Volume 50 Number 95
Produced: Sat Jan 7 22:02:45 EST 2006
Subjects Discussed In This Issue:
Chuppas Niddah
[Judy Tudor]
Kiddushin (3)
[Gershon Dubin, Aliza N. Fischman, Martin Stern]
Kiddushin when bride is a Niddah
[Gershon Dubin]
"Right of the Lord"
[Alex Heppenheimer]
Seperate Phone Lines
[Batya Medad]
Sex change
[Lisa Liel]
Talking to women
[Daniel Wells]
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Judy Tudor <judytudor@...>
Date: Thu, 05 Jan 2006 01:51:28 -0500
Subject: Re: Chuppas Niddah
Stephen Philips wrote:
> I believe that they get a prescription from a Doctor for some form
> of medication (the Pill?) that controls the vesses cycle. They stop
> taking
Many brides try to do this, however, it does not always work, and you
can still be left with a situation of a Kallah being a Niddah. At this
point Janice's question comes back full force.
Shmuel Himelstein then helps with:
> As I understand it, the couple indeed goes to the Yichud room, but
> in this case a small child is already there, and stays with them
> throughout the time. Thus there is no Yichud, but no one at the
> wedding is the wiser.
This is a common solution to the Yichud room question, however, anyone
who has been to many weddings would still notice something is amiss, as
there will be some changes which cannot be so easily concealed. e.g. The
Chosson will not give the Kallah to drink from the wine, she will be
handed the cup by someone else. They will also not walk away
hand-in-hand to the Yichud room. In Chassidic circles, the Mitzvah Dance
will also be skipped or changed (I'm not sure exactly what will be done
in such a case).
But as a whole, I don't see why there should be such a strong attempt to
hide the fact that a Kallah is a Niddah. Anyone who observes a couple
for enough time will know when the wife is a Niddah. You don't need to
go around announcing it, but there is no need to go crazy trying to hide
it. It is the going to the Mikveh that needs to be kept secret, not the
Niddah state - that's a fact of life. In the time of the Beit HaMikdash,
a woman who was a Niddah could not do or touch several things (as any
person who was not Tahor), so her status as "Not Tehora" would have to
be known anyway.
Judy Tudor
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Gershon Dubin <gershon.dubin@...>
Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2006 20:15:48 GMT
Subject: Kiddushin
From: Nathan Lamm <nelamm18@...>
> The only doubt that arises in my mind is the fact that there's no
> actual yichud if the bride is a niddah. Why? The couple will be alone
> together when she is a niddah in the future.
The Gemara's explanation is that the yetzer hara is stronger when
they've never been together. Also, forbidding yichud for a married
couple would be a practical impossibility.
Gershon
<gershon.dubin@...>
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Aliza N. Fischman <fisch.chips@...>
Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2006 19:05:00 -0500
Subject: RE: Kiddushin
Janice Gelb wrote:
> Nathan Lamm <nelamm18@...> wrote:
>> The only doubt that arises in my mind is the fact that there's no
>> actual yichud if the bride is a niddah. Why? The couple will be alone
>> together when she is a niddah in the future.
>
>I've always wondered how this works in practice. I knjow people try to time
>it but that can't always work. How does one account for the lack of yichud
>as for tznius reasons if nothing else one does not want it "advertised" that
>the bride is a niddah.
Many years ago, my husband and I attended a wedding where the kallah was
a niddah. My husband had been slated to be an Eid Yichud (Witness to
private seclusion). The kallah got my attention and asked me to get my
husband. Basically, what they did was ask my husband to be the only
witness (usually there are 2) and they left the door ajar, so they were
not truly having "Yichud" as per halacha.
An interesting side note, they didn't want to explain the situation to
either set of parents (both chatan and kallah are ba'alei teshuva and
their parents would not have gotten it or been supportive) and so my
husband and I were the only ones, aside from the couple, who knew what
was going on. We were making the first night's sheva brachot anyway, so
they came home with us that night. She slept in our guest room, he
slept on the pull-out couch. We hid all their bags in our bedroom for
sheva brachot so nobody would see their stuff there. (It was a 2
bedroom apartment with only 3 other rooms.)
Aliza Fischman
www.alluregraphics.com
<fisch.chips@...>
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Martin Stern <md.stern@...>
Date: Wed, 04 Jan 2006 12:48:23 +0000
Subject: Re: Kiddushin
on 4/1/06 10:48 am, Janice Gelb <j_gelb@...> wrote:
> Nathan Lamm <nelamm18@...> wrote:
>> The only doubt that arises in my mind is the fact that there's no actual
>> yichud if the bride is a niddah. Why? The couple will be alone together
>> when she is a niddah in the future.
>
> I've always wondered how this works in practice. I know people try to
> time it but that can't always work.
Usually the kallah goes on the pill for a few months to regulate her
cycle so as to make sure she will be able to go to the mikveh before the
wedding. Very occasionally she experiences spotting which upsets this
arrangement.
> How does one account for the lack of yichud as for tznius reasons if
> nothing else one does not want it "advertised" that the bride is a
> niddah.
I believe the usual way is to have a child accompany the couple in the
yichud room. This can arranged in quite an inconspicuous manner so
nobody will notice.
Martin Stern
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Gershon Dubin <gershon.dubin@...>
Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2006 22:26:27 -0500
Subject: Kiddushin when bride is a Niddah
From: Shmuel Himelstein <himels@...>
> As I understand it, the couple indeed goes to the Yichud room, but in
> this case a small child is already there, and stays with them
> throughout the time. Thus there is no Yichud, but no one at the
> wedding is the wiser.
Another solution is what was done by a rov at a chasuna I was at. He
dispensed with the usual situation of the choson/family choosing the
eidim and chose them himself. Since he chose them himself, he knows he
can trust them to make sure that there is NO yichud, rather than that
there is.
I was one such non-eid once. It also works better since the requirement
for a child is that he's old enough to talk, and may just do so
inappropriately. Here, the rov chose the eidim for their discretion.
Gershon
<gershon.dubin@...>
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Alex Heppenheimer <aheppenh@...>
Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2006 09:34:26 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Re: "Right of the Lord"
In MJ 50:90, Nathan Lamm wrote:
> R' Meir Wise points to the concept of the "Right of the Lord"
> as the reason for certain practices relating to marriage.
>
> I recall reading that, in fact, fictional depictions not
> withstanding, such a concept never existed. Of course, people
> may have *thought* it existed, perhaps in older times if no
> longer in their own, and so certain practices reflect that
> belief.
I'm not really sure that this is correct. The Gemara (Kesubos 3b) refers
to a "time of danger" which caused the customary date for weddings to be
moved up from Wednesday to Tuesday, and identifies the danger as due to
a decree that "any virgin married on a Wednesday must first submit to
relations with the local ruler."
Furthermore - and apropos of the recently ended Yom Tov - Megillas
Taanis (entry for 17 Elul) relates: "Mattisyahu (son of Yochanan Kohen
Gadol*) had a daughter, and when the time of her wedding came, the camp
commander came to violate her, but they would not allow him to do
so. Mattisyahu and his sons were zealous [for the honor of Hashem]; they
overpowered the Greek kingdom, who were given over into their hands and
killed." [There is a Midrash that expands further on this episode, and
indeed cites it as the trigger for the revolt of the Chashmonaim. I
haven't seen the original Midrash, but it's referenced in the endnotes
to Meir Baram's novel The Stone of the Altar (Bnei Brak: Tvuna, 1989).]
* This would bear on the recent discussion in MJ about whether
Mattisyahu or his father were Kohanim Gedolim, although since this
phrase is in parentheses, it may be a mistaken interpolation.
Kol tuv,
Alex
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Batya Medad <ybmedad@...>
Date: Wed, 04 Jan 2006 18:26:25 +0200
Subject: Seperate Phone Lines
How about just using the answering machine as a filter? It makes more
sense and less money. Basically there are lots of people who use it to
filter calls. I don't think it's a halachik issue, more personal.
Certainly not part of my world. Sometimes it pays to be discreet.
