24
Halachically, you transgress a biblical commandment if you knowingly have relations with a niddah, and the punishment is karet. See this answer, which cites Rambam Laws of Prohibitions on Relations 4:3. According to Rambam Issurei Biah 1:1 (h/t DoubleAA), punishments for forbidden relations apply to both except in a special case not applicable here.
By ...
18
I am impressed by the gravity of your inquiry and your care in the matter in that you are seeking real answers to a complicated question. May Hashem help the two of you and anyone else in need of this post.
First let's address some issues your question raised in this case, and then let's address the Halachic ramifications.
The OP states that your wife is ...
15
Rabbi Isaac ben Sheshet was asked (Responsum 425) why no rabbinic edict requiring unmarried women to regularly purify themselves in the Mivka was ever enacted in order to minimize the transgressions of those who engage in extra-marital sexual contact. (I note the whole basis of the question is that in the days when women regularly or even semi-regularly were ...
12
Practically speaking, the wedding goes ahead as planned, with minor differences at the ceremony:
The groom is careful not to touch the bride when putting the ring on her finger.
The groom does not hand the Ketuba to the bride.
The bride & groom do not hold hands after the ceremony.
The Yichud-room has another person present; usually hiding there in ...
10
Likely you are thinking about the Ramban's conclusion to his Hilchot Niddah (9:25):
ומדיני החציצה לא טוב היות האדם מחמיר יותר מדאי ומחפש אחר הספיקות לפסול טבילתה בדבר הקל, כי אם כן אין לדבר סוף, אלא אחר שחפפה ראשה וסרקה במסרק וחפפה ורחצה כל גופה בחמין ונזהרה לבלתי תגע בשום דבר חוצץ ותעשה טבילתה בפשיטות איבריה וכל גופה, לא יכניס אדם ראשו בספיקות החמורות ...
10
Shulchan Arukh, Yoreh Deah 268:12
...ואפילו חזר ועבד עבודת כוכבים – הרי הוא כישראל מומר שקידושיו קידושין.
ישראל מומר שעשה תשובה – אינו צריך לטבול. רק מדרבנן יש לו לטבול ולקבל עליו דברי חבירות בפני שלושה
...even if the convert returned to worshiping idols -- he is still a Jew such that his marriage proposals are binding.
An apostate Jew who repents -- he ...
10
There is no Halachic issue
SA YD 201.7 Rema
הגה: מותר לעשותו על הגג ובלבד שלא יהיה תוך כלי או אבן אחת שחקקו ולבסוף קבעו אבל חבור אבנים הרבה לא מקרי כלי (תשובת הרשב"א סימן ת"ת):
Its allowed to make it on the roof, but not in a container or a stone that was already inground before to be fixed. However stone assembly is not a utensil.
9
Afraid your friend got it horribly, horribly wrong.
There are modesty reasons why you wouldn't want women immersing (so they can be with their husbands) running into random men; but for that reason, you simply say "mikvah is open to men during the following hours, women the following hours." I know of many mikvahs (or mikvaot) today that still have this ...
9
This wouldn't work, as Mikvah water needs to be contained (Ashboren) not flowing (Zochalin). See Rambam Mikvaot 9:18 for a parallel case.
8
As Ephraim already mentioned, HaRav Menashe Klein discusses this in משנה הלכות חלק ב.
He brings a Chazon Ish in חידושי חזו"א מקואות תנינא סי' יו"ד ס"ק י"א which talks about using condensed steam for a Mikva.
The Chazon Ish says it should have the same status as melted ice and it definitely doesn't make the Mikve Pasul, even if the condensation dripped in ...
8
Let's put aside questions of the obligation to have children. Most marriages have some unspoken assumptions, but if the couple goes in with this clear understanding, I really don't see the issue. Rambam writes "you may not marry a woman with plans to soon divorce her, unless she's aware of the plan and okay with it." Similarly there's a Gemara about a Kohen ...
8
A woman who prevents her husband from having relations with herself, is a מורדת - and this is grounds for divorce.
Details can be found in the Rambam - הלכות אישות - Ch 14 (Halachot 10 - 15) and in Shulchan-Aruch Even-HaEzer Ch. 154:3-6 (למי שכופין להוציא בגט)
8
She has a chuppas niddah. It was a dispute among the Rishonim as to what extent chuppas niddah is effective, but common practice is that they go ahead with the wedding as normal (Shach Yoreh De'ah 192:8).
There are some questions that arise in this situation. For example, does the groom put the ring onto the bride's finger? There are varying customs. In my ...
8
Shulchan Arukh (YD 201:1) writes:
אין האשה עולה מטומאתה ברחיצה במרחץ ואפילו עלו עליה כל מימות שבעולם
עדיין היא בטומאתה וחייבים עליה כרת עד שתטבול כל גופה בבת אחת במי מקוה
או מעיין שיש בהם מ' סאה.
A women does not remove her Niddah impurity through washing in a
bathhouse, even if all the waters in the world washed over her, she
remains in her ...
