Siman 184, Seifim 6-8
6.
If her vesses
lasts for several days as a steady flow or as droplets, he is only required to
separate from her during the first onah
of her vesses. Once that onah
passes and she has not seen a flow, she is permitted.
7.
If her vesses occurs while she is pregnant or during
the 24-month period of nursing after the birth of the child, even if it dies,
he is not required to separate at the onah
of her vesses. She is permitted even at the time of her vesses without any self-examination. (See the end of Siman 189).
8.
If she were in a state of panic from fear and her vesses arrived, she does not need to be
concerned about it. Some say that this applies specifically if her vesses time passed and
she did not check nor did she experience a hargasha. She is pure without an examination; before
the fact, an examination is required (Bais Yosef).
Continuous Flow
The halacha here anticipates the halachos of Siman 189, which deal with establishing and uprooting a fixed vesses. Without going into too much detail, if a woman experiences the same cycle three times, she is considered as having a fixed vesses (vesses kavua) and is treated differently than a woman who does not have any predictable pattern to her cycle. A question that is dealt with in Seif 6 is the status of the days subsequent to the beginning of her menstruation on which her bleeding continues and whether those additional days are considered when determining the proper onah for separation.
In the case in which a woman always menstruates for 3 or 4 days and has established a pattern for doing so, there are several views about his to consider extended bleeding for determining the onah of separation. One view is that the subsequent days of menstruation have no halachic bearing on anything, so that when the woman does not begin menstruating during her regular onah of separation, she is permitted to her husband immediately.[1]
The second view is at the other extreme. This view maintains that the entire several days is considered as one, thus requiring separation for the normal length of her established bleeding. The Ra’vad, who is a proponent of this view, explains further that the entire several days is a single unit with no one point in it being of greater significance than any other point. A second explanation is that we are concerned that the bleeding that was anticipated on the first day may in fact not be uterine blood and did not make her impure.[2] This explanation continues that perhaps the bleeding of the subsequent days is uterine bleeding that would render her impure. The way I understand this is that this explanation would maintain that in fact the vesses kavua that we have been anticipating is in fact not her halachic vesses but rather the second day is the correct vesses time and thus the onah of separation should have been scheduled for the subsequent day.
The third view falls in the middle. This view maintains that while the woman does establish a vesses that includes the several subsequent days, but that all of the days after the first one end up with a halachic status of a non-fixed vesses.[3] In Siman 189 we will see that a non-fixed vesses is only of concern once and if there is no bleeding at that time, we ignore that vesses in the future. According to this view, if a woman always bleeds for 3 days, if she does not begin to menstruate during the scheduled onah, one would need to separate from her also for the subsequent day, but only for the first month. If the woman also did not bleed during the subsequent days, when the second month comes around, she will not consider the subsequent days as potential vesses days, while she will still consider the previously anticipated start onah and separate for that one only.
Clearly, the Shulchan Aruch rules like the first view. There is an apparent conflict between this seif and the previous one, in which we learned that a woman does need to separate for the amount of time in the subsequent onah that she normally bleeds. The poskim understand that the case of seif 5 is one in which there is a limited subsequent flow, so it is clear, then, that the bleeding of the subsequent onah was incidental to the first and was really a part of it. Here, though, when bleeding lasts for an extended period, we consider it a separate bleeding from the initial one and therefore it is not attached to the initial flow and to that onah.[4]
Based on this explanation, some poskim hold that this assumption of distinct bleedings only makes sense if we limit its application to a flow that is a steady drip and not a constant one. Were the flow of the subsequent days to be continuous, these poskim would maintain that it is no different from the case of Seif 5.[5] We tend to be lenient in this circumstance and do not hold of this stricter opinion.
If there is a complete cessation of bleeding for a period of more than one onah and then a resumption, the resumption is considered to be its own vesses.[6]
The point at which a woman gains the halachic status of being pregnant is at three months.[7] The language used in the Shulchan Aruch literally means, “when the child is recognizable.” The implication is that if there would be earlier recognition of the pregnancy she would be eligible for the exemption of Seif 7 earlier. However, most poskim rule that the 3 month rule is still in force and that a woman must therefore wait until 3 months before she can avoid the onah separation.[8] There are views that are more lenient and appear to grant a woman pregnancy status based on a pregnancy test.[9] Our general practice is to be strict, but one should ask a qualified posek about this should the need arise.
Alternatively, the phrase “when the child is recognizable” refers to the child itself, which according to halacha has no self-awareness or separate life until 90 days. Therefore, the passage of time, rather than external recognition of the pregnancy, would be what guides a woman’s eligibility for leniency under this seif.[10]
The law of a nursing woman is based on the assumption that, regardless of whether the woman is nursing or not, it takes her body 24 months to physically recovering from the pregnancy: she does not regain the status of being a regular menstruant until then.[11]
Today the law of a nursing woman has change for the stricter for women who are not nursing. Women today begin to menstruate within a couple of months after childbirth, so we cannot extend a 24-month exemption to them. We rule that post-partum a woman needs to separate on the onah of her vesses. In fact since blood flow after child birth is erratic, one should always check before intercourse.
A woman who is taking medication that prevents menstruation still needs to perform a self-examination.[12] After 3 cycles of no bleeding, the woman can rely on the medication to prevent menstruation and thus does not need to separate.[13]
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