Myśl Żydowska do Kapłańska 15:25

Some problems in the text: 1) How can seven years of service appear "like a few days," when experience teaches that waiting for a loved one makes seven days appear like seven years, or at least like a long period of time? The psychology underlying our question is confirmed by our sages' commentary on Exodus 2,23. 2) Why does Jacob use coarse sounding language when asking for his wife at the end of the seven-year period? How could Leah have spent an entire night with Jacob without the latter realizing who he was with? Since Laban's answer seems wholly unsatisfactory, why does Jacob accept it? 3) When Rachel called Bilha's son "Dan," meaning G-d has judged me, did she mean she had been found guilty or did she mean that G-d had exonerated her in that judgment? 4) Why did Leah use her maidservants after she stopped having children? Why did she call "Issachar" by a name which indicated that he was G-d’s reward for what she had done? What had she done to deserve a reward? 5) Why the play on words when Joseph is named? What shame was there that had to be removed? 6) Why did Jacob want to go home afer Joseph had been born? Why did he not wait till Benjamin would be born? 7) After Laban said to Jacob, "Determine your wages for me!" Jacob responded by asking, "When can I do something for my own household?" Surely after Laban had offered to negotiate a deal, this question had become redundant? 8) Why did Jacob impose such conditions upon himself that a single speckled sheep found amongst his flock would stamp him as a thief? 9) Jacob's tactics in firing the sheep's imagination prior to their mounting the females seem strange. Surely Laban must have been aware of such practices, and for Jacob to describe these maneuvers as Divinely inspired borders on the ridiculous. 10) Why does the Torah call the mere failure to convey one's intention geneyvat daat as a kind of deceit? 11) Why did G-d forbid Laban to speak to Jacob either harshly or in a friendly manner? Surely, He could have protected Jacob against anything Laban had to say. Besides, why did Laban ignore G-d’s warning about not speaking to Jacob harshly? 12) Why did Laban boast about his power to harm Jacob when he had been warned by G-d that he had no such power and had even revealed to Jacob that he had received such a warning? 13) When Jacob justified his conduct he seems to go into more detail than necessary. Why?

The second phase that winds us up towards proper appreciation of matan Torah, is the ceremony of the seven weeks of counting. When one desires something inordinately, one counts the days towards realisation of one's dreams. The closer that day approaches, the more intensely aware does one become of its impending realisation. Similarly, such count reflects the pain and anguish all the time the desired state has not yet been achieved. In the case of a woman suffering from flux, (Leviticus 15,28) even after the medical symptoms have disappeared, seven days must elapse before readmission to society from the state of isolation she has been in. If a seven day count is mandatory in order to enable her to rejoin ordinary society, the preparation for the revelation of G'd at Mount Sinai would obviously take longer, especially since the disease from which the Jewish nation recovered at the time of the Exodus, had left far deeper scars on the national body than the brief (sometimes lasting only three days) illness of the woman with the flux. The fact that this spiritual preparation could have been achieved in the brief space of seven weeks, is evidence of the help the Jewish people received from G'd. "I carried you on the wings of eagles." (Exodus 19,4.) G'd Himself speeded up the process and telescoped the time normally required into a minute fraction thereof. Since the feeling of not yet being worthy of the revelation is one of pain, we do not recite the benediction she-hecheyanu, "who has let us live to this day to fulfil etc." when performing the mitzvah of counting the Omer. A bride awaiting her wedding will hardly recite she-hecheyanu when informed that she is not yet spiritually pure enough to stand under the wedding canopy.

The midrash relates to the problem of "halakhic infertility." Scripture distinguishes between two different possible types of impurity from a woman's body requiring immersion in living waters before the consummation of marital relations: Menstrual (Niddah) impurity that concludes at the end of her monthly period, When a woman has a discharge, her discharge being blood from her body, she shall remain in her impurity seven days (Leviticus 15:19); and discharge (zavah impurity, when she bleeds not during the time of her period or for more than the seven monthly days of her period. The discharge impurity concludes after seven additional clean days, which are counted after the blood has stopped: When a woman has had a discharge of blood for many days, not at the time of her menstruation... as though at the time of her menstruation, she shall be impure... When she becomes clean of her discharge, she shall count off seven days, and after that, she shall be pure (Leviticus 15:25-28). These days are called, "the seven clean days."
The Talmud mentions Rabbi Zera's testimony, according to which the daughters of Israel were stringent upon themselves to sit out "the seven clean days" for any menstrual blood that they experienced (BT, Niddah 66a). The Talmud presents a disagreement concerning the status of this stringency, whether it is a custom or a law. In practice, this stringency was accepted as law, and what that means is that women are forbidden to have sexual relations for 12-14 days a month — the 5-7 days of the monthly period and "the seven clean days." Women who ovulate during one of "the seven clean days" are unable to become pregnant, and that is why their infertility is called "halakhic infertility." Throughout the generations and into our days, various decisors have sought to permit such women to immerse even before "the seven clean days" are finished. In our days, there are some who recommend a medical solution to this problem by using hormones that delay the time of ovulation in such a way that it does not occur during "the seven clean days."