Shabbos 13
“The case with the fowl and cheese is different from the case between the husband and wife.”
The Zav appears for the third day in a row along with his allegedly impure wife, the Zava. We learn that two wrongs do not make a right, and two impure people cannot eat together, even though they are both supposedly contaminated. Everything our Zav touches becomes impure, just like someone who is a carrier of Covid-19 passes infection through his touch and invisible exchange of airborne respiratory droplets.
Today’s text asks if two impure, but fully clothed spouses can share the same bed. A comparison is made with the sharing of the same table setting by a cheese and a fowl which are prohibited from being consumed together. We have two rabbinic opinions in both instances: one says yes, the man and woman can sleep together fully clothed and the cheese and fowl can share the same table, although they can not be eaten together. Another Rabbi offers the oppositional perspective: no sharing of bed or table is allowed. We are offered the conclusion that if the cheese and fowl are eaten together there is one decision-maker involved in the transgression, while in the case of the married couple, there are two people agreeing together on where to rest their weary bodies.
Ulla reappears in today’s text and he appears to be a bit of hypocrite (which Yalta previously discerned.) He is quoted as saying “Even any intimacy is prohibited” and yet he goes around kissing his sisters on the chest. What a lout he continues to be.
We are told the story of a devoted scholar who died young. His bereaved wife questioned how that could have happened because her deceased husband devoted his life to study. The sage Eliyahu further questions her and discovers that although her husband stayed away from her during her time of menstruation, he bent the rules a bit during the “days of the white garment.” The sage proclaims the early death was just because the young man “did not show respect to the Torah.”
I did not know what was meant by the white cloth and had to research the reference. I discovered it plays a role in a woman’s self-examination in order to determine that her menstruation cycle is complete, and she has been free from bleeding for seven days. And there it is: the struggle I am dealing with in reconciling my secular, Jewish feminist self with the daily Talmud readings. It is very difficult for me not to judge a ritual that seems to reduce women to blood and tears and subservience to their bodies. And I know there is more of this coming.
I found an article online that explains the purity process:
https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/the-laws-of-niddah/