Batya
http://shilohmusings.blogspot.com/
http://me-ander.blogspot.com/ http://shilohpics.blogspot.com/
http://samizdatblogfree.blogspot.com/
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Lisa Liel <lisa@...>
Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2006 07:49:22 -0500
Subject: Sex change
From: Paul Azous <azous@...>
> In my previous comments I was summarizing an article round in the
> Jewish Bioethics by Rosner and Bliech.
>
> Now, in regards to the status of one who had a sex change there
> are several sources, the earliest that I know of being Rabbenu
> Hananel (whom ibn Ezra quotes in his commentary on Viyarkra
> 18:22). He says that a man who had created an artificial vagina
> by means of surgery and had entered into sexual intercourse with
> another man constitutes sodomy. He thus holds that no sexual
> identity change occurs. (Some modern poskim, particularly the
> Tzitz Eliezer, do hold that a sexual identity change in fact
> transpires).
I remember reading this argument a number of years ago, and I think it's
flawed. I don't think Rabbenu Hananel's example can be applied to the
cases that the Tzitz discusses.
A person's sex must certainly be considered a chezkat ha-guf. Thus, a
legal presumption exists that a person determined at birth to be male is
male, and that a person determined at birth to be female is female. A
chezkat ha-guf is much stronger than the average, run-of-the-mill
chazaka.
In Rabbenu Hananel's case, the man creates an artificial vagina. If
anything, he has tried to make himself into an androginus. But the
status of an androginus is itself a matter of safek, and certainly
cannot suffice to change a chezkat ha-guf.
The Tzitz Eliezer, on the other hand, refers to actual sex change
operations, in which a person's entire external anatomy is changed so
that they appear to be a sex other than what they were determined to be
at birth.
The precise words that the Tzitz Eliezer uses are, "The external organs
which are visible to the naked eye are the determinant in halakha". Not
genes and not the past, but currently. If a person can go to a
gynecologist and have an internal exam without the gynecologist having
any idea that the patient was once anatomically male, I'm willing to
accept that person as female. And I think that's what the Tzitz Eliezer
is saying as well.
From: Leah S. Gordon <leah@...>
> I wonder about the applicability of "one who lost his private parts in
> battle" to the idea of a so-called "sex-change operation". I mean,
> woman != man - penis ....
That's for sure!
Lisa
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Daniel Wells <wells@...>
Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2006 19:11:19 +0200
Subject: Re: Talking to women
>> 'Al tarbeh sicha im ha-Isha'
>> Don't speak to a woman more than is absolutely necessary.
> I agree with your premise but in a broader context if any of us went
> back to the talmud (or shulchan aruch) and made a list of all statements
> which have not been accepted in practice throughout the generations by
> halachik Jews (and at least de facto by their leaders) it would be eye
> opening.
Why are "statements which have NOT been accepted in practice throughout
the generations" eye opening?
However talking unnecessarily to women has been 'accepted in practice
throughout the generations" as can be observed in haredi circles. And
those who don't accept this point of view are presumably non-cognizant
of the authority of those 'leaders' - the Gedolim throughout the
generations who maintain and enforce such restrictions.
Is there any Chacham who does allow unrestricted contact between the
sexes inclusive of IM, Chat rooms and email?
> For example, do you listen to music(see sotah 48a ff)?
The Mishna in Sotah 48b about music is a very complex topic with several
main genres: secular, religious, instrumental, recorded, singing, male,
female, location (Jerusalem, batei mishteh) etc.
And thus there are a multitude of commentaries as to what, when, where
and by whom is music allowed.
A really excellent analysis of this sugya can be found in:
http://www.koltorah.org/ravj/13-32%20Jewish%20Perspectives%20on%20Music.htm
>From this site I extracted the following conclusion:
"What should emerge from this review of Jewish perspectives on music is
that we must take care that the music we listen to is in harmony with
our Torah lifestyle and goals. Music with lyrics such as "she don't lie,
she don't lie, cocaine" is very obviously incompatible with a Torah
Hashkafa and lifestyle.."
Daniel
----------------------------------------------------------------------
End of Volume 50 Issue 95
