Beth Lesch(introduction): Welcome to Meaningful Judaism. I'm Beth Lesch. This is part two of our episode on Niddah. If you haven't listened to part one yet, go back and do that because otherwise part two is not going to make so much sense. Here's a quick recap. Tikva Hecht and I have been doing something kind of wild. We've been studying a story, the only story in the entire Tonna about a woman who has her period. A story in which the word niddah also appears. And here's the wild part we've been trying to figure out through this story, the Torah might be trying to convey something essential that the meaning of the laws of niddah between husband and wife, we read the story closely. but that just brought up a lot of questions we couldn't answer about Lavan and the strange way that he interacts with his family. So then we went even further back to the moment when Jacob first arrives at Lavan’s house in Genesis 29. And we uncovered a really interesting portrait of Lavan as a father who is so desperate to keep his daughters close, that he bulldozes through the boundaries that our father ought to have with his married daughters. Lavan manages to keep his daughters and son-in-law close, but it's not without a cost. His daughter's lives are full of bitterness because Lavan's trickery has made them into rival wives. When Jacob suggests that everybody leave Rachel and Leah agree right away. And don't seem one bit, sorry to go.  So we're going to pick up at that point in the story And as we do, all of the pieces are going to start to fall into place. 

Beth: Tikva let's start like this.  I'm going to reread that verse that describes Lavan chasing after them and just listen closely and see if anything from our conversation, lights up for you. Lavan finds out that Jacob and the daughters have gone. Verse 23, vayirdof acharav. He chased after them. Derech shivat yamim, for seven days, vayadbek oto. 

Tikva Hecht: That's really interesting. he clings to him, it's that same language that we saw in Genesis, 

Beth: we wondered why the verse uses such an unusual, uncommon word if all it wants to say is that Lavan caught up to Jacob... and now we’re seeing it’s loaded language, it’s the language from gan eden

Adam said that Chava was his bone and flesh and therefore, a man should leave his father and mother, vayadbek, and he should cling to his wife and they should be one flesh. And here, in this moment, when Yaakov and the daughters finally leave their father's house, Lavan rushes after them, vayadbek oto, and he clings to them again. As if to say, I won't let you go off to live your own lives away from me, I want you to stay. 

Beth: And when Lavan catches up to them and he asks Jacob, Why did you sneak out in the middle of the night? Why didn't you let me say goodbye to my daughters. Jacob says, “I was afraid that you would take them from me”. When we first read that it was so puzzling it was like where's jacob getting that from but now it makes perfect sense because now we've seen the Lavan that Jacob saw 

Beth: And then we get to Lavan searching their tents we had asked why the text gives us such a detailed picture of Lavan search the way he goes through every tent and puts his hands over everything inside. what better metaphor for that than him raiding their tents. The tent is your private place. They don't live in their father's house anymore. They live in their own tent. They moved out and they're there with their husband. And here's their father invading, 

Just the frenetic nature with which he's raiding everything is so invasive. And you just can't help but see that very same quality that we've been tracing in Lavan all the way up until this point: it's Lavan the great boundary crosser; it it all fits.

Beth:  And that brings us to Rachel's period. There Lavan is, turning the contents of her tent inside out, and she says something that seems to stop him in his tracks. don't be angry but I can't get up because I have my period.  He's been so hostile up until this point? Why doesn't he respond to Rachel with anger? the whole story hinges on this moment. 

Tikva: Yeah, it's so interesting.  he's confronted with his daughter having her period, and somehow it's just so obvious to him that this is a boundary that can't be crossed. He can't bring himself to do it. It's like at that moment something flips for him and he's like, that's too far. I'm not going there. 

Beth: Right. It's like he has some kind of epiphany and he realizes how crude it would be for him to invade her privacy at this moment. When I see the way the character of Lavan changes as the story unfolds with the [pasuk], what can I do for my daughters and the Brit? I'm seeing him leaning into it. I care about my daughters. I'm worried about them. I don't want them to suffer. And I asked myself so why would seeing Rachel in this moment in the tent have brought about that change? And I don’t know for sure, but some possibilities come to mind for me. 

Maybe it was that Rachel felt sick. You know, she had stomach cramps. She can't even stand. And for a father to see his daughter like that. Is hard and the compassion just bubbles in on him. That's one possibility. Maybe it wasn't so much that she was feeling sick, but he becomes aware that she is in a very vulnerable situation emotionally and he doesn't want to embarrass her. You know, he’s going to make her stand up and show her bloody linens to him?! It's like, what is a teenage girl who has a stain from her period, feels embarrassed? Like she wants to run to the bathroom and change. A period is normal. It's healthy. She should have nothing to be embarrassed about. And yet I think a lot of women and girls have the intuition that this is something they want to keep private. They don't want others to see their menstrual blood. So maybe Lavan clued into that and realized that he was on the verge of really humiliating his daughter to forcibly invade her privacy in this moment and make her get up. And, that's what brought on the wave of compassion. I admit that there is some subjectivity in how we imagine exactly what was going through his mind, and the text doesn’t tell us, but what the evidence does clearly seem to say is that seeing Rachel have her period affects Lavan. It softens him. It elicits compassion in him. Mr. Boundary-Crosser finally meets a boundary that he can bring himself to respect. 

Beth: What's the very next thing that we see? Lavan does. You have to skip down a bunch of verses to see it because the very next thing that happens is that Yakov opens his mouth and he starts airing his grievances. But then down in verse 43, we finally get to hear Lavan speak. And it's that verse that was so mysterious to us before.

Tikva: That's the next time Lavan speaks. That's really interesting.

Beth: my daughters are my daughters. My sons are my sons. The grandsons,, the flock is mine. Everything that you see is mine.But what can I do today for my daughters? His compassion has been evoked and he very much wants to care for them. He wants to ease any potential future suffering for them. Don't you even think about afflicting my daughters?  Don't you even think about taking any additional wives?

Tikva: How do you make sense of the fact that he does open up the verse by saying their mine? He still has this strong claim to them, which in everything we've been saying, feels like old Lavan.

Beth: I think the text is playing with you. You, you read that line. They're mine. It's all mine. And you think, yep, that's just what I expected. This guy, it's Lavan, he's greedy, he's hostile, but the point is that he doesn't end the sentence by saying, and therefore, girls, you're coming home with me now.  Instead, he says, and yet I'm gonna let you go. Because that's what a father is supposed to do. That's what's best for you. And it's almost like the chart is showing us, look, he has changed you know. It's not the old Lavan anymore. Like, look at the way he, finishes the sentence. And it strikes me that maybe the daughters are mine. It's all mine actually has a double meaning. And the first meaning is they're mine. So I get to control them, but the second meaning is they're mine. So I care about them. And over the course of this story, Lavan, as we know him, is transitioning from the first stance to the second stance, 

Beth: What seems to emerge is the connection between what happened at that moment in the tent with Rachel's period in the middle of the chapter. And what happens at the end, which is that Lavan the bound Boundaryless father, turns to Jacob and says, let's make a Brit. And that Brit really is a boundary. And that brings us to the question that we raised when we first read about the Brit, which is, wait a second. These two terms are a pretty good summary of what Lavan himself did to his daughters. That's super conspicuous. What's going on with that? 

There once was a time when Lavan was the kind of father who really caused his daughters, Rachel specifically, a lot of harm, a lot of suffering because he forced her husband to take another wife in addition to her.

And it was because he desperately wanted to keep her close. And now, years later with this Brit, he's doing the opposite. He's making her husband promise never to take any additional wives, and he's doing it in the moment of letting them go. He was a perpetrator and now he's a protector. 

Tikva: Are you saying this is a teshuva moment? He's regretting the way that he treated his daughters in the past. He finally gets how much he messed things up for them. 

Beth: I don't know how self-aware he is. I don't know if he's finally seeing how much suffering he caused to his daughters by setting them up to marry the same husband, you know it, it, it could be that he's oblivious to it still, but I do think that the, the Torah is offering us a commentary here with this Brit he's, he's no longer the person that he once was. 

 Now, I'm not sure how much of this is happening on the level of the consciousness for Lavan. I don't know how self-aware he is. I don't know if he's finally seeing how much suffering he caused for his daughters by setting them up to marry the same husband. It could be that he's oblivious to it still. But I do think that the Torah is offering us a commentary here with this brit and illustrating for us the way in which Lavan has changed over the course of the story in his relationship with his daughters, that he's no longer the person that he once was. How is he relating to that past self? Does he have the self-awareness to be able to look back critically and repent? That I'm not sure. But a changed man, that I do see.

Beth: There's one puzzle piece on the ground that I just want to put in place. that there was another question that we raised in chapter 31 about the word niddah showing up in the story, but it wasn’t where we expected it. That mysterious verse you know Jacob making his comment about sleep deprivation, his sleep was niddah from his eyes 

Why does the Torah choose to use this very specific, loaded word? When it could have just said, I was very, very tired. Is the Torah trying to make us think? Of the laws of niddah, the separation between a husband and wife. And if so, what is the connection between these two things? Because they seem really, really unrelated. Jacob is frustrated that Lavan made him work really hard and, husbands and wives following a Torah law that they shouldn't be. Intimate during the wife's period. what's going on there? 

So I think we're ready now to put forth an answer. We're now in a position to see a layer of meaning in this accusation of Jacobs that we couldn't see before. On the simplest level, Jacob is just complaining about being overworked, like we said. But I think, I think there's a double entendre at play here. when Jacob says, I was out working all night and I wasn't sleeping. Sleep was separate from my eyes. I think sleep is a double tundra for his wife. It's for Rachel. when he should have been in bed with his wife. He was out working, he was out working for Lavan because Lavan was running him ragged.

It feels like that is just the latest iteration of this whole dysfunctional dynamic. not only did Lavan. Really make things miserable for his daughters by keeping them close, But he was meddling in their marriage like he was getting between Rachel and Jacob and their marriage is suffering because of that, you know? 

Um, 

Tikva: So Lavan was close, and that made, Yaakov and Rachel too far apart.

Beth: it’s like the opposite of עַל-כֵּן. The father is supposed to let go so the wife and husband can cling to each other, but when the father is unwilling to let go, Rachel and Jacob can’t effectively cling to one another, the basar echad part gets compromised.  Lavan is the parent who is too involved and as a result threatens the integrity of the husband-wife relationship. 

Tikva: The picture you're painting, Beth, the way I kind of imagine it, it's like Lavan sees himself as someone who has such family values. He just wanted everyone to be close and in love, but his daughters actually hate each other and their marriages are suffering.

You think having no boundaries would just create closeness, but the opposite can happen. He achieves physical closeness. They're all together, but emotionally it's just the opposite. Emotionally, it's a mess.

Beth: So Tikva, the reason we got here is because we are trying to answer the question, why should husbands and wives be separate when the woman has her period?

What's, what's the rationale behind the laws of niddah? And,I had suggested to you that this story is somehow offering an answer, now seeing everything that we've seen. do you feel like you have some intuitions about what this story might be telling us about what the laws of niddah are all about?

Tikva: Um, I think so. 

Tikva: I think so, yeah. You know, for the last little while we've been talking about. , boundaries. That's, that's the theme that keeps coming up in the story. And we have this father who's just, he keeps invading and invading his daughter's space. He doesn't respect these boundaries. and then he has this turn and he starts to, develop a healthier relationship.

And I think the lesson that we seem to be gained out of that is that sometimes giving another person distance is what a healthy relationship needs. And it's like a little bit cliche, but it's that idea. If you love someone, you let them go. so part of a loving relationship is the ability to give distance and to know when to step back.

I think definitely you can see how that value might relate to the laws of niddah. The idea that husbands and wives have this time where they have to be separate from each other. and rather than looking at that as a rejection of the wife, maybe this is another case where a boundary is a positive thing. and that separation is actually an expression of love. so it does make me think about niddah differently, in that way. 

Beth: Yes. The argument that I want to make is that this story is teaching us. That boundary setting can be productive and that it can nurture a relationship. And that this story is inviting us to understand the laws of niddah through that same lens. I need that is about instituting separation in a marriage, but for positive reasons, 

Counter-intuitively rather than get in the way of a relationship. Separation can promote closeness. If you hadn't read the Lavan story and you were just loud, he. I reading the laws. If I eat grass and you come across this verse, teh niddah verse, that husbands need to keep away from their wives. You might think. 

Oh, well, maybe it's because the woman is dirty. She's spiritually problematic. That's why her husband needs to keep away from her. But that's not the energy that we get from the Lavan story. When you have the Lavan story in mind, when you read this law, it changes everything. You arrive at a different conclusion. the story and the law are about separating from someone as a way of showing that you love them

Tikva: Beth. That's fascinating. There's something about that that you know, is like, I'm getting little chills. It's like, whoa, that's, that's really cool. You. 

Beth: And I just want to say, sorry to interrupt but I just want to say that you and I have been talking about what it would look like to take this idea that we see in the Lavan story and apply it, extend it, to the niddah law… but how do we know that the Torah really intends for us to do that we’re not just like reading something into it that's not there? I’ve show you a lot of evidence already but  I want to show you one other thing, when I saw it, I was convinced that the connection was real, that yes, the Torah is hinting to us that we should be reading the Lavan story and the niddah law side by side. So let me, let me share that with you now

Tikva: Exciting. Yeah. Show me. 

Beth Conv Insert: here is where we need to go back to the niddah law in Vayikra. You know, men don't approach women who are menstruating. GRA to the verse where my whole investigation began. And I want us to look at the context in which that verse shows up. Tikva, Can you look at the law that comes right before that one? Do you wanna, you wanna read it?

Tikva: don't take a woman's sister as a rival, and uncover her nakedness, um, in the other's lifetime. So wow that's wild. 

Beth: what's making you say, wow, can you speak that out?

Tikva: Yeah. This is a prohibition against marrying two sisters. don't create this rivalry between two sisters,   by marrying them both in their lifetime. So Like, is this based on a precedent that we know this isn't a good idea? It's Rachel and Leahm, it’s that story. and so this seems to be sort of evoking or calling back to, Hey, you want proof of this? go look over there. And that just seems really interesting that it shows up here right next to niddah.

Beth: When you first read these verses, you would never think that they have anything to do with each other. They just seem like two random laws. Don't marry two sisters. Don't sleep with A niddah. Isn’t it interesting that we have this niddah law in Vayikra about husbands and wives and I’ve been suggesting to you that the Torah is actually hinting back to this drama in the lives of Lavan and Jacob and Rachel and Leah, and if you look at the verse just before that one, you find another law which clearly, obviously, is also hinting back to that very same drama? Both of these laws refer us back to the Lavan story.And I think both of these laws are actually speaking specifically about Lavan. Yeah, Jacob was the one who actually married the two sisters, but it wasn’t his idea, he just wanted to marry Rachel, and he got tricked into marrying Leah; Lavan was the mastermind,  it seems like this verse in Vayikra is very specifically condemning him for that act. and, you know, if that verse is winking and nodding to the Lavan story.

So then the next verse, Lavan did encounter a niddah, a menstruating woman. He had the opportunity to do just what this verse and Vara says to approach her and to uncover something. but he didn't do it. He had respect for that boundary. So these two laws.

Are really telling the very same story that we've been telling all throughout. Milestone number one, Lavan marries his daughters to the same man. That's the height of him being too close, crossing boundaries, interfering, meddling with their lives.

And then, the moment in the tent, the niddah moment, is the moment of him granting physical distance, him learning how to let go in a way that brings peace to his relationships. So it's like you have these 

Beth: Two moments in the Genesis story. and you have these two laws in Vayikra, and they're referencing each other, It's like the Torah with a megaphone saying, if you wanna understand the law, you have to go back and read the story. they're all part of the same conversation.

Tikva: that is really compelling.I'm just staring at these verses and, and just blown away by that. 

Tikva: But there's something bothering me. 

Beth: What’s bothering you? 

Tikva: I'm having a hard time seeing how a story about a father learning to respect boundaries with his children corresponds to a law about boundaries between a husband and wife. It's not like the story is about Yaakov and Rachel, you know, realizing that they need boundaries in order to develop their relationship.

In fact, it sounds like what we're saying is the, the cost of Lavan's, insensitivity is that Yaakov and Rachel was separated and the correction of his mistake is that he has distance and Yaakov and Rachel are close.

So I'm just having a hard time with the fact that it's a parent-child relationship versus a husband-wife relationship. And just something there feels off.

Beth: So you’re saying that it's a big jump from father to husband? I totally see why you would think that. What's cool is that this chapter. In, Vayikra chapter 18, where this law appears is actually addresses your question. When you look, not just at the verse that comes right before the niddah verse, but when you look at the whole chapter, You find an answer to the question you just asked. 

Beth ( Insert):   Hi, it's Beth. The narrator jumping in here just to give you a heads up that In this section Tikvah and I speak fairly directly about marital intimacy. So while it's all very much through the lens of reading the Torah and trying to understand it, Some of the discussion is a bit more mature

Beth: So Leviticus chapter 18, what are the dozen and a half laws.  That we hear leading up to this need law. It's this whole long list of, prohibitions against incest. Your father, don't approach and uncover his nakedness. Your mother,  don't approach and uncover her nakedness, your father's wife, your sister, your stepsister, your sister-in-law, you know, all of these different categories. the climax of all of that is, and finally, a woman who is menstruating, who is a niddah, don't approach her to uncover her nakedness.

So the Torah in placing the law here in the context of all of these prohibited, incestuous relationships seems to be suggesting that there's something incestuous about a man sleeping with his wife when she's menstruating. And that seems like a wild thing to say. Why would that be?But it kind of makes sense that if the Torah is, as we said,learning from a father to a husband and saying to husbands, some of what Lavan is doing in respecting boundaries and his relationship with his daughter, you should be doing some of that too.

Some of the boundaries that a father respects should be boundaries Also, that a husband respects. There's an aspect of the relationship that a husband enjoys with his wife, which is strictly marital, which we would never, analogize to a parent-child relationship.

It's a sexual relationship that a husband enjoys with his wife, but that's not all there is to the relationship. There's also a dimension of the relationship that should be not sexual, that should be more like a family relationship, should be more like the relationship that Yes. That a father might enjoy with his daughter.

And I, I don't mean it to sound paternalistic, I don't think the point is father, and daughter, I think the point is family versus sexual. We understand that family relationships are meant to have boundaries or certain lines you don't cross. and I think the Torah is telling us that, that is also at play in the husband-wife relationship. A part of their relationship is this precious family way of interacting with one another that needs to be protected and needs to be cultivated. 

Beth: It needs to be given the space to thrive. To drive for sexual intimacy can be so powerful that it sort of takes over and it sucks up all of the air that emotional intimacy needs to breathe. I almost have this image of like in your herb garden, if you've ever planted mint. It. It takes over, you know, and if you want the, I dunno, the oregano to be able to thrive and the Basil to be able to thrive. You need to put the mint in a separate planter.

Beth:  and it sort of, it sort of feels like, like that between, you know, the sexual way of interacting and the familial way of interacting. But, the point is that it's not about time apart. It's not like, here's the time together, and here's the time apart. It’s all time together, but it's different kinds of together. It's sexual time together and it's familial time.

Tikva: That's really beautiful. And it's fascinating because what you're also saying is those boundaries that we all accept within the family are boundaries of love. they are ways of expressing love, and they are ways of creating love through distance as opposed to closeness, Like, I think sometimes people think about boundaries and families as. How am I gonna deal with these people? I'm gonna need boundaries. But you're saying no, no. The dynamic of family is, the boundaries are there to keep the closeness. So that, I think is really powerful, 

Beth: what we're seeing is that the Torah is setting up these times for husbands and wives to be sexual partners and times for them to be family. these alternating currents, are different energies that each feed the relationship in different ways, and each offer something precious and keep it balanced and healthy.

It's not enough for a marriage to just have a sexual bond you need to cultivate the preciousness of the family bond. and if you don't, you're extinguishing something beautiful and something essential. Granting distance is one essential way of showing love, and it's tragic, but sometimes when we try to be too close, to our loved one, and we're just laser focused on our unity how crazy we are about the two of us together, that we can end up really causing a lot of harm to our loved one and observing these alternating currents of, you know, the sexual, the family, the sexual family keeps a balance that the Torah is teaching us is an essential one.

Beth:  Tikva do you know, The Namesake,, the novel from like 20 years ago? 

Tikva: The namesake, that’s [author name]

Beth: all, all this talk about alternating currents and how the combination can deepen a relationship. It's reminding me of a passage from that book. I really wanna share it with you. Let me let me just see if I can find that on the shelf.

Beth: Okay. Amazing. Yeah, I have it , I have it highlighted. Um, I'm gonna read it to you.

“He learned that she sleeps always with her left leg straight and her right leg, bent ankle over knee in the shape of a four. He learns that she's prone to snoring ever so faintly sounding like a lawnmower that will not start and to gnashing her jaws, which he massages for her as she sleeps. He sees her for entire weekends without makeup. Sees her with gray shadows under her eyes as she types papers at her desk. And in those moments, those glimpses, he believes he has known no greater intimacy.”

What made me think of this. And what, What I love about this is, that word intimacy at the end this super loaded word, what does it mean that he's known no greater intimacy?

Beth: Intimacy is often a shorthand for being together in a sexual way. But that's not what he's describing. He's describing kind of the opposite of that. He's describing the intense closeness that you feel with someone, when you are not being sexual with one another, when you're doing the family thing, and there's something precious about it. 

Tikva: And what I would also add is the things that he's seen are the small details that someone  who is stepping back and looking carefully might notice and not someone who is caught up in desire and, and trying to, be close in that way. it speaks to a kind of a niddah to a kind of separation where he's able to see her, and see these small details and appreciate them. Um, and it does feel like that requires some kind of distance.

Beth: there's this line when, um, it's their wedding night and.

“Here she emerges now in the snow white Terry cloth, hotel robe. She has taken off her makeup and her jewels Her feet are free of the three inch heels  this is the way he still finds her most ravishing, unadorned.” 

It's their wedding night but even in that sexual time together, you can see the ways in which the familial time is what's fueling their intimacy,.

Beth: Sexuality. is this really funny thing because there's a way in which it's physical and then there's a way in which it transcends the physical. perhaps the time that a couple spends when they are not engaging in the physical is what allows them to build the relationship that then makes the physical time together that makes it uh.. 

Tikva: Transcendent. 

Beth: Yeah. 

Tikva: a sexual desire can be the most base desire. It can be the sense of someone wanting you, I, in, the most careless way, in a way that they really want to have you not caring about who you are as a person. and then it can also be the opposite of that and this incredibly transcendent, connection where you are one, right? And you're actually completely unified with them. And I think what you're saying is how do you go from one to the other?  And it feels like the space, in between is this connection that's non-sexual that you're talking about, which is the familial, the ability to love without desire in a way, or if desire is there, it's, put to the side. And it just makes me think about how, you know, people will say, no one will love you like your family or like, yeah, , you know, your mother will give you that kind of praise, but like, don't expect the rest of the world to,  I just think there is something to those moments.  When you realize, oh wait, this person maybe does love me, like my mom, you know, not not in the same way, but yeah, I wonder if that's what it's getting at. That the love is there when you're not meeting their needs and yeah. That's really beautiful.

Beth: so Adina, that's where my conversation with Tikvah ended. That was our journey. And I want to reflect to you. There's something I find so funny about it because I started out this whole research project feeling like the common explanation that's given was maybe varying a bit into apologetics. And at the end of all of this, I actually didn't end up so very far away from that explanation. niddah separation does Torah does seem to suggest, helps to strengthen our marriages. Absence can make the heart grow fonder. You might say, 

Adina Blaustein: Right. But not merely in the simple sense of when you can't have something, it makes you want it more, but in this much more sophisticated sense. When we are forced to switch out of the sexual mode and into the familial mode. We're able to build up a part of our relationship and that just makes the whole thing so much richer. 

But there's still a challenge that we need to speak to. What about all of the couples who say, but that's not our experience? Niddah doesn't strengthen our marriage. Niddah is hard. Niddah feels unpleasant. What do we, what do you say to them? 

Beth: So this is where it gets tricky. But I think it has a lot to do with maybe a misconception about what we mean when we say that niddah can strengthen a marriage. Do we mean that need to is wonderful and easy and always feels pleasant? Of course not. The Torah is telling couples to constrain themselves. There's something that you feel that you want or even need, and you can't have it. 

Adina: By definition, constraints are not comfortable. 

Beth: Right. And when you're in it, yeah, I could feel like it's weakening the relationship, not strengthening it. And I'm not coming to tell you if you were a real tzadik, it wouldn't be hard for you. You know, you should try to rid yourself of desire. So Niddah should be easy.  I think it's supposed to feel hard. But this is where it's helpful to take ourselves out of that sometimes unpleasant experience. And try to look at it from the 50,000-foot view and kind of say to ourselves, This feels hard and that's okay. But it's creating the opportunity for us to nurture something really precious, really important in our relationship. when you start to attune yourself to the meaning behind this mitzvah. You start to notice this thing called family love between you and your spouse, and it just becomes more visible to you and it takes on life in your relationship. And you now have the language to be able to speak to your spouse about it, to ask, how are we doing here? Are we cherishing our family love? 

Are we giving it what it needs to flourish? I think that can be transformative. 

Adina: So I appreciate what you're saying. I think it's really honest. You know, you're not saying that when a couple finds themselves chafing at how niddah imposes constraints on the natural ebbs and flows of their marriage, they should just remind themselves of the Meaningful Judaism podcast and suddenly they’re going to feel great, you know. They’re still gonna feel constrained. 

Beth: Exactly But there's kind of a higher order sense in which you can come to understand that this system, this structure. Really is coming from a place of wisdom and you can maybe even respect the law, even if you definitely don't always enjoy it. So it's, it's a reframing. No, there are couples who are in real crisis stemming from their struggles with niddah. And I don't think a simple reframing is going to make their crises go away. But.

 Beth: But for others who are saying I'm not in crisis, but I have challenges here. I struggle. I hope this can help them to feel seen and to feel strengthened. It makes me think about how my friend described her first experience in childbirth. She was having these really painful contractions and her whole birthing team, the midwife, and her husband, they were all trying to do whatever they could to ease her pain, and the one thing that helped her the most was to know that the contractions were productive. the second she was able to connect the contractions and the pain to, ohhhh, this is delivering the baby, suddenly it wasn’t something happening to her, she didn’t need to get through it, she was able to wield the pain. So what am I telling you? That birth isn’t painful once you know the meaning behind the contractions? not at all. it can be very painful. but also bearable and understandable and even meaningful. the pain can mean something. 

Beth: So for niddah, it’s about making a connection between the pain and the struggle that can sometimes come with observing these laws and the cultivation of that essential precious family love that can exist between husband and wife. Because when you understand the meaning behind something that's hard. While it might not make the hard thing easy. It actually makes the pain a bit easier to bear. 

Speaking personally, this journey. It was a powerful one for me. To not just hear someone explain niddah to me outside as, as we say, but to crisscross the toll road in search of answers, to it for myself in the pages of God's book. So I put it all before you. My dear listener to consider for yourself. 

Hoping that it might help you to connect or reconnect to this mitzvah.

Beth (conclusion): so that was my journey. Now you've seen what I. Funny thing is I didn't end up so very far away from where I'd begun with the idea that niddah Separation can strengthen a marriage, and yet in other ways it feels that I've traveled a long, long way Kris crossing the Torah in search of authentic answers.

I feel that I've added so much richness to my understanding of what need can be, and I find it profoundly moving. To not just hear someone explain niddah to me outside, as we say in the abstract, but to see it for myself in the pages of God's book. So I put it before you, dear listener, r hoping that it will help you to connect or reconnect to this mitzvah.

Credits:

This episode was recorded by Beth Lesch, Tikva Hecht, and Adina Blaustein.

The scholar and senior editor for this episode was Beth Lesch.

With additional editing by Sarah Penso.

Our audio editor is Hillary Guttman.

Our managing producer is Adina Blaustein.

Meaningful Judaism’s editorial director is Imu Shalev.

Thanks for listening!