Impure and Pure Blood
דמים טמאים וטהורים
A woman from whom nidda blood, that is, menstrual blood, has issued becomes impure, and husband and wife become forbidden to each other, as it is written: “When a woman has a discharge, and her discharge from her body is blood, she shall be in her nidda state for seven days” (Vayikra 15:19). The nidda blood that renders impure is blood that issues from the womb, as it is written: “And if a man lies with a woman who is dava (a nidda)… and she has uncovered the source of her blood (she consented to the union while blood was issuing from her womb) – both of them shall be cut off from among their people” (Vayikra 20:18). That is, the womb in which life is formed is also the place from which the impure blood of nidda and zava issues. Through the mitzva of ona during the days of purity and the prohibition of closeness during the days of nidda, husband and wife intensify the bond between them in a way that adds goodness and life, and refrain from directing their powers toward the side of impurity and evil, which destroy and cut off their lives.
Blood has different colors: some shades are pure and some are impure, as it is written: “If a matter of judgment is too hard for you, between blood and blood” – “between pure blood and impure blood” (Devarim 17:8; Nidda 19a). The Sages learned from a close reading of the verses that the Torah intended to forbid four shades of blood, and that the other shades of blood are pure. These are the impure ones: (a) “Red like the blood of a wound” – like the blood that issues from a cut immediately after the injury, not a little while later. (b) “Like the keren karkom” – like the thin leaves of saffron, whose color is red-orange. (c) “Like mei adama” – like the color of the fertile soil in the valleys of the Galilee when flooded with water, whose color is reddish-brown. (d) “Like mazug” – like the color of red wine from the Sharon mixed with twice its amount of water (reddish-purple). (e) The Sages further said that there is a fifth color – black like ink – which is essentially the first color, blood “red like the blood of a wound,” whose color has deteriorated and changed (Nidda 19a-20a). By Torah law, all other shades of red, black, pink, orange, and brown are pure.¹
Notes (1)
- Mishna Nidda 19a: “Five types of blood are impure in a woman: red, black, like keren karkom, like mei adama, and like mazug.” The Gemara explains that the five types of blood were learned from the fact that in this context the Torah twice says “the source of her blood (dameha)” (Vayikra 12:7; 20:18) in the plural, implying that there are four types of blood, and black is red that has deteriorated and turned black. Tosafot Ha-Rosh (Nidda 20a, s.v. “ve-khulan”) explains that the Sages established these five types of blood because they are the ones common in women, and it stands to reason that these are the ones the Torah forbade. Later in the mishna it is explained that Beit Shammai are stringent regarding two more shades, and Akavya ben Mahalalel is stringent regarding a type of green that is yellow like an egg yolk as well, but the halakha does not follow them. These four shades of blood are not on a single scale of red, one darker than the other; rather, they are different shades, each with its own scale of lightness and darkness. Therefore, the Gemara discusses the law of each shade when it is slightly darker or slightly lighter, and it is agreed that when it is much lighter or much darker it is pure. There are also many other shades of red that are not impure (Binat Adam 8:13; Arukh Ha-shulḥan, OḤ 188:5).
All the impure types of blood are impure only if they issued from the womb; if they did not issue from the womb, they are pure. As the Sages explained in the Mishna (Nidda 17b): “The blood of the ‘room’ (the uterus) is impure; the blood of the ‘upper story’ (some say the ovaries, some say the bladder) is pure.” However, not all blood that issues from the womb is impure, for, as explained above, pure blood also issues from the womb (Rambam, Hilkhot Issurei Bi’ah 5:6). It is possible that some of the shades of pure blood are the discharges that come out before the beginning of the period or after it. That is, at times the uterine lining, from which menstrual blood issues, breaks down in a longer and more gradual process, and since at first a little blood is discharged diluted in other fluids, it does not have an impure color; likewise, at the end of the breakdown the proportion of blood decreases until it no longer has an impure color. (According to the Ra’avad, most blood from the uterus is impure, and therefore they said in Nidda 21a: “It is impossible for the womb to open without blood.” By contrast, according to the Razah, it is possible that most blood is not impure, as we learned from Rabbi’s decree, above 1:6.)
In general, one might perhaps say that impure blood is blood that issues in a process of loss of life, such as menstrual nidda blood, in which the egg and the lining that could have sustained the fetus are lost, and zava blood, in which the process of forming the egg and the lining is impaired. But blood that issues without harming the life that is meant to be formed in the womb, or that issues after the life that had begun to form has already been lost, is not impure.