Women & Sifrei Torah | Rabbi Anthony Manning | September 3rd 2025

It's good to be uh back here for a a new year. It should be with Masel and Braha. Everyone should have a them and their families. Gooden. Please God. Um I'd like to thank our sponsors for this year. Uh the Shia today is sponsored specifically by Michael and Sharon Croninberg. Thank you very much for the sponsorship. Leu Nishmas um Sharon's father Rav David Yizak Benhav Shiman Morai. Rabbi David Burns, David Bergstein, who served as a raing queens in New York for for half a century, close to 50 years. His side is on uh the sixth of alul. So thank you for that sponsorship and for all the work you do in the shul. And thank you also to our regular sponsors for 2025. The shirim is sponsored anonymously brand. So um we have three shirim between now and the end of sukus. Wednesday this year doesn't have a great masle in terms of shirim for the ou. So uh we only have three. Uh so I decided uh I I have promised you some shirim on medical ethics which we we will get there please god after sukas but I decided I need to speak about inyanadoma a little bit and it's always tempting to speak about rashashana and sleas because that's coming up uh soonest. Um, but I decided to speak about Simhas Torah. Uh, partly because Amy asked me to, uh, to do a shar on women's laning on Sim Torah, which I've never spoken about before and generally um, which we will get to. But I'd like to prepare three shirim for you on topic we've never discussed any of these issues before in in this format, which is on women's involvement in uh, the Shul service with the Safetera specifically um, both in terms of women's dancing with the Safetera. I don't know about you, but I've been involved in a number of communities where this has been an extremely divisive issue and uh the shul has been really torn apart. I know at least two communities in which this has happened. Uh many of the people were very against it. Many of the women were very against it. Uh many of the men were very in favor of women's dancing with cifrey Torah. Um I think anything that gets them home earlier for the kiddish I think is uh is what they want. Um sometimes the divide is Israelis who tend to be very kind of uh conservative little C on these issues and Americans and Hudznikim who sometimes be a little bit more liberal on these issues but not necessarily. So what I want to do with you please God is today I want to just lay foundations. What are the dim denim of cifrey Torah? What uh are the denim of cifrey Torah and contact with tuma? Because one of the issues that is often raised as a as a question mark about women's connection with cif to Torah is is there a problem if a woman is in need if she's menstruating is that an issue for her to touch the sacred Torah to lift the sacred Torah to carry the sacred to maybe even to look at the sacred Torah we need to deal with those issues square on before we deal with anything else. Next week I'm going to look at the issue of dancing in shaw where the whole minag comes from in dancing with the cphrit tora which is a relatively new minhag that people take the sephre tora and they dance around the room with the cif tora used to be that people danced around the safer tora people stood in the middle and people danced around the safer tora but that's not what is done most places now and then we'll get into women's laning and uh hopefully in a couple of weeks from now okay so that's uh that's our next three weeks mapped out uh please god it should be vat So let's start at the very beginning. I' I'm not going to go through the the early sources on the sheet in great detail because they're fairly straightforward. I brought you in number one which is worthless mentioning when the safetra first appears in the when Moshe the end of his life coming up soon in the parishes writes it down when Moshe finished writing all the whole until the very end that itself is a very loaded issue. Did he write all the way to the end where it says that he's already died? How can he write something which is not true? If he says he died and he's writing it, it's obviously she or is that prophecy? He will die. Did Yeshua write them? That's a sh which we had which we're not going to have again right now. Maybe in the future please God. He says to the he commands them no say and they are the ones who carry the kadesh with the in. said to them, "Take this. This is the master copy and put it next to in the in the Aaron." There's a debate whether it's inside the Aaron the safet next to the or outside the the edge on a on a shelf if you like next to the Aaron cades, but put it next to the Aaron cadesh. The higher sham and this will be the testimony. This will be the witness. This will be the master copy. Any future cifree Torah will be checked against this one. And there's a whole history. What happened to that safer Torah? Did it get lost some? Was it was it hidden away when the Aron Codes was hidden away? Um what is the cif to that Ezra the Torah of Ezra from the second sample? Is that the same one? Is that a different one? Not for now. Very interesting, etc. But it is important to understand that the very first time the safer Torah appears it is put in the Aon and the Aon is put in the holy of holies in the kesh kadoshim and no one ever goes there other than the coal on yam kipa etc unless there's a need I imagine if they had to get it out to check something they could go in but um the point is that the sephorra is very very detached from the people that's the first thing I brought you in number two which I'm not going to read now the the very important story of Yoshi Yahu who who finds the the safety who finds this safety when they're doing renovations in the Ba Mikdash in the midb and and the revolution that that caused with the people and the and the chuva revolution you can read that and around on that for yourselves but that's an important reappearance of the safety and I brought you a few uh a few little uh you know tidbits of information the earliest verses that we have from the safety were found just down the road here in Kfom by uh by the old city near the pagan center where it shows you the burkas kanim or at least something very similar to burkas kanim dating from the time of kiskao from the safetera many fragments of the cifre tora of cphrto were found with the dead sea scrolls which date back 2,000 years the engi scroll that was found in engedi which is from the third fourth century contains two chapters of iigra with exactly the text identical to the text we use today which is very interesting the oldest complete safeter that we have today which is kosha is called the belong Bolognia safer tora and it's from