[Avodah] Halachic Infertilit

[Arie Folger]

R'nCL wrote:
> I agree this does not work with the Rambam, as you needed to have kept
> count since you first got your period at around 12 or so, and nobody has
> done that - but is not the Rambam a daas yachid?

The Rambam's source seems to be Midrash Tan'huma, Warsaw (there are two main 
texts of MT, the Warsaw edition is the one that was printed first IIRC). 
IIRC, there are other ways of reading that midrash, but it seems, at face 
value, to support the Rambam. OTOH, there have been attempts at reading the 
Rambam differently, because of the difficulty reconciling biology with the 
simple understanding of the Rambam.

> I don't really understand this - because even if you take the most
> machmir position regarding onset, if you get long enough then you must
> be out of the yamei ziva and into the yamei niddah, and most women -
> even with short cycles, do do that.

You mean the opposite. If a woman bleeds long enough, she is out of yemei 
nidah and into yemei zivah. That is fairly obvious. The reverse, however, 
isn't true, as once she has the requirement of 7 neqiim, she needs them in 
order to become tehorah again.

The safek deOraita is that women will not distinguish between three days of 
zivah and one/two days, nor between one/two days of zivah and nidut. If women 
do not keep track of their menstrual periods (because they don't use an 
agenda to record their periods), they could easily start wondering whether 
new bleeding is of one kind or the other. Especially when nutritional 
scarcities may influence the quantity of menstrual flow.

Kol tuv,

Arie Folger