Forsaken: The Menstruant in Medieval Jewish Mysticism

2 The Mysticism of the Beraita d’Niddah

28 2 The Mysticism of the Beraita d’Niddah The Beraita d’Niddah (BdN) is a collection of niddah laws and traditions traditionally dated to Geonic Palestine that isolates menstruants from ritually pure human beings and from all things sacred. Although we do not have a definitive text or known authors,1 many traditions in the BdN emphasize the antagonism between menstruants and the sacred and therefore strongly suggest an enduring affinity with the Temple, rather than with the contemporaneous rabbinic house of study. Classical rabbinic texts do include, as we have seen, restrictions on marital intimacy during menstruation, but the restrictions of the BdN are very different in their emphasis and scope. Many assume that purity is the prerequisite for engagement with the divine in a post-Temple world and justify these assumptions by enlarging upon the dangers of the menstruant. Indeed, the BdN’s traditions are similar to the cultic conception of purity in contemporaneous Hekhalot literature. The two traditions feature common heroes, similar linguistic style, and magical practices. But while the Hekhalot practitioners emphasized seminal pollution, the BdN’s even stricter precautions focus on menstrual impurity. differences between rabbinic halakhah and the precepts of the beraita d’niddah TheauthorsoftheBdNemulatedthemuchearlierrabbinicstyleoftheTosefta of the mishnaic period, and like Hekhalot literature, many of the BdN’s laws are attributed to well-known talmudic scholars.2 The similarities to normative rabbinicliterature,however,aresolelylimitedtostyleandattributions.Where the Talmud calls for the separation of menstruants from their husbands to preclude the possibility of illicit sexual relations, the BdN demands the complete isolation of menstruants from all pure human beings and from all things sacred. Mysticism of the Beraita d’Niddah · 29 Rabbinic law prohibits menstruants from performing only three acts: filling her husband’s cup, washing his feet, and making his bed—three domestic responsibilities that might lead to sexual intimacy. Menstruants are permitted to engage in all other sacred and domestic activities. They are obligated to separate h . allah and light Sabbath candles and to recite the attendant blessings— two of three commandments specific to women and traditionally believed to ward off death during childbirth.3 They are permitted to pray and, according to one Tosefta, they are permitted to read from the Torah.4 There are only two passages in the entire Babylonian Talmud that suggest fear of menstruants, and these may reflect Zoroastrian influence.5 Sexual enticement, rather than impurity and danger, is the rationale for menstrual separation in the Talmud. The traditions of the BdN, by contrast, assume that that menstruants are dangerous and that menstruants must be barred from the sancta.6 For example: She who observes the laws of niddah neither cooks nor bakes for her husband . And she does not sift flour nor shake out the bed, nor draw water for him from an earthenware container. Why? Because she is impure and she pollutes by necessity. Rabbi H . anina said, “even the saliva that she spits out unto the mattress [pollutes her] husband and sons.” They (menstruating women) are forbidden entrance to the synagogue until they immerse themselves. She who has relations with her husband while a niddah will cause her sons to disinherit the Torah; and that is not all, for she will cause them to be afflicted with leprosy for one hundred generations.7 A woman who is menstruating may not tend to the h . allah nor may she light Sabbath candles. Why? Because she would be guilty and would make her household guilty.8 Rabbi Levi said, “one must not set one’s eyes upon a menstruant.”9 A menstruating woman ought not take out her dough or her baking, nor should she carry it to the oven, lest she pollute it and a learned scholar eat it and behold his mind gets mixed up and he forgets his Talmud.10 Awomanmaynottouchadryutensilnormayshesetonefootintoahouse that is filled with books nor a house that is prepared for prayer for she is impure and she pollutes by necessity.11 She must not touch anything holy. She does not have permission to ascend to her husband’s bed, for there is nothing as holy as her husband’s bed. She 30 · Early Jewish Mysticism may not enter a holy sanctuary. She does not have permission to enter houses of study or synagogues until she is purified.12 According to the BdN, a niddah must separate from her husband because she is polluted and dangerous. She has the power...