Menstrual cycle, impurity, prohibitions, blood, uncleanliness, hushes…
Judaism actually celebrates menstruation as a women's ability to create life and the tradition encourages the fruitfulness possible due to this gift to women. Still, rabbis scratch heads pondering why the family purity laws (those laws that legislate sexual relations between spouses) get such bad press and has fallen into disuse even amongst observant Jewish couples.
Here are 3 examples of how traditional Judaism misrepresents the beauty of a woman's power to be Gd's partner in the process of Creation….
1. Anyone who has ever heard that a woman is forbidden to touch a Torah scroll has also heard the following reason: if a woman were in her menstrual state of restrictedness ('impurity') she would transfer impurity to the Torah by touching it. The explanation – and prohibition – is a complete fabrication and untrue. The surety of proof comes from the Parah Adumah (Red Heifer) ritual that we just read in synagogue last week. There we learn that anyone who comes in contact with a dead body either through touch or even presence (like in a cemetery or a hospital) is ritually impure. The only way to be rid of this impurity is through a Temple ritual using the ashes of a completely red-haired cow. For the last 2,000 years, there has been no Temple and no such ritual. The majority of all men, therefore, are ritually impure. How is it we can touch the Torah scroll – because the Torah cannot receive impurity. I've sent many traditional yeshiva students back to their teachers seeking to refute this proof.
What is the reason for this bubbe meise (old wives' tale)? What is the resulting attitude of boys, and girls, and men, and women, toward menstruation? Why hasn't this myth been shattered?
2. Have you ever noticed in America that Orthodox-observant couples do not hold hands? The reason for this abstinence is because for them it is forbidden for a male to touch a female who is a niddah (ritual impurity caused by her period). After her period and her visit to a mikveh, touching is permitted again. At least 2 weeks every month a couple is permitted to touch – so why not walk together hand-in-hand in public? Were the couple to hold hands during the permitted days, then others would deduce that when the couple is not holding hands the woman would be experiencing her period and this knowledge would somehow be immodest or embarrassing. But, why? In Israel, religious couples can be seen walking hand-in-hand in every city….
3. As a rabbinical student 15 years ago, I was hosted by a fellow Conservative student and his wife for Shabbat dinner. In a respectful way, I asked them to explain to me how they traverse the issue of Judaism's family purity laws. The response I received was the one most often delivered – and most likely to slam the door to the curious – "those are private issues for a couple and not to be discussed."
The answer is not to abandon the family purity laws; the answer is to abandon the rabbis' adolescent discomforts….
