Siman 199, Seifim 7-13
7. In a place where people are afraid to immerse at night we do not permit a woman to do her chafifah on Friday and immerse Saturday morning. To do so we would need to use two leniencies – first, overriding the principle of srach bitah and second, permitting a delay between the chafifah and the immersion.
8. During the week and certainly on yom tov if she did her chafifah and iyun during the day and immersed on the night of a different day, after the fact her immersion is valid even though the chafifah and iyun were not immediately before the immersion. If she did not do chafifah at all, even if she did her iyun and even if she did a chafifah and combed her hair right after her immersion, and found no barriers or knots, her immersion is invalid. Certainly if she did but not iyun, the immersion is invalid since self-examination of the body is a Torah requirement.
9. Our rule that her immersion is invalid is when we are dealing with the rest of her body. if she did not examine herself in her hidden places, since they do not actually need to be reached by water, but did so after the immersion and found nothing, her immersion is valid.
10. If she did chafifah and iyun and immersed and she subsequently found a barrier, is she immersed during the onah in which she did her chafifah, she does not need to re-immerse; if not, then she does. Even if her chafifah was just before her immersion, but was in the previous Onah, she needs to immerse again. According to the Rambam, in either case she is required to immerse again; the difference is whether she needs a new chafifah or not,
11. Our rule that she needs to immerse again applies only when she had not handled the offending substance after her immersion; if she did handle it, then she does not need a new immersion. We attribute what she found to her post-immersion handling of the substance. If she did not do a chafifah before her immersion at all, we do not attribute it to subsequent handling and she must re-immerse.
12. Our rule that she needs to re-immerse if she did not do a chafifah before immersing applies when we are dealing with the rest of the body. If she did not check her hidden parts before or after her immersion and handled the substance, we permit attribution leniently.
13. If she did chafifah before her immersion and between the chafifah and her immersion she handled things that are potential barriers or she gave her child some sticky food, her immersion is invalid even if she checked herself immediately after her immersion and did not find anything. In this case, we rule that something fell off her when she got out of the water and she therefore requires a new immersion. However, if she checked herself before the immersion and did not find anything stuck to her, she does not need a new immersion. A woman is permitted to wear clothing between her chafifah and her immersion and she should not take a child near her.
What's Going On – Missing Chafifah and Finding Barriers after Immersion
The issue of Srach Beetah is covered in Siman 197 Seif 3.
While we learn here one can b’dieved have a time lapse between the chafifah and immersion, under no circumstances can it be longer than 3 days.[1] We also learn from here that we invalidate an immersion only if the chafifah omitted was that of the decree of Ezra – that of scrubbing one’s hair; if one omits the chafifah of the body, after the fact the immersion is valid.[2]
Seif 8 does not mean to imply that one can do an early chafifah if one wants to; in fact, since our basic halacha follows the view of the Sheiltos that the entire chafifah must be done at night, if a woman had an opportunity to do her chafifah at night but purposely did it in the day time, her immersion is invalid.[3]
Seif 10 to the end of the Siman deals with cases in which, generally, the woman prepared herself properly for her immersion but yet found a barrier on her body subsequent to the immersion. The Gemara quotes 2 alternative statements of Rava – the first is that if the period between chafifah and immersion was short, she does not need to re-immerse. The alternative version is that if the chafifah and the immersion were in the same onah, she does not need to re-immerse and if they were in different onos then she does. The Rashba, who is the source of the Shulchan Aruch’s ruling, uses the second version as the authoritative law. The Tur quotes the Rashba as saying that a woman will be more careful about her chafifah if she is doing it in the same time-period as the immersion.[4]
This means that if a woman did her chafifah at the end of a day and immersed that night 10 minutes later, if she subsequently found a barrier she would need to re-immerse. As with defining vestos, we see that the halacha places an emphasis on the period of the day in which a niddah related event happens.
In spite of the Shulchan Aruch, there are poskim who taken the opposite position, that it is the interval that matters. Therefore, our practice is follow the strictness of both views.[5] The Rambam’s position should be observed if re-immersion would not pose difficulty for the woman.[6] Although I do not recall seeing anything on the topic, I would assume that we would be lenient about re-immersion if the woman had already had relations with her husband.
If a woman does need to re-immerse (without regard to the Rambam) she needs to do a complete chafifah.[7] The reason is that when the woman immersed, the cold water of the mikvah tangled her hair, as stated in Siman 198. Another reason given is that since we know she had something adhering to her body, it is possible that she also has something adhering in her hair. These 2 explanation yield opposite halachos if a woman immersed in a heated mikvah – according to the first reason, she would not be required to perform a chafifah and according to the second reason, she would. The contemporary halacha is that if the woman immersed in warm water and the barrier she found was not in her hair, she does not need a new chafifah.
Even this requirement only applies if she hadn’t worked with whatever the barrier was after her immersion and if she, as well, is positive that the substance was not on her when she did her original chafifah.[8] We have already learned that if the woman omits a chafifah completely that her immersion is invalid. The halacha brought here about a case in which she had not done chafifah means that she only did the chafifah of her head and not of the rest of the body. Since doing the rest of the body is a custom and is not part of Ezra’s decree, we would, in the absence of her finding this barrier, validate her immersion after the fact.[9]
A further limitation that the Shulchan Aruch suggests is based on exactly where the barrier was found. If it were found in her hidden places, even if she did not do a proper iyun of her hidden places, we nevertheless permit attribution to her subsequent handling of the substance. However, other poskim have rejected this view and see no difference between her hidden places and other parts of her body.