This shall be the ritual for a leper (14:2). In BT Arachin 15b the Rabbis interpreted this biblical word for “leper” (m’tzora, the person afflicted with tzaraat) as an acronym for the Hebrew term for slander (motzi shem ra). Thus, they insisted that tzaraat is a divine punishment for defaming others, a grave transgression in a culture that highly valued oral communication (BT Bava M’tzia 58a). The connection between slander and tzaraat already appears in Numbers 12 when Miriam is afflicted for complaining about her brother Moses. In Midrash Sifra, M’tzora 5.7, the Rabbis emphasize that Miriam’s contraction of tzaraat (Numbers 12:10) was the result of her denunciation of Moses, particularly because she slandered him behind his back.
When…I inflict an eruptive plague upon a house (14:34). From early on, the Rabbis held that the house afflicted by this strange plague never existed and never will exist—and that the only reason that this law exists is for the purpose of theoretical study (Tosefta N’gaim 6:1). The Talmud does not develop the Mishnah tractate devoted to the topic.
he shall…bathe his body in fresh water (15:13). Heb. mayim chayim (“fresh water,” literally “living water”) is required as a means of purification not only for the man with a discharge but also in the case of tzaraat for both people and houses (14:5–6, 50–52), and in the case of corpse impurity (Numbers 19:8). All of these cases of ritual impurity last for at least seven days. However, the Torah notably does not mention the requirement of immersion in water for cases of impurity of similar duration that are specific to women, such as those resulting from birth, menstruation, or irregular genital bleeding. The Mishnah assumes that immersion in fresh water applies to women’s impurities as well (Mikvaot 1:8).
When a woman has a discharge (15:19). This passage establishes the rules of purification concerning a woman’s menstrual period. The Rabbis developed these regulations into an entire tractate called Niddah, the “menstruating woman,” which is part of the mishnaic order called Purities. Much like the priestly writers of Leviticus, the Rabbis did not consider purity and impurity a matter of morality, but rather a matter of ritual status with regard to access to the Temple in Jerusalem. Thus, many of the rules of purity and impurity detailed in the biblical passage here and in Mishnah Niddah had no application in a post-Temple reality. However, the rules of sexual abstinence during the wife’s menstrual period, which the Rabbis derived from Leviticus 18:19 and 20:18, are not dependent on the historical existence of the Temple and continue to regulate the sex life of married couples in traditional Jewish communities to this day. Indeed, many of the rabbinic discussions in BT Niddah focus on the workings of menstruation and on women’s physiology in general, instituting the rabbinic sage as a sort of gynecological expert to be consulted when problems arise.
a discharge of blood for many days (15:25). The Torah assumes a menstrual calendar of seven days of bleeding. It considers any bleeding beyond seven days or outside of the seven regular days to be abnormal. It categorizes a woman with an irregular discharge as a zavah, parallel to the male category of zav (15:13). In a tractate called Zavim, the Mishnah discusses both men and women with irregular genital discharges. In biblical law, the rules of purification for the zavah differ from the rules for menstruation. Notably, the afflicted woman must count seven days after the irregular discharge has ceased before purification can take place. The Talmud, however, merges the two categories of regular and irregular bleeding. Accordingly, a woman is to count seven “white” days without discharge after her menses before she immerses in a mikveh and resumes marital intimacy. The Talmud famously attributes this more stringent practice to women: “Rabbi Zera said: The daughters of Israel (b’not Yisrael) have imposed upon themselves the stringency that even where they observe only a drop of blood the size of a mustard seed, they wait on account of it seven clean days” (BT Niddah 66a). One should not dismiss Rabbi Zera’s attribution of this legal stringency to women too readily, considering that throughout Jewish history women have used the laws of niddah toward their own spiritual empowerment, as well as for practical purposes, including control over their sex lives.
—Charlotte Elisheva Fonrobert