[Avodah] Halachic Infertilit

[Chana Luntz]

> 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.
> 

Yes, but I was asking a different question.  Even if you take the simple
reading of the Rambam, regardless of his source,I f rov rishonim do not
agree that bottom line this is the difference between ziva and nida, do
we not treat the Rambam as a daas yachid, at least for cases of halachic
infertility ?

> > 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.

No, I do not mean the opposite.

Let my try and explain.  Let us say that a woman commences her period on
day 1 and bleeds for five days.  I agree with you that we do not know
whether this bleed is a ziva or a nida bleed, and hence she will need to
wait shiva nekiim as per usual.  BUT, let us say that she does that -
then by the time she goes to mikvah on the evening of day 13, she is
definitely neither nida or ziva.  Now, let us suppose that in fact it
was a nida bleed, then by the time she goes to mikvah, she is almost
through her yamei ziva, and so long as she does not bleed for the next
few days (in any form or fashion) then she is definitely into her yamei
nida and the *next* bleed she sees is definitely a nida bleed and does
not need shiva nekiim vadai.  Now let us suppose that that bleed on day
one and following is in fact a nida bleed and she does need shiva
nekiim.  Well she had them, and does that not mean that, assuming her
next bleed is weeks away, she is again definitely in her yamei nida by
her next bleed.  And were the bleed on days 1-5 to be any combination
you like of nida and ziva, do you not come to the same conclusion, so
long as she waits the first shiva nekiim and then there is enough time
after she finishes bleeding to make sure she is out of any yamei ziva
that are out there?  Why does this not work according to everyone bar
the Rambam?

Now I am not (and assume the Doctor quoted in Ha'aretz) is not assuming
that she will do this kind of calculation for every period BUT, if she
is trying to fall pregnant and the ovulation tests are showing she is
not doing so because she is ovulating during the shiva nekiim, why,
under the supervision of a Rav, cannot she do this kind of analysis
until she falls pregnant?

> 
> 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.
> 

Agreed - but we are (I am assuming) not talking about the usual case,
but about a woman who has proven (and today we have the medical evidence
via a simple home test) that she is ovulating during the shiva nekiim
and who is desperate to fall pregnant. Why in such a case is it not
simply a case of a few months of close analysis and supervision to
ensure that no such confusion occurs and that the necessary records are
made (if she does not then fall pregnant within 6 months to a year there
is clearly other infertility problems and not just that of halachic
infertility)?  Why is it that the default response seems to be - go get
yourself to a doctor and get yourself drugged up on hormones?  Why is it
that RIS is saying that there is *still* a safek d'orisa even if all of
these precautions are being taken and therefore drugs are the better
bet? Why is everybody suggesting that it is fine to ignore a vadai issur
d'orisa in the case of shifchas zera in order to procreate but that this
we can't do?  That is what I don't understand.



> Kol tuv,
> 
> Arie Folger


Regards

Chana