the 12th century 12th 13th century and it's in the museum in Bologna. I don't know if it's available to be seen there. I've never been to the Bologna I don't think but if anyone has any uh photos from there then maybe they can see the safeter there. Now in terms of the of the safetra so let's look at a few sources. Number ra number three in the rama mitzvah and of course he gets this from the we just read. You have to have a designated place for the safer Torah. It can't just wander around which makes it interesting and surprising. And here I've tried to weave in things about Yam Kiper and Rashon as part of what we're doing. Look in number four, a surprising source. So the Mishna says in Yuma on Yam Kipper when the Coen Gad read from the safetra, they didn't just take out the safer Torah and give it to him to read. So the coord comes up to read says the Mishna notra. So these are all positions of authority in the temple takes out the safety and he gives it to the scan to the deputy and he gives it to the doll. The coal takes it and he reads, "Why is it passed around?" The yalami immediately comments here, "How can you do this? How can you pass around a safer Torah like this? This is not the way to treat a safer Torah to pass it from person to person." Number five says in every time you have a dealings with the sacred terra you say that the he's saying to the ra here you always people always follow the Torah and here you say the Torah is going to the people rather than people going to the Torah. How can this be? They are very very people. Okay, hat bah. It's covered hatra for it to go to these people. Meaning, you're right. We would never normally hand the Torah around from person to person. It's not appropriate in this case. These are the four leaders of the of the of the nation. You're allowed to do that. Interestingly, the people themselves brought cifer. I I I hadn't really focused on this before. Look at number six says the Gomorrah after the coming god had read everybody would bring had brought this cifree Torah with them to the temple and they read they read from the safetraim to show off the safetra to all the all their friends what does he mean how beautiful their safetra was shorter meaning how how proud they were that they'd have this beautiful safetra made and it's a mitzvah because as we see a famous idea when the Jewish people stood went through the yans this is my god and I will beautify him if you're going to get a lulv get a beautiful lulv if you can safetra n with beautiful safetra but claf by by an expert scribe with beautiful ink with beautiful claff and they brought them on. Why why do you need to know that? because there's no avith in yushim on purpose then and the kipa of course as a dinner of shabas you can't carry on yom kipa anyway they brought their creatorra interestingly this was an exception to the rule as well they had their safety there but they brought it there to read interesting I don't know what this looked like in the in the azara all of a sudden everybody this feels a bit more like simra to me everyone's opening up cif tora reading maybe there were little cifray but this was a minute that they had that people brought and it was a one-off thing a special one-off thing for yum kipper Number seven, if if there are people who are imprisoned, Jews who are in prison, now today, Jews who are in prison are usually in prison because they're crooked or they committed crimes and we're not particularly sympathetic to the fact that they say, "Well, I need to lora." Well, if you needed to land for a safe terror, why did you end up in prison? Um, okay, fine. Um in those day in those days uh we're talking about someone who was captured hostage who's held by um non-Jews in a prison and the host and they say you can bring in a safe if you want to the prison fine we don't allow you to bring a safetyra to the prison because why not because we're not sympathetic to the prisoners these are prisoners who didn't do anything wrong but because we don't shle around ciforra you don't move cifra around says the ramar If you're just going to read it, but if you're if you're going to actually make it avon and set it up beforehand, then you can do that. Meaning you have to have something which is more something which is more fixed. You can't just have cifer wandering around and if he's an important person then you can do it because we saw on you're allowed to make an exception for important people. Now, we're going to have to plug all of these ideas into, well, what do we do on simas to Torah? And then when, let's say, the women of the community say, well, we also want to say for Torah, how do these ideas uh play in? Now, you might say, well, our women are even more hashov than our men in the community. You could say that. Is that the relevant uh analysis? Well, we we'll get to that, but not really today. And the underlying reason that Mishna brings down again, number eight is we go to the Torah, the Torah doesn't come to us. So, number nine, again, I said I'd do these quickly. We'll we'll we'll slow down in a few minutes. So you're not allowed to say you're not allowed to leave when the safetra is still out. You're meant to stay until they put it back. So it says there are meaning it's not that one individual can't leave. The shul can't just leave to go somewhere to a kdish or something like that and the safety has left that on its own. And then he says if you uh if you're taking it to another home then another place that well let's read it if you if you are putting it in like to a next door. So if there's only one exit you have to wait. You follow the safer Torah. Let that go out of that door and you follow it to the place where it's going. Always follow the savior Torah. If there's another door and it's not going out of the other door, fine. So, you can leave from the other door. It's not an insult. You can go out of the other door, but you always have to be following the safer, not the other way around. says, "Okay, if you have a proper Aaron kadesh, which we have ins then you have to walk to the safer you have to walk there. try and get there to the front of the iron. There's a mitzvah to bring the kids, the babies, okay, to kiss to get them excited, etc. So, people are bringing their babies and their kids to kiss the safer, etc. Um, which is a beautiful minhag. I find these days in some shors in Israel things are so hefta that people just walk in the middle of the service right up to the aron kodesh with the kids open up the iron kesh to show the kids the creator tora maybe it's just a British in me that is thinking like like what is going on here the whole shaw feels like it's it's a summer camp but um and then of