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Baraita de-Nidda, 6th/7th century

A menstruant must not cut her fingernails, lest her husband or child accidentally step on the clippings and, as a result, develop boils and die; a priest whose mother, wife, or any other family member of the household is menstruating, may not bless the people, lest his blessing become a curse; a Sage who partakes of food prepared by a menstruant will forget his learning; a menstruant's spit, breath, and speech cause impurity in others.

Are They Inherently Gendered?

• Can multiple sexes/genders experience these emissions? Are the outcomes the same if they do?
• What does it mean to recognize niddah blood as a subset of the blood category, as opposed to semen, which is a single paradigm?
• How do you think this has impacted the way these emissions are treated today?

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Are They Disgraceful?

• What's the difference between disgust and disgrace? Does that feel significant to you?
• Why do you think the niddah becomes a stand-in for the disgrace of Jerusalem/a person or people's shame?
• Do you think these sources are in line with other tanakh sources on niddah?
• What does it mean to make the concept niddah so attached not only to the menstrual blood but to the concept of the woman emitting it?

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The Savage in Judaism, Howald Eilberg-Schwartz, at 179-80: In isolation, the menstrual prohibitions might be regarded as stemming from a "horror of blood" or from the belief that blood contains a person's life force (Freud 1974, 74). Indeed, there is a warrant for arguing that the latter view in fact explains the menstrualtaboo in Israelite religion, since Scripture state unequivically that blood carries the essence of life (Gen. 9:4; Lev. 17:11-14; Deut. 12:23)[cites omitted]. But the constrast between menstrual blood, which is contaminating, and the blood of circumcision or sacrifice, which is positively marked, indicates that only some kinds of blood are contaminating. The prohibitions onthe menstrous woman have nothing to do with an inherent quality of blood. Freud himself warned interpretors not to exaggerate the influence of a fact such as the horror of blood. After all, the latter does not suffice to suppress customs like circumcision of boys...which are practised to some extent by the same races, nor to abolish the prevalence of other ceremonies at which blood is shed (Freud, 1974, 74).

Are They Punishment?

• Do you think the value judgment, particularly of Bereishit Rabbah, aligns with the Vayikra sources?
• Do you think this opinion is present in contemporary views?

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Is the Tumah (Impurity) of Niddah the Same as Other Tumahs?

• What translation of "tumah" feels most accurate to you? Impurity, defilement, disqualification, etc.?
• Do you feel that all forms of tumah listed below fit coherently within one explanation of tumah and taharah? How so?
• From the sources we've encountered, does the tumah attached to niddah feel like just another iteration of being distanced/disqualified/set aside from or to G-d? Or does it feel more like a societal taboo?
• Do you think, like Rachel Adler, that one must treat niddah within either a broad category of tumah as life/death or systemic gender discrimination? Or do they not feel mutually exclusive?

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David Kraemer, The Logic of Impurity, The Forward, July 8, 2005: Interpreters of the Torah’s system have often distinguished between the “impurity” of the Torah’s impure animals and the impurity of things like the corpse or menstrual blood (or the blood of childbirth!). They have insisted that, despite the fact that the same Hebrew term is used for both, the meaning of the term in the two contexts is not the same. This is the only way most have of making sense of the Torah’s notion of impurity. But the Torah doesn’t admit of such a distinction; it is an imposition of the commentators, who are otherwise at a loss to connect what seems to them unconnected. If the Torah doesn’t make this distinction, neither should we. What we say about the impurity of impure animals must relate to what we say about blood impurities, and vice versa.

So what has Eliezer said? He has suggested that the impure animals are “impure” because they belong, in their entirety, to God. In other words, marking something as “impure” means marking it as being somehow in God’s realm, touchable but in some profound sense inaccessible to us. We cannot eat the “impure” animal (the pig, for example) because God, its creator, has not given us the right to do so. Its impurity marks it as “out of bounds. By the same token, life and death are in the realm of God. As the Bible says repeatedly, in one form or another, “God gives life and God takes away life.” Both, therefore, are marked as “impure.” The same is true of menstrual blood, which emerges from “the source” of human life, deep in the womb, and the same is true of birth blood — the blood that issues forth when a woman gives birth."

https://forward.com/culture/3783/the-logic-of-impurity/

Rachel Adler (late 20th Century) wrote two pieces about Niddah laws, the first (below) she wrote when she identified as Orthodox, and she made a case that purity laws (laws of Tumah and Taharah) are related to the nexus between life and death. People go to the mikvah (which she compares to a womb, another nexus of giving life but also seeing a monthly shedding of potential life) to purify themselves from these moments of nexus:

“In all creation is the seed of destruction. All that is born, dies, and all that begets. Begetting and birth are the nexus points at which life and death are coupled. They are the beginnings which point to an end. Mensturation, too, is a nexus point. It is an end which points to a beginning. At the nexus points, the begetter becomes tameh [impure]. The fluids on which new life depends — the semen, the rich uterine lining which sustains embryonic life — the departure of these from the body leaves the giver tameh [impure]. The menstrual blood, which inside the womb was a potential nutriment, is a token of dying when it is shed. Menstruation is an autumn within, the dying which makes room for new birth. Semen has always symbolized man’s vital force. That is why so many cultures the idea existed (and still exists) that a man’s semen supply is limited, and when it is depleted he will die."

In her second piece, Rachel Adler recants what she originally wrote. She argues that her original theory, which treated male and female purity within Judaism as equal, doesn’t hold:

“What did it mean to formulate a theology of purity that was blind to gender difference and silent about gender stigma, when the only kind of impurity with behavioral consequences in the Orthodox communities is gender specific — menstrual impurity? What did it mean to claim that the theological meaning of niddah had to do with symbolisms of life and death, when its impact of women’s lives was obviously and concretely sexual?...”

“The social facts about impurity in living communities are about the impurity of women. Sexual relations with a niddah [woman impure because of menstruation] are forbidden. Also forbidden are physical contacts and expressions of affection, on the grounds that they could lead to sexual relations. In all but the most leftwing Orthodox circles, the general presumption of niddah status is a reason for excluding women from conventional social courtesies like shaking hands, and for denying them access to the Torah. In contrast, men experience themselves as socially pure. Although they may meet the qualification for biblical impurity (having had seminal emissions, for instance, or contact with a corpse), there is no behavioral consequence…Socially, then, purity and impurity do not constitute a cycle through which all members of the society pass, as I argued in my essay. Instead, purity and impurity define a class system in which the most impure people are women.”

(Excerpted by Orly Michaeli in the Wominyan curriculum)

Rabbi Alana Suskin, Menstruation and “Family Purity” (Taharat Ha-Mishpacha)

The concepts tahor and tamei (or, again, the abstract nouns

tohorah and tum’ah) are often translated as “clean” and “unclean,” or “pure” and “impure.” But examining the other places in which these concepts appear, it becomes clear that tum’ah and tohorah are best understood as contrasting states in which one is a vessel either for the sacred (tohorah) or for the secular or everyday (tum’ah).

Blood is holy. It symbolically carries the soul of animate creatures. That is why it is spilled out for sacrifices, and why meat, in order to be kosher, is salted so that all the blood is removed. It is also why niddah (separation of the menstruant) occurs not just during blood flow, but instead extends until she goes to the mikveh and consciously changes her status. One’s self is occupied with the things of the world, and one’s touch can transmit that mundane outlook to others.

https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/menstruation-and-family-purity-taharat-ha-mishpacha/

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL

Internal or External

Blood (including Niddah) as Covenant