23
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 ...
20
The Gemara in Megilla 6a says Rebbi Yehuda Hanasi went to the bath house on 17 Tammuz.
The Shulchan Aruch OC 550:2 rules that bathing is permitted on the 'minor' fasts and is only forbidden on Tisha B'av and Yom Kippur.
The Mishna Brura there (sk 6) says that a meticulous person ("baal nefesh") should be stringent on all the 5 afflictions of tisha b'av (...
16
Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, in responsa Shemesh Marpeh, was asked regarding an influx of Eastern-European Jews to Frankfurt whose men had the custom to use the mikvah. He ruled that their custom was a wonderful thing, but if it caused one woman to not use the mikvah, it wasn't worth it.
This was cited by Rabbi Moshe Feinstein regarding what appears to have ...
16
Masturbation per se does not change one's halachik status at all, although it does generate an obligation to repent.
Ezra originally established that a man who is impure from any seminal emmision (not just masturbatory) cannot say shema, pray or say other blessings until he has gone to the mikva. However this decree was later rescinded, and the law and the ...
16
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 ...
14
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
In general, one's status does not change, and one should not feel that one is prohibited from learning or davening. That said, it is important to take steps to rectify this very serious sin.
Aside from the necessary steps for teshuva regardless of the sin, one should go to the mikvah as soon as possible - if one is not available, a shower will do - and ...
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 ...
11
From the Shiurim of Rav Baruch Gigi of Yeshivat Har Etzion
The Rashba (Torat Ha-bayit Ha-katzar 32b) wrote in a similar vein
about a woman who dyed her hair: "It [the coloring] is now part of the
hair, like dye is part of a colored garment. Dye is not considered a
separate thing that is a chatzitza, but part of the garment itself
that does not ...
11
Actually the order for a convert is: first have circumcision, then wait for that to heal, then immerse in the mikvah. The immersion is what finalizes the conversion.
The law of "a convert upon conversion is like a newborn" is limited to certain laws, primarily that Torah law regards the convert as no longer related to their prior relatives.
10
They aren't all built near the ground - for example the mens mikvah where I live is on the second floor.
However they frequently build them on the ground simply because water is extremely heavy, and building it higher up requires special building reinforcement - the building would basically have to be built specifically to be a mikvah, and could not be ...
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 ...
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 ...
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
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
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
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
Another possibility might just be to use a local pond or lake. (Rivers or streams are a possibility too, but there are more halachic issues with those, involving issues of how much groundwater vs. rainwater they contain.) Those generally aren't usable for human mikvaos because of the lack of privacy, but that wouldn't apply to dishes.
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
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
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 ...
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) ...
7
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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