course the kid runs around the aron kesish and and there's all the grumpy old men sort of frowning I'm one of those people okay frowning in one shaw in uh in London which will remain nameless They actually rope off the the area up to the iron codition with a big sign that says no entry. Okay, which is very interesting. Which is maybe a touch unfriendly, but nevertheless, okay, fine. So, how are you allowed to walk the safety around the shaw? Meaning, we take a long route around the shaw. Who says you're allowed to do that? Says Raad Ysef has a chuva on this number 10. Look at what he says in Ysef in his safer actually not the chuva. Everyone from the community should go up to the to kiss it mouth hand etc etc. You shouldn't bring the safer to the person with the safer. You shouldn't be leaning over with the safer to for people to kiss it. They come to it. It doesn't go to them. Fine. And you're allowed to. It's it's a you need a to go the the long route in order to why because it's covered Torah. It's not demeaning to the Torah to take it around. Not everybody has to run to the Torah. So then it reaches you you raised the question which we're going to talk about next week. In some shors, a minig developed and one of uh one of the shors in London did this for a while that the men would carry the safety to around the shaw for the other guys to kiss it and hand it over to a woman in the Ezra nshim. The woman would then take the safer Torah around the Ezra Nashim, hand back to a man. The man would bring the safer Torah back to the Aron Kesh. Is that appropriate? Is that within the spirit of this mitzvah? Is that allowed or not allowed? One of the questions we have to ask ourselves is not the question of whether women should be touching or carrying cifra, but whether this is the right thing to do with the safer Torah. I don't have a clear answer on that. You might turn around and say, well, now that we take the long route, which is covered at Torah, so this is just the longer of the long routes and it's more cover the women want to kiss the or you might say, no, no, no, it's enough already. We we we go this far. We shouldn't be shleing out that far as well. I I don't have a clear answer. The Zohar is very concerned about moving a safer Torah really anywhere. Look at number 11 on the top of page three says the Zohar the group with that that are learning the Zohar says go exiling if you like a safer from even from one sh to another you're not allowed to do that all the more so into the He says, "Wait a second. The this parallels the went into the takes steps away. So too here it's a kind of golas. The safetra might go from one to another. It might go to the street and then it will go to the midbah meaning it's a sense of of of loss. It's a golus. It's a almost the safety is getting further and further away like the is getting further and further away said the people in Baba were very scared of this mitzvah. They never moved a safety even from one to another. And in case you don't realize how strict some post have taken this to be, Raviakov Endan objected very strongly to taking a safer Torah to a Shiva house at all. Even if it's there for days says that's not how it works. The people will Davin in the Shiva house and then when he comes to create a Torah, they'll all come to shul and they'll read the safer Torah in the Shaw. Ah, you shouldn't be leaving a Shiva house. Yeah, but that's better than take shleing a safer Torah to the Shiva house. who takes a safer Torah to another house. We don't do that. Now, that's not the min. As you know, we do take a safer Torah. There is a a commonly held perception that as long as you read from it three times, then that's okay. That is a little bit of a myth. Okay? And I brought you somewhere in one of the footnotes, Rav Avit Zatovski has one of his myth busting uh long essays where he says it's not correct. >> In other words, that's what we do. Bring it to the house. >> Right. That's that's what's commonly done. But ra Jacob emden said you shouldn't do it at all which is very interesting. Oh rather sorry that was sofa not of yakov emden. Ravakov emden didn't like bringing a turret to a shiver house because there were little babies there and diapers and all sorts of things. It's just not appropriate for a safe terror to be in a shiver house. Also I brought you Ravaldenberg. I didn't bring you the whole chuva. Rafaldenberg was very critical of people who do bar mitzvah of the cottel and they have a a minion and then somebody runs off and brings the safer Torah which is what everybody does. He says that's not how you do it. What you have to do is you have your minion and then the minion has to go to an aron kadesh together to to or at the very very least the whole minion has to go pick up the safer Torah and bring together with the whole minion the safer Torah not just one guy. Oh, we need a safer Torah. Like you need something from, you know, Ramy Levy. Oh, get someone get a safer TRA. No, no, that's not how it is. It has to be very uh with a lot of cover, etc. Um, oh, we'll get to the women of the wall. Okay, don't worry. We'll get there. This this is all part of the discussion. Ravadi Ysef has a chuva in number 12 which I'm not going to read out in detail but he's asked about hakus says it's one thing on simas Torah when we dance around and we take out all the cifray Torah but that's at least to read them we read them so you could argue you know it's just a long route to to reading them [Music] >> right right >> what about when they just take a safer orphan out into the street to dance with the safeterra on the night of m's reading anything. By the way, one of the reasons for the people justify the min of laning on the night of simra which is very strange. When do we ever lane at night alikabala? There are real problems laning at night. Why do we lane at night on simkas? to justify taking out all the cifrey Torah and dancing with the cifrey Torah. It's kind of expos now that we've taken them all out. How passes that we don't read from them. But on no one's going to read anything. It's in it's it'sikim. I never even thought of them but maybe except theim. You're right. But in Israel, they don't take the safer to theim. Israelis all over Israel do hakafne. There are no inra or places like that. And I bet they do have coverage and dance around. So Ravadia has a long cha you can read it for yourself. Basically he says cover. It's cover tora. Once it becomes cover then it's fine because you're doing it for the Torah. What defines what is cover and what is inappropriate? Good question. And the answer really is his last line. If you if you look in the last two lines of number 12. So also taking out a safer to the street, excuse me, the whole purpose is he's very clear on it. No problem. cover our Torah that's he quoted before and then he says at the end this has become Israel Torah who the fact that it's the min means that it must be right and now we have to find a reason to justify the min so that raises the question which we're going to talk about next week well what if we want to make new Minhagen Minhagen starts somewhere They start usually with the people. They don't start from the top down. They start from the bottom up. So there's always a a question when these new things come. Oh, that's not the min. Yeah, but the min wasn't the min either until the min was the min and now it's the min. So So who who starts? Do you have a number of sort of naughty people kind of pushing the envelope at the beginning which everyone's sort of tutting about and then oh well that became the min. Let's let's do that or not. We're going to talk about that. We have to address that full on. But he his basis for supporting this is min Israel. Um I'm going to go quite fast here. The 13 and 14 talk about standing in front of the safer Torah. It's interesting the Gmorra debates which is the calv. Do we stand in front of a safer Torah because if we stand in front of a RV all the more so we stand in front of a safer Torah where the RAV learned the Torah. That's one way of looking at it. And the Gomorrah elsewhere learns the opposite. If people stand in front of a safer Torah, then all the more so they have to stand in front of a Rav who is Torah Shabal pair who overrides the safer Torah. The safer Torah says that you only you hit somebody 40 lashes and the Rabonim say no it's 39. So who who beats who? The Rabonim beat the cifra. So you all which way do you learn the kakoma? It's very interesting. You can think about that yourself. Uh it is M to sit um with the safer Torah and the Rambam says that and some people have a min top of page four that they do sit but he says you have to sit with extreme focus. Look at the Rambam Torah. If you are going to sit in front of a safer Torah rush you have to be very focused. This doesn't feel like in okay this is the this is the witness of God's voice on earth. He quotes the we give every kind of cover we can shown. If you are if you play fast and loose and you desecrate the cover of the Torah, then you yourself will be desecrated in some way in front of others. One of the strong practices has grown up that we don't touch the safer Torah on the parchment. And if you look at the um the origins of this, you'll see as follows. Number 16, your hands may not be dirty or have anything sort of dirty on them. He's not talking about the parchment. He's talking about even on the outside of the Torah. You have to have strong you have to have a strong personal hygiene. And we'll actually raise that issue in a few minutes. Is it possible that the issue of women who were nida in nida touching the safer Torah is it possible that the whole issue was a personal hygiene issue and that's a very serious question which we'll come to in which case that's going to impact on the modern reality of the way that things work these days we'll see that but certainly hygiene on the hands is a very important point even if you're not handling the claf and all the more so look in number 17 if if a person grasps Say naked. See, what does naked mean? He'll be buried naked. We're going to bury somebody just a naked body. You can't mean that. He'll be buried naked of his mitzvah or her mitzvah. Well, really one time they touched the claf and they they got no mitzvah. Noah you have to say you'll lose any mitzvah that you're trying to do with the safer Torah whether it's gel reading if you touch the the the scroll itself then you any benefit any reward that you were thinking of for that mitzvah it's gone because it's been overwritten by the inappropriateness of the way that you've held the safer Torah and you need a and of course Saridim have those little what do you call them the handkerchief things hanging from the top of the safeterra partly so that when they need to move the safer Torah around because the sarim do they don't have an in the same way they have they do it with the midp etc have you know the tool and they don't need to touch it so touching a safer is a major a major no no there is a one view that arum means I brought you some sources in 19 arum might mean that the person has to wear Talis every time they touch or inter interact with a safetera arum might mean the person not that the claf is arum but the person is not dressed properly which raises the question again if a man has you can't handle a safeter without wearing a talis so should we be giving it to anyone without wearing a talis so you're going to say well give the woman a talis and she'll wear a talis as well okay I don't think that's what was going on here but but that's not the is means the actual p parchment itself so all of this is by way introductions to how seriously we take a safer Torah. And I just want to mention to you that Rabbi Minima, who many of you probably know, he was one of my Rabon Hamtar many years ago. I found he has a shir online on women um dancing with cifrey Torah. And his main focus in that shar is the points that we've made so far today, which is that it's not about women per se. It's not about the technical issues of Nida and which we will deal with now. It's much more about the how are you handling a safer Torah? We shouldn't even be doing what the men do now. It's problematic even more so to spread it. But I'm not saying that's the only way to look at it, but it's an important way to look at it. And I actually saw him at a wedding a couple of nights ago and I I mentioned it to him and uh we discussed it a little bit. Yes. >> In addition to the respect, there's a secondary thing that if you touch the parchment, it's not going to last that. >> Correct. It's it damages the parchments and that even brushing it with sitsus is not good for the letters, etc., etc. Okay, fine. Uh, let's now talk about Tuma. This is fascinating and it's going to bring us to areas we haven't looked at before. Says number 20 Ezra. So Ezra was maken 10 things. When Ezra brought the Jewish people back to the land of Israel, he made 10. And I'm looking at one of them specifically. If men and actually it was men and women originally I'm not going to deal with the women's side of that but if men had a seinal emission usually because of a sexual relationship with their you know with their wife but not necessarily they were not allowed to touch the safer Torah or to to read from the safer Torah to learn from a safer to learn Torah at all or even to Daven so the Gmorrah says feel dahu isn't it in the Torah the Torah itself talks this isn't a tak of Ezra this is an actual mitzvah in the Torah that if a man has a seminal mission he can't do certain things he has to go to the mikvah says the gorum on a Torah level the only thing that a man is restricted from doing if he has a simission is eating kchim eating trauma if he's a cohen eating kchim if they're going to the ba mikdash so and now Ezra comes to a new thing. These men are not allowed to learn Torah because they are ballet Korean. Now, why why would he attack in that? So, if you flip over the page to page five, so there are two reasons. This is already in the Mishnas in brahas. So, you know, one of the first things if your little boy starts to learn Mishnice and they start in Brahas, one of the first thing he comes ahead up with in Brahas is this issue of Valkeri and what he can and can't do, which is sometimes a bit awkward if your kid's quite small, but you have to navigate that. Um Ezra was concerned about a couple of things. He was concerned that the men would be overindulgent sexually and a that would distract them from holier things that they were doing during the day. Not holier, let's not say holier, but other things. And also they will be unreasonably demanding on their wives. And it could be because of the general status spiritually of the people when they came back from Bavl. They were in a pretty bad state. And Ezra said, "Look, these guys, they need they need, you know, kicking into shape." So he said to them, "If you're going to have a sexual relationship with your wife, then you're not going to be able to dav and you're not going to be able to learn until you've been to the mikvah." And what he was hoping is they would just tone down on the uh the inter the intercourse with their wives, if you like. So they wouldn't be It didn't work that way. Half the men basically said, "You know what? So I won't d and I won't learn. It'll be fine because they couldn't be bothered to go to the mikvah. So it backfired completely. You had a group of men who just stopped dabbling. And the other group said, you know something, it is a bit of a pain. So I won't be with my wife. We'll just you know they abandoned their wives and they just dav and learned these rather than go to the t of the mikvah. So the whole thing basically backfired in both directions. Okay, which says a lot about human nature and therefore they canled it. It was at a certain stage canceled according to well many mforim. We'll talk about that in a minute. Um but uh it was very clear that this was only for bala baler not bala bala read from the Torah balin. Okay. Number 21. Look in the topha says but what about other people who are tame? What about other people who are tame? Is there a problem with tumor? And the Mishna and the topha here wants to go out of its way to emphasize this is not a problem of tumor. It's a problem which was an external problem that we wanted the guys to be a little bit more detached from their wives in order to learn etc etc. Look at what it says in number 21. Hzavin a man who is a zav. A zav is a more serious tumor than balaria. Zavis has an actual disease. He has to keep Shivvene etc. Hazavos and women who have a zava as opposed to a nida. A zava is a woman who experiences um uterine bleeding not at the right time of menstrual cycle. Theidos in a woman who is having a regular menstrual cycle in a woman who's just had a baby who is tame seven days for a boy 14 days for a girl etc. Christ for Torah. They're allowed to read the Torah and they're allowed to learn oral law. There's no restrictions on them whatsoever because they're tummy. But the men who are for the reasons we just discussed, it's a completely ring fenced separate thing. But if a woman is a nida or a zava or your ledes or or a man is no restrictions whatsoever. By the way in the back door this is a very interesting very early source that there's no restriction on women learning to shab mean the gummor the gummor is not the ta is not talking about that issue here but it says quite sort of nonatulantly if a woman is a zid of course she can learn mishna and learn garam oh you mean she can learn gammorra oh interesting so that this is an interesting source on that but why is a regular person who is tame not restricted from learning to because number 22 gives a source in the garra Because Torah is not susceptible to my words are like fire and fire is not by the way also disagrees with the whole takana on the baleri as well. That's a separate issue. But the is certainly like rebu when it comes to other tame and therefore the ram bambas number 23 khim anyone who's tilid whether a woman who has nid au ki even a non-Jew and all non-Jews according to at least this den have a den of tav at least mutar is safer tora they're all allowed not only to learn to but to grasp the safer Torah to hold the safer Torah the spine to read from the safer Torah shaim dra Torah tum there is no prohibition because of tum for any of these people to hold the safer Torah and the passing is that way number 24 anyone who's whether the woman even if the woman is actually menstruating she can hold the safer to she can read from the safer so that really could be the end of the sh almost everyone agrees that this is the case that a woman even if a woman is a need is allowed to hold a safer Torah to grasp because but we're going to go on to see right now that there are other minhagim not like this just in parenthesis what is the now for so most of the rishonim or many of the rishonim at least say the whole thing was canled and they don't have to go to the mikba before they learn and they dav some rishonim hold it was only cancelled for learning but not for davining and they still have to go for davining um and other rishonim hold well they don't have to go but it's a good idea idea to go and actually there are many that go every morning to the mikvah including on shabas um for partly for kadusha and trying to kind of get themselves ready for but partly according to those ronim that hold that a baleri is still not allowed to davan until he's been to the mikvah that are ronim like that and therefore those people who go to the mikvah are are being they're being concerned for that opinion um and but now it's mostly that do that but but not only okay at the basic. Yes sir. >> Oh, good. So that is completely not related to this. That is alpaba. The a cemetery is a place which is very ti. It's almost two opposite things. You go to the mikva before going to to something which is kadesh before the basa mikdash. The basik the basak forest is the most opposite thing to kadushi you could possibly imagine. It's a mockum tum. So you have to ask the local cabalists here who know more than me. But my understanding is that if you go to a place with such strong tumor and you yourself are vulnerable because you are also tame you have that lack of protective force with you. You will be more susceptible to be uh attacked by the sidra or the whatever it is. And the same reason for women who are near not going to a cemetery. I think that the the tuma makes you more vulnerable to the dark forces that might be there in the site. It's not become it's not to become tahor cuz it's a if you do that it's obviously a wasted exercise. Now despite the fact that this is the hala there is a very ancient men and it's not just people sometimes paint this as a very fringe opinion. This is a very ancient meaning that women who are knitted do not have interactions with Torah. I'm not saying that's the but you'll see the strength of these minhagim. Look in 25 just we'll start with this which is astounding. This is from the gaonim. They go only in the period just after the Gomorrah and this is from a safer called which is a not a very well-known safer. It's around 11th century brings together a lot of the says as follows but when she's actually bleeding and menstruating she can't go into the shen until she's finished and she's keeping her seven clean days and she's not actively menstruating. And he brings the Pak of the woman who just had a baby kesh. Now that's not talking about a shul. That's talking about kotchim. That's talking about a woman who just had a baby has to wait a certain amount of time 7 days plus 33 14 days plus 66 before she can eat kotchim. But it's applying it to the bet. She can't go to the bet. And he brings in one of the names of one of the this was the inad that they women would not go to sh did not go to shik says they didn't even do do things outside the sh we'll see right now that's only when she's bleeding what about when she's keeping her shake we'll see this is how this is understood later how do we know which again is is from the the but it's applied here to a woman. Not only is she not allowed or she shouldn't well it says she's not allowed to go to the if she hears she's not allowed to say very extreme. Not only that, you are not allowed to make a in front of a woman who is still in case she kind of thinks that oh I say a and she says a ven and this will be a massive a woman who is said a to you this is this is not something >> that hasn't come to the >> we'll get we'll get that we'll get that so this is again I I'm not suggesting for one second that this is or ever was but this is a this is an opinion which finds its way through the guide. Go to page six. I brought you another alternative text of the mikos that says well no that was during the time when she was actively bleeding but when she was in a shiv aim it was not a problem. Now you might ask yourself well what's the difference if you're if you're worrying about tuma a person is tame until they go to the mikvah. A woman is just as tame in her nether cycle before she during her shiv and aim in terms of the laws of as she is when she's acting. So why would you make a distinction? Before the source we just saw, we didn't make any distinction. Number 26 says there is a distinction. So again, you're going to have to ask why would there be a distinction? What is the difference? And is it we'll see soon a question of hygiene issues or is it a question of actual Torah? Having said all of that, there is a counter um approach during the gonim. Look at number 27. They ask this is second from the are you are is a woman allowed to pray or to go to the he said it's fine what's the problem why is it an issue so to number 26 or 28 brings a nice source from the shame they asked the head of the yeshiva the rashiva mid not only is we going to not stop her from paying but we're going to say she has to dav she has to do all the normal davining what's the source when the Jewish people went to the hari and god himself came to teach them Torah all the men were there all the women were there all the babies were there they didn't say all the women should come but not you please you can stay at home and you can you know catch up later no no everybody was there without any exception and the an interesting source. So you see in the gaonim two completely diametrically opposed sources one group of and it says this was the min of yeshivas women can't go to shul women can't even dav women can't say brahas women can't say amen you can't even say amen in front of a woman who's anah and the other is like what are you talking about all the women were at harina there's no problem let the women come to sh let the women do everything I don't know how controversial this was in bavl at the time whether you had people getting very fbrrent about this side or that side but that's with a guy in it. And now we come to a safer which is very unusual. And I must confess when I was preparing this shar I'd never really even heard about this safer certainly let alone got into it and it's called the Bryer Denida. What is the brighter Denida? So this is a collection of halas and we'll talk about where it might come from. Is it authentic? Is it from the Gammorra etc. Um and it says some very unusual things exactly like the things that we've just been learning about. Now look at number says this that to the temple she shall not come that's talking about she's not allowed to come to aul she's not allowed to go to even to a bet midrash what is this brighter denita so there is a major debate about it it first appears in the quoted by various ronim in the 12th 13th century the ramban quotes it and I brought you in the ramban on is uh on the Pik. You can look at the Pik of Rael when Lavan comes searching for the trfim and he says, "Please get up and leave the room. I need to search the room." And she says to him, "I'm sorry, Dad. I can't get up. I'm having my monthly cycle." Whatever. If that's what it means, maybe it means she's pregnant. Not getting into that now. Uh and and he just runs away. And the Ramban on that Pik says, "Ah, that's what you see in this Bryce Denida that that nobody wants to be near women in this situation. and they run away from them and you're not even allowed to walk on the ground that they walked on. He brings that if if if somebody were to if the spittle from such a person landed on a child, you have to take the child to the mikvah if like very extreme things. He's quoting from this brighter than the Rambam monades. We have no idea whether he knew about this brighter but in the morim he quotes customs of ancient pagans and the way they treated in his view mistreated women who were having their cycle and he quotes almost exactly the same things that we Dafka don't do that the pagans do are as listed in this Bryce that we should also do which is very interesting so you had these two very strong counter kind of approaches where there's one approach which is trying to introduce that of the Jewish community and there's another approach the Rambam which is saying this is actually the opposite of what we do and the Rambam makes a big point of the way that Hilkas Nida is is calibrated so that on the one hand the husband and the wife wouldn't be actually physically together but that she wouldn't feel any in any way excluded that she'd be there in the home in the bedroom in the round with the kids and they'd be because excluding women in this is is a pagan you make them live in a hut down at the bottom of the village you >> that's correct the Ethiopians we talked about that when we do the Ethiopians. But it's funny because one side is painting this as a pagan practice and one side is quoting this thing called the brighter denina. Now the brighter denina also does other strange things. Um for example it brings a very countercultural version of the famous bat call. You know the bat call that B and B Sham are arguing for years and this one says the is like us and this one says like us. according to this brighter than the back comes out. Whoa. Like where did that come from? According to professor Sha Lieberman, this was an anti-nomian [Music] anti-hakic sects that was trying to kind of infiltrate into Judaism. There are some that thinks it was a carite forgery like a piece of karite propaganda. It's very very interesting as to where this brighter denita comes from. In case you are interested in learning more about it, uh I brought you at the bottom of page six everything I could find in the amount of time that I had to find it about four or five different websites. uh a couple of articles uh and apparently the the way that the person who has the most to say about this wrote in 2014 but he wrote in French so if your French is not up to it then you might not be able to get very far on that but uh that that's the brighter India and he's quoted and what's more interesting for us is it became mainstream because it was adopted by a safer called the shared dura which is a mainstream Ashkanazi halaka safer in the 13th century and then it gets quoted by Senna ura and Senna Orena in the 16th century in Yiddish takes on whole sections from this brighter diner and then mainstreams that into the culture of women in Yiddish speaking countries which is very very interesting. So if you want to know where where is this coming from when people are worried about this need question when it's not even the clearly not the says what do we why where are we getting this from the answer is we're getting it from here which has been you know pushed into if you like the the the mainstream of certainly or not pac but at least min go to page seven I'm going to summarize a little bit I'm not going to read every one of these but uh rashi interestingly the school of rashi quotes these ideas but says it's ara it's a humra it says it's a goodra that women will take on these extra things but it's ara it's definitely not the the ravy within 12th century Germany quotes this price of den as he approves of it he says that that's this is the this is the min the women didn't go to shul etc he said they did davin though they let them dav but they didn't let them go to shul okay interesting the rua also says as a student of the rava also brings the custom that women who were nidat didn't go to shul and by the way the schuls didn't have a nezshin in those days so you know where they're going to go even if they go to shul but they didn't come to shul the introduces something very new and we need to see this in 33 what about women coming to when they're he says he's in the 15th century in Austria I have allowed this when and similar days. We'll see what he means by similar days. There are many people the culka three times a year Jews even then people come on but certainly women who didn't come during the year they want to come on they want to hear the want to hear the laning they want to come to and he says and I want to rely on a principle that there is an idea that we don't want to upset the women we want to in we want to give ru We'll see where this is coming from because they'll be really sad and they will be really upset and depressed because everyone's going to surely to be in the community forash and they have to stand like pariah outside not the rest of the year by the way. He says the rest of the year they can stay at home but everyone can come. We'll see this in a minute. They will allow the women to do in the in the mikdash. Even though that looks as though you're you're mistreating the sacrifices again. I'm not sure exactly who the is. He quotes from elsewhere. Even though I allow it, I am aware that there is a tradition in Ashkanaz that this is completely prohibited and these women must not be inul another version smaller version of the he says it's not prohibited but the women don't do it and good for them it's really only it's only etc and he quotes from the so it's very interesting that the trumpet which was very influential on Ashkanazi Minhag and the Ramar he says yam I allow it but not the rest of the year. It is worth saying in parenthesis and this is something to be aware of that the the the relevance of hilot nida for women in the medieval period was much much less than it is today. Women had far far fewer menstrual cycles say 600 or 700 years ago than they do today. The average woman today has around 450 menstrual cycles in her life, which if they were Jewish and observant would mean they were basically 15 years of their life in NIDA. Okay, that's a long time. Okay, back in the day um in the in the medieval period, number one, people people reached puberty later, not so much later, but a little bit later. They certainly reached menopause way earlier in their 30s. Many women were really malnourished, worked very hard um and had low body fat and did not have their menstrual cycle at all and many other reason and many of them died in childbirth. There were just many many reasons why people just didn't and when they were married they were pregnant feeding pregnant feeding pregnant feeding pregnant feeding almost the whole of their life. So how how many cycles are they even going to have between all of those factors? So actually when you say this to people they're thinking like that's strange. Why has that changed? But it's changed radically. So it wasn't as relevant as you might feel it is today. But there are these two uh ideas that are going side by side. The Gmorra number 34 brings this source of of the just look at it briefly. Amariosi Ablo father interesting father was a title they gave also to Rabonim. I mean now it's just priests really called father Patrick. Okay. So father said there was a family in the mikdashim and they took it to the nashim for the women to do. There was a tob. You put your hands on the Corbin and you transferred if you like yourself into the Corbin is an obligation for women for men. But here they took it to the women. Not because we hold that women are obligated in it was a family. The women were grumbling and complaining. Hey, what's going on? We this is our corban. Why are the men doing we're not doing? So the answer says you know something why have a fight about something that doesn't need to be a fight take it to the nash let the women do and and shalom is very interesting how far do we take that meaning we don't want to make trouble when you don't need to make trouble why make a whole sector of the community unhappy when you can give them it's not not even technically on the other hand maybe this is different they were really the family of the corban it's not random women it's not just a community >> this could be a really strong justific ification for women doing the tour. >> It's certainly a major factor and we're going to talk about it that there is an idea that when something is not prohibited, why cause so much upset by prohibiting something which is not prohibited. On the other hand, there has to be a limit. We're not going to just let everyone do everything because you know we don't want to cause trouble. So there is the all of there are all of these different ideas going through. Let's just skip to the chase maybe page eight. I brought the ager the safer ager says you know by the 15th century in Germany. He says, "You know something, the women all do go to shaw, but they don't look at the writing of the safer Torah when they do hagba if they need it, which is very interesting. We'll see that finds its way into the shar as well." Look at number 36, the bet in Spain. Bet says, "I don't know what's going on with all this Ashkanazi stuff with the Nidus and all that." And he says, "The women where I come from in Spain," he says, "I never heard of women not coming to Shaw." Any women, all our women came to Shaw in Spain. He says, "Because not only that, he saw the people making a big mistake. They were applying the laws of from the Bikdash to women not coming to." He said, "I heard about this." And he said, "And it's a and it's a it's a complete mistake, but you have to stop it. There are these wrong incorrect minhagim which are taking people into this place where they're comparing the shaw to the temple and it's not the same thing at all." Bottom line, bottom line, um the rules in number 37 like I said that all tame are able to handle a cifree Torah. There's no prohibition on going to sh and daving etc etc. Let's just pick it up with the ra because the rema is the Ashkanazi sack. If you look here in the third line in number 237 towards the end there is a view that a woman when she's having her actual menstrual cycle and bleeding she shouldn't come to the bedet or even dav or even mention or even touch a safer here he means a safer Torah does he mean others for him and the other view is that that is completely permitted and that is the main view. So it's interesting that the other very restrictive view still made it into as a there are those people who do that in the Ashkenazi community. Yes. >> According to that day what about >> okay good. So they didn't do any of it according to this of the view and that was stamped later on they came no like like uh you know no that's it they they don't bench they don't say nothing again this was very frowned upon because they're ignoring mitzvah benching kiddish some of them mitzvah I agree it's astounding but he brings that as a view and he says we don't pass in that way is that women come to and sorry the other way Even though it's not the Poland is the women are restricting themselves but when they are in their lenient again why we'll see in a minute and even in a place where you want to be governed and here's an important linear on these big uh days when everybody comes they can come like all other women that's going to be a very important word what does that mean >> great distress for them not to come and they're standing outside when other women are coming in so we're going to have to ask what is the line of that's what he says Now, who decides who's in great distress? Do the women say, "We feel very distressed that we can't do dancing with the safetra." And the men say, "Well, you shouldn't feel that way." Uh or or do do you turn do you turn around to someone who says that they're distressed and say, "Well, you shouldn't be distressed." But we are distressed. Meaning that line will change. Yes. Briefly, because we got to finish. If there are so many women that need tight >> Yes. >> If these women didn't come to school in a small community with shoes to >> Yes. >> then you knew the woman was in need. >> Yes. Yes. Yes. Correct. But I think that we are way more sensitive to that issue today than they used to be. Women used to wear different clothes when they were needed. So that everybody knew they were needer. And as I said that people were needed far less than they are today. Let's just finish off because it's time to to to finish. I want to finish with just one source finally uh which is the the uh the Raviak of Emd number 39. So we've seen these different back and forth and number 39 he says I don't understand why there will be a difference between when they're actually menstruating and when they're in the shikim in terms of it's exactly the same until they go to the mikvah and he says maybe the whole issue was maybe it's when they're actively bleeding It's a hygiene issue. He says it was very difficult. There were very few personal hygiene products available in those days for women. It was very hard for them during that when they were actively bleeding to actually be anywhere in public which was not embarrassing for them and and unhygienic for them. And they thought that's maybe that's the whole issue here. Maybe that's the difference between this time and that time the shivim. And if that's the case, that's going to open up a whole door for a lot of modern day postkim to say, well, we live in a different world today. Nobody has an issue today. There are feminine hygiene products available and everybody's fine. Uh, and therefore, why should there be any issue at all? We'll we'll raise that next week and we'll see. But this is the framework uh for where everybody's coming from. Uh, and we'll have a lot to pick up on next week. Please God.