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Understanding
Clean and Unclean in Jewish Law
Clean (tahor) and unclean (tameh) in Jewish Law more often
than not refers to a clarification of the permissibility of
sexual relations between husband and wife as set out in the
toharat ha'mishpacha, a set of laws and guidelines that can be
called as the code for family purity or correctness of
behavior. These set of rules state that women are in a state
of being unclean or impure at the time she starts menstruating
(niddah). During this period of impurity, the husband and wife
are commanded to avoid all physical contact most particularly
sexual relations. Sexual relations between husband and wife
become permissible only after the cessation of menstrual flow
and after the woman has performed a ritual purification bath
in a mikva pool. From the day of menstruation, the woman
counts seven days before performing the mikva ritual, only
then can the man and wife have sexual relations.
The Bible states that a woman is in a state of impurity for
seven days from the beginning of her menstrual period and that
anyone who touches a menstruating woman, her bed or anything
she sits on during the period when she is unclean becomes
unclean until the evening and must wash his clothes and bathe
with water. Also, sexual relations during a woman’s menstrual
period are strictly forbidden and should a woman menstruate
during intercourse, the man and woman become unclean for seven
days. Judaism scholars prolonged the prescribed period when
sexual relations between a husband and wife are proscribed to
seven clean days after the menstrual period.
However, the clean and unclean does not literally mean bodily
cleanliness or being dirty. Rather it is more about being in a
condition of ritual and spiritual readiness in order to be
able to perform certain commandments of the Jewish law (mitzvot).
However, there is a slight difference between Orthodox and
Conservative Judaism in the interpretation of the additional
seven day waiting period as the extra seven days is not a
well-defined Torah or Talmud prerequisite. Although the
Orthodox Jews agree that the practice is a custom of the
virtuous they later made the practice obligatory. On the other
hand, despite the fact that Conservative Jews have not made
any official ruling about the practice, American Conservative
experts on Jewish religious law, customs and traditions have
written a responsa that the extra waiting period are stringent
but not mandatory. They opine that a man and wife only have to
wait for an extra day before Mikvah and not the whole seven
days.
As of late however, there has been an increasing interest
among the younger Reform and Reconstructionist Jews
specifically in the areas concerning family purity (toharat
ha'mishpacha). Although Jews of the Reform movement have been
known to be moderately antagonistic to the philosophy and
rituals concerning family purity, there has been steady and
increasingly marked shift towards traditional Jewish
practices. In fact, there are American Reform rabbis who are
advocating for the Reform movement to formally adopt the
rituals and practices of family purity in an official manner.
Source:
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