Niddah

Today I got into a discussion about Niddah with a couple where the wife is religious and the husband is not. The wife said she does everything except for actual intercourse when she is in Niddah - she was unclear on how she defined "Niddah" - ie does she define it as the days she has her period (the Torah definition), or the days she has her period + the 7 "clean days" mandated by the rabbis? Either way, I thought its cool her secular husband agreed to this.

I was telling friends earlier today that I would like to be in a relationship where I have the freedom to be as lenient as possible with Niddah laws, without worrying about my significiant other being stricter than I am. My (male) friend replied by saying that halachikly, Niddah is considered the woman's mitzvah and her responsibility, so a husband doesn't have the right to tell the woman what to do in that regard - but I wonder how many men are taught that halacha. I know I was never taught it, despite being taught the minutia of "harkachot", such as that one shouldn't pass a baby to one's husband - of course, I don't plan on observing these harkachot.

I think that the way Niddah is taught to women is really problematic (also the way its taught to men - men should be well-educated on these halachot as well, because even if they are a women's mitzvah, they are halachot that affect one's romantic relationships if one is straight). Women are taught "This is the halacha", without being taught how the halachot developed, and usