Across three civilizational moments, menstrual purity law functioned as a flexible architecture of Jewish identity—drawing boundaries through bodies, regulating space and intimacy, and marking difference in response to shifting political and religious pressures.
Big Questions:
Reading Blood: Ethical & Historical Framing
This presentation explores how Jewish law and culture constructed and responded to menstruation and menstrual impurity across three civilizational moments in antiquity.
Rabbinic texts overwhelmingly speak in binary and cisnormative terms. They equate menstruation with female bodies and womanhood. I will use that language when discussing the texts themselves, while also using terms like “menstruants” or “people experiencing niddah” to reflect both the legal function of the category and our present-day understanding that not all people who menstruate identify as women.
My goal is to treat these texts ethically and historically — without collapsing the gap between their worldview and our own.
Menstrual Impurity Source
(יט) וְאִשָּׁה֙ כִּֽי־תִהְיֶ֣ה זָבָ֔ה דָּ֛ם יִהְיֶ֥ה זֹבָ֖הּ בִּבְשָׂרָ֑הּ שִׁבְעַ֤ת יָמִים֙ תִּהְיֶ֣ה בְנִדָּתָ֔הּ וְכׇל־הַנֹּגֵ֥עַ בָּ֖הּ יִטְמָ֥א עַד־הָעָֽרֶב׃ (כ) וְכֹל֩ אֲשֶׁ֨ר תִּשְׁכַּ֥ב עָלָ֛יו בְּנִדָּתָ֖הּ יִטְמָ֑א וְכֹ֛ל אֲשֶׁר־תֵּשֵׁ֥ב עָלָ֖יו יִטְמָֽא׃ (כא) וְכׇל־הַנֹּגֵ֖עַ בְּמִשְׁכָּבָ֑הּ יְכַבֵּ֧ס בְּגָדָ֛יו וְרָחַ֥ץ בַּמַּ֖יִם וְטָמֵ֥א עַד־הָעָֽרֶב׃ (כב) וְכׇ֨ל־הַנֹּגֵ֔עַ בְּכׇל־כְּלִ֖י אֲשֶׁר־תֵּשֵׁ֣ב עָלָ֑יו יְכַבֵּ֧ס בְּגָדָ֛יו וְרָחַ֥ץ בַּמַּ֖יִם וְטָמֵ֥א עַד־הָעָֽרֶב׃
(19) When a woman has a discharge, her discharge being blood from her body, she shall remain in her menstrual separation seven days; whoever touches her shall be impure until evening. (20) Anything that she lies on during her menstrual separation shall be impure; and anything that she sits on shall be impure. (21) All those who touch her bedding shall wash their clothes, bathe in water, and remain impure until evening; (22) and all those who touch any object on which she has sat shall wash their clothes, bathe in water, and remain impure until evening.
Late Second Temple Judaism (Qumran):
Exclusion in Text
Temple Scroll (11QT 45:12–14)
“And any woman who has a discharge of blood during her menstrual impurity shall not be in the midst of any sacred thing, nor shall she touch any sacred thing, nor shall she enter the sanctuary until she has completed seven days.”
וְכָל אִשָּׁה אֲשֶׁר תִּהְיֶה זוֹבַת דָּם בִּימֵי נִדָּתָהּ לֹא תִהְיֶה בְתוֹךְ כָּל קֹדֶשׁ וְלֹא תִגַּע בְּכָל קֹדֶשׁ וְלֹא תָבוֹא אֶל הַמִּקְדָּשׁ עַד מְלוֹת שִׁבְעַת יָמִים.
Translation from The Blemished Body, p. 234–235
4QMMT (C 9–10)
“And concerning the menstruating women — that you do not bring them into the sanctuary.”
וְעַל נוֹשׁוֹת הַנִּדָּה לֹא תָבִיאוּם אֶל הַמִּקְדָּשׁ
Translation from The Blemished Body, p. 205–215
Menstruation as Sectarian Marker
“The perception of menstruation in these texts is not only a matter of impurity; it is framed as a threat.” - Fonrobert, 139
“Menstrual impurity was formative of religious identity and important for the demarcation of distinct religious communities.” - Secunda, 178
Rabbinic Judaism in Roman Palestine: The Woman as House
(ה) מָשָׁל מָשְׁלוּ חֲכָמִים בָּאִשָּׁה, הַחֶדֶר וְהַפְּרוֹזְדוֹר וְהָעֲלִיָּה. דַּם הַחֶדֶר, טָמֵא. נִמְצָא בַפְּרוֹזְדוֹר, סְפֵקוֹ טָמֵא, לְפִי שֶׁחֶזְקָתוֹ מִן הַמָּקוֹר:
(5) A woman’s reproductive organs are composed of different parts, and the halakhic status of blood that emerges from one part differs from the halakhic status of blood that emerges from another part. The Sages stated a parable with regard to the structure of the sexual organs of a woman, based on the structure of a house: The inner room represents the uterus, and the corridor [perozdor] leading to the inner room represents the vaginal canal, and the upper story represents the bladder. Blood from the inner room is ritually impure. Blood from the upper story is ritually pure. If blood was found in the corridor, there is uncertainty whether it came from the uterus and is impure, or from the bladder and is pure. Despite its state of uncertainty, it is deemed definitely impure, due to the fact that its presumptive status is of blood that came from the source, i.e., the uterus, and not from the bladder.
(ה) לא ישא אדם מעוברת חברו ומינקת חברו משום שנאמר (משלי כ״ג:י׳) אל תסיג גבול עולם ובשדה יתומים אל תבא.
(5) A man may not marry a pregnant woman [who was impregnated] by his fellow, or a nursing woman [who is nursing the child] of his fellow, on account of that which is said (Prov. 23:10), "Do not remove ancient boundary stones; Do not encroach upon the field of orphans" (JPS tr.).
Regulating the household
Mishnah Niddah 2:5 imagines the uterus as a three-chambered space — internalizing sacred architecture.
Tosefta Niddah 2:5 forbids marrying a pregnant or nursing woman (not one’s own child) — framed as protecting orphans.
Shift from impurity → responsibility; from sacred exclusion → embodied ethics.
Rabbinic law starts organizing domestic and reproductive life, not just ritual space.
Rabbinic Judaism in Sasian Babylonia: Talmudic control of bodies
רבי ראה דם בלילה וטימא ראה ביום וטיהר המתין שעה אחת חזר וטימא אמר אוי לי שמא טעיתי
§ The Gemara further relates: Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi once saw a woman’s blood at night and deemed it impure. He again saw that blood in the day, after it had dried, and deemed it pure. He waited one hour and then deemed it impure again. It is assumed that Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi did not conduct another examination at this point; rather, he reasoned that the previous night’s examination had been correct, and the blood’s color should be deemed impure because of how it had looked when it was moist. Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi then said: Woe is me! Perhaps I erred by declaring the blood impure, as based on its color it should be pure.
Habits Not Huts
“Women’s testimony is only regarded as trustworthy if it induces a stricter ruling… What starts out as possibly suggesting an unqualified if likely reluctant reliance on women’s examinations of women is brought back into the control of (male) rabbinic supervision.” - Fonrobert, Menstrual Purity, p. 147
“Instead of building huts, the rabbis build habits.”- Secunda, 162
Blood, Space, Law
“The differentiation produced by niddah... ultimately produces a further and final differentiation — between the scholar reading it and the late antique lives lived beyond the texts.” - Shai Secunda, The Talmud’s Red Fence, p. 183
Consider:
1. What boundaries do your own communities draw — ritual, spatial, social — and who gets to draw them?
2. How do laws about the body shape identity — especially when the body is treated as dangerous?
3. Can purity ever be neutral — or is it always political?