8
R Aryeh Kaplan in his beautiful book Waters of Eden (also part of his Anthology vol. 2) writes this is a chok and cites Bamidbar Rabbah 19:8
By your lives, a dead person doesn't make things impure, and the
water doesn't make things pure. Rather, God said: I have engraved a
rule, I have decreed a decree (chukah chakakti, gezeira gazarti), and
you ...
7
I'm going to say that whoever wrote the wikipedia article did not understand the sources they were reading. First let me state the noticeable problems.
According to Halakha a woman may not tell her husband that she is Tameh when she is not (Even HaEzer 77 and Nosei Kelim). It would give her the status of a moredet, which is a person (a mored in the case ...
7
The Aruch HaShulchan (YD 201:18, quoted below) rules that a man-made well dug in the ground is a kosher mikva by virtue of its status as a spring. He notes that springs are kosher mikvas whether or not the water flows or not, and notes that in most wells the water does flow in and out of the ground, but this is not a problem. Based on my online reading I see ...
7
See this similar answer from yoatzot.org.
Q: I want to know if I have to go to a mikve because I feel as if I had a lot of tumah inside me …I am 20 and I am single.
A:
Jewish law today does not encourage a single woman to immerse in a mikveh until just before her wedding. Traditionally, prayer and tzedakah (giving to the poor or doing good deeds) are ...
7
Ohr.edu says that in an area where there is no rain, snow can be trucked in.
Putting snow in a mikveh and letting it melt is in fact one of the
methods sometimes used to fill a mikveh. I hear that during dry spells
in Arizona they sometimes truck in snow from the Sierra Mountains to
fill mikvehs.
See also Chevel Nachloso 6:25
7
It's not politics (at least not purely); it's a matter of construction. Suppose you have a big pit in the ground that collects rainwater; everyone agrees that pit is a mikvah. Fine. Today, people want a mikva with mostly clean, heated water. So they immerse in a pit of clean, heated water that is connected via a small opening to the rainwater pit. (Or ...
7
This is the guidance issued by the United Synagogue.
The observance of Taharat Hamishpacha (the laws of family purity) is a fundamental mitzvah. Mikvaot remain open for women. Best-practice guidelines on hygiene and social distancing are in place at local Mikvaot in North London. As each mikvah operates independently, women should contact their mikvah ...
7
Obviously, as you mentioned, you'll ask a specific shaila.
Here's a couple of issues for you to check out and ask:
1) how was your pool made? If it was a preformed concrete block which is placed in the ground, it might have "toras kli" on it (halachically called a vessel) which would make it pasul. You might need to undo the status of a kli by detaching it ...
6
A convert actually immerses three times, according to Rabbi Maurice Lamm here:
There is one exception to this general practice of placing the blessing before the
mitzvah--the immersion of a convert. The convert needs to recite the blessing after the immersion, not before. The reason is simple: One cannot declare "God commanded us"
if one is not ...
6
The gemoro in Pesachim 51A says that father, father-in-law, stepfather and brother-in-law (sister's husband) are forbidden, and that there are those who are machmir on brothers as well.
According to Rashi the issue is that it would lead one to impure thoughts, to see the place from where he or his wife were produced, or thoughts about his brother-in-law and ...
6
This is because it is possible to get a period while pregnant, and it's even possible to get pregnant again while already pregnant (i.e. not twins). This is called http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superfetation
The halacha takes this into account, and therefor all taharas hamishpacha practices continue like normal during pregnancy.
Someone who has a Chazakah (...
6
The custom for women to trim their nails before going to the Mikva is recorded in Shulchan Arukh YD 198:18 but the reason given is related to avoiding dirt under the nail in the part of the nail which extends past the flesh. The Levush (ibid :18) there asks why this is not practiced by Netillat Yadayim. He gives two answers:
Men are not so particular about ...
6
Maimonides states in the Laws of Forbidden Sexual Relations 13:4, that a non-Jew immerses in a mikveh by himself, it has no effect.
The Shulchan Aruch in Y"D 268:3 holds this way as well, provided one did not previously accept the commandments on oneself in front of three Jews.
(See Be'er Heitiv that '2' in the S"A may refer to the requirement to at least ...
6
On a similar question about a woman's regular mikvah immersion, Daily Halacha reports several opinions (emphasis mine):
Hacham Ovadia Yosef addresses this question in his work Taharat Habayit (vol. 3, p. 26), where he cites a responsum from the work Shebet Halevi (Rabbi Shemuel Wosner, contemporary). The Shebet Halevi distinguishes in this regard between ...
6
The Talmud states in several places (Yevamos 46b, Kiddushin 62b), based on Biblical exegesis, that 3 people are required to witness something in order for the conversion to be valid:
גר צריך שלשה מ"ט (ויקרא כד, כב) משפט כתיב ביה כדין
Conversion needs 3. Why? It says "judgement" by conversion, like a court case (which needs a Court of 3 ...
6
Shemirat Shabbat Kehilchata (16:18, cf. footnotes 69, 82) notes that the practice is to be lenient and cites the following from Orchot Chayim (Shabbat 261) to try and justify the practice, though in closing with a reference to the Beiur Halacha (303:18 sv. Ki) he indicates how weak he believes the justification is.
וכן האשה לא תצא בדבר שהוא חוצץ בפני ...
Only top voted, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible
