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 | Marriages need separations. Sometimes a couple will get into arguments and be angry at each other just for the sake of creating a distance so that husband and wife can feel like they’re coming together . . . But there’s a better way.
25 Comments Posted
What happens after menopause? How are the rhythms of separation and reunion maintained in the second half of marriages?
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Rabbi Friedman,
I am a great admirer of yours and my wife and I are recent but enthusiastic practioners of Family Purity (thanks in large part to your work). You mention that the gap between a husband and wife will never really close. This seems to be contrary to the concept of the husband and wife becoming "one flesh". My wife and I were married for over 18 years before we began observing Family Purity. During those years we were always very close. My parents (who do not observe laws of Family Purity) are very close. To me the secret is really beyond logic.
I see Passover and Family Purity as being very similar. First, both start off with something very sacred and good (leavened bread and marital relations) and in both cases G-d said that they were to be no permitted during a certain time. Both involve a cleansing process. Both are inherently "unnatural" actions. Yet, both are commanded by G-d and in observing them we attain an "unnatural" type of holiness.
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Excellent!!
What a perfect time for me to have read this article!!
May H" bless you and you should continue to write and inspire and teach more and more people .
Thank you
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Beautiful article and true for many people.Thanks. Perhaps the Rabbi could expand on it in the future. There are siblings who are Esav/Yakov people. We began practicing the laws of family purity after many, many years of marriage. The mikva was wonderful but it was very hard on our marriage to adjust to the physical separation .We both had chronic health & scheduling problems. Touch is often comforting for people who dont feel well enough to verbalize. When nidda ended, it was hard for my husband to switch over and touch again. Regardless of the loneliness, we became observant. Being post menopausal, it is much easier. We now allow each other space as neededbut can touch when ill.
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While some married couples want to be with each other 24/7, others want to be divorced no matter how long they are separated. Being niddah doesn't have to do with reinforcing a marriage as a Chabad rabbi told me that after a woman is past menopause, sexual relations are allowed any time of the month.
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I loved the article, I'm just wondering now what one does, when there are no cycles?
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An excellent article.
Chag Pesach Kasher VeSameach.
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What a great explanation of why these laws make sense. I've always been reluctant to get married because of my fear of a husband's constant needs taking over my life - when in fact I am a committed artist. But I see the wisdom of Torah has addressed this problem long before me. By requiring a separation during a significant portion of eachot only does the attraction stay strong but people can if they choose grow as individuals keeping the intellectual attraction and stimulation of each other's company strong as well- so the marriage stays happyonly physically but spiritually and intelectually as well and husbands and wives don't feel stifled in their growth bytheir committment.
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Once the cycle ceases, there is no longer need to go to the mikvah regularly. However, if one never went before, one can go once, and that immersion is valid retroactively. Contact a rebbetzin near you for info on this or write to us privately via the ask the rabbi option. For more, see Does a post-menopausal woman still need to go to mikvah?
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What a wonderful, consise, beautifully presented explanation of Leviticus 15, family purity and separation. Thank You.
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Toda Raba for writing your article. My husband and I have been married for over 25 years of our adult lives. We have tried to explain to our daughters that it is necessary for husband and wife to be apart, but not for too long. Your article will be added to our family talks. We are both retired from the Military and without knowing it in our early years of marriage, by being separated due to our careers, we truly developed a stronger bond for each other. Both of our jobs required a level of secrecy which could have ended our union many times. But thanks to H' and our committment to each other we will be celebrating 30 years of knowing each other.
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According to the Torah, it's only during the actual menstrual period that sex is not permitted. Why teach an erronious reason for the additional 7 days that keep a couple apart?
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Not so simple. The Torah provides different regulations and conditions for how long a husband and wife are separated, according to when the menstruation begins and how long it lasts. Jewish women decided to simplify it with a system that covers all possibilities no matter what.
In the Talmud we find Rabbi Meir asking why the Torah forbids a woman to her husband for 7 days after the onset of her period. He explains that this is because her husband becomes used to her, and she is no longer as attractive to him. After a separation of 7 days, he says, she becomes as precious to him as the day she entered the chuppah. (see Nidah 31b)
So we find that the rabbis of the Talmud sought out reasons for Torah rules such as these.
When the community of Jewish women as a whole began to use the simplified method, that also became Torah, just the same as if G_d told it to Moses. It doesn't matter why they did it, if they did it, it's Torah--G_d's wisdom. How it came into the world and for what reasons is irrelevant.
And so, we can also look for reasons that G_d would want this to be. All Rabbi Friedman does is to extend Rabbi Meir's reasoning a little further.
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Isn't there written in the Torah that one is not to add or subtract from what is written? If so, then those women you wrote about added to the Torah. If humans can add to the Torah, what keeps humans from taking away from it also? From your reasonings, the Reform movement is on solid legal ground for what they teach.
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You raise a valid point. So I need to write a little more to clarify:
First of all, your question applies equally to matters such as the Festival of Chanuka or Purim, as well as to many other rabbinical enactments and common Jewish customs. It's obvious that Torah is not meant to remain static over the ages--in every era there is a need to find new applications and adaptations to the situation in which we find ourselves.
None of these adaptations, however, take away or add to the Torah. They are all simply a matter of applying the rules the Torah has provided us to deal with new situations. It's like, if someone built you a house with a small dining room and your family grows larger--so you discover why the architect designed a retractable wall between the dining room and the lounge.
So, too, when the events of Purim and Chanuka occurred, the Jews realized that the Torah made room for them to create new holidays and rituals for just such situations.
Similarly, when women saw that the laws of nida and related issues were becoming too complicated for their cycles and management, they saw that the Torah had left a window open to make things easier.
In this way we see how the Torah was given only once, and yet is also being given to us constantly in every generation: At Sinai we received the entire Torah, but throughout the generations, situations arise that help us to unfold and discover how much is inside that package.
Please feel free to discuss and ask further.
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(quoting Tzvi Freeman) In the Talmud we find Rabbi Meir asking why the Torah forbids a woman to her husband for 7 days after the onset of her period.
My point still is: if the Torah says 7 days, then the women adding 7 clean days to the seperation is adding to Torah which is prohibited. It's a simplified method? How much simplier can the Torah regulation be when it says don't have sex until your period stops?
So if some women want to go back to the so called complex method, then that is their right also. Either way can be Torah. No problem. Women, have it your way.
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A couple of points:
1. The issue is far more complex. There are three different counts depending on when the blood was seen and for how long. These three, in turn, affect one another. Know the territory before you talk about adjustments. Don't be like the developer who wants to build a shopping mall in the forest, and when you tell him, "But we first need to study the environmental impact, the water drainage, the wildlife...."---he says, "But I want a shopping mall! The PEOPLE want a shopping mall!"
2. The Torah instructs the elders to make safeguards to protect the Torah. Rabbi Yehuda HaNassi felt it necessary to simplify these laws. Jewish women felt it necessary to simplify them further, as noted. The sages later accepted the women's collective consensus as law--as the Torah instructs and authorizes them to do.
3. You need to ask: Am I going down this path to come closer to Torah and holiness? Is it wisdom guiding me or something else? How will this affect my children and their children? You are not playing with "just another custom", but with the basis of the sanctity of the Jewish people.
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It seems as tho we agree in principle on the subject. Who my contention is with is those who imply "'It's my way (interpretation) or the highway".
In your example above about expanding the dining room, the owners can either expand or keep the room the original size; it's their choice. So also it comes down to that it's a couple's choice about which way to observe the laws of mikvah as long as the basic laws of the Torah are upheld.
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How does this reasoning apply to women who have past their menstrual periods and/or menopause?
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Please see this link for a response to your question about the laws of family purity after menopause.
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How do parents of a large family maintain their closeness when the wife is pregnant or nursing and hardly ever needs to go to the mikva?
I know a woman who, as a mother of four children, had gone to the mikva only 5 times in her married life: as a newlywed and after the births of each child!
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I love how our relationship with G-d is described...very profound!
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i was very pleased to find that R. Friedman has prefaced the traditions and customs of NA indians and other tribes who have practised various forms of 'family purity' laws. It certainly is a curious question of how we find that practise outside of jewish tradition;
could we venture to ascertain that maybe this need is instinctual, this need for distance before togetherness? Distance and ritual creates in a society an important teaching on boundaries. personal and political. Maybe this is the 'natural' reason behind the 'unreasonableness' of G-d's law?
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Perhaps God's purpose in creating the separation also has a mystical component?
after all, from practicing this 'abstinence makes the heart grow fonder' commandment the patriachs and matriachs produced all the prophets & sages; ... the Abraham(s), Issac(s) and Jacob(s) ... of antiquity.
And even the modern idea of timing the births of one's children according to a couple's positive intentionality; i.e. when he and she both conceptualize a higher thought of LOVE at point of conception ... how does loving intent affect a new life?
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"A man has to overcome his resistance to commitment, and a woman has to overcome her resistance to invasion."
Don't you believe a woman also has a resistance to commitment and a man also has a resistance to invasion? My experience is that men like their space too; women like their independence too. I suppose it's different when it concerns marriage.
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