Комментарий о цитате к Берешит 31:34

der Tragsessel des Kamels. Vgl. Gen. 31, 34, wo כר הגמל von Onk. mit עביטא דגמלא übersetzt wird. Vgl. Herzog, Real-Encycl. und Riehm, Handwörterb. Art. Kamel.

כימי נדת דותה תטמא, “her impurity is as long as her impurity due to menstruation.” The expression דותה is derived from מדוה, a description of a “natural” sickness, i.e. the menstruation period a woman experiences at regular intervals. Our sages (Niddah 9) have also explained that during such a period a woman’s heads and limbs feel very heavy. Although the excretion of blood by the woman every month is the excretion of superfluous material, it is still considered a disease. The word נדה means to “be distant;” similarly the word מנודה is a term for people who have been ostracised, banished and banned from society. The term is used in Nedarim 4 in connection with someone vowing to not benefit from certain people’s belongings or eating a meal at their place, or not to come within 4 cubits of the property of such a person.
The reason a menstruous woman is referred to as נדה is that other people shun her, keep their distance from her while she is in the throes of that disease. Even her women friends keep their distance from her. She usually spends that period in isolation. Throughout ancient history all the nations considered that period in a woman’s monthly cycle as one requiring her to be isolated, even considering the earth a woman in such circumstances walked on as contaminated. One did not speak to such a woman for fear of being contaminated. When Lavan wanted to search Rachel’s tent and she apologized for not rising in his honour (she was sitting on the teraphim her father was searching for) we note that Lavan did not speak a single word to her. This was because it was considered unhealthy to engage in conversation with a menstruating woman. Clearly, Rachel was sitting isolated in her tent, presumably without any maidservant at her side. The exhalations of such a woman and the odors coming from her were all considered potentially contaminating (compare Genesis 31,34-35). [Halachah, of course, does not recognize such superstitions and in the main a woman’s state of being נדה affects her husband’s relations with her and her inability to touch sacred objects including food for sacred purposes which she would contaminate by her touch. Ed.] According to Nachmanides even what such a woman looked at was considered as harmful, similarly to the evil eye. (Nachmanides on Leviticus 18,19 reports that when a menstruous woman in the very beginning of her period looks at a gleaming sword or mirror, drops of blood can be seen on that sword or mirror according to the eye witness reports of some “scientists.”) It is clear that if even some of all this is true cohabiting with a woman while she is in that state is a health hazard to her partner.

קל The swift. An epithet of the horse, as is כר swift of the camel.²¹Comp. I. E. on 16:1. and on Gen. 31:34.

and numerous sacrifices It is customary for Scripture to speak in this manner; when it speaks of two or three things, it leaves the first one until the end and explains the last one immediately, and so (Gen. 31:33): “And Laban came into Jacob’s tent... and came into Rachel’s tent.” Now was it not already stated, “And Laban came into Jacob’s tent,” which was Rachel’s tent? However, “and did not find” refers to the maidservants, mentioned last, and then he explains the first matter, “... and he went out of Leah’s tent” first, and he “came into Rachel’s tent.” From Leah’s tent he went to Rachel’s tent, but because he had to say other things about this, “And Rachel had taken, etc.” and consequently, it is inappropriate to say, “... and in the tent of the two maidservants and did not find.” Here too, he had other things to say about the sacrifices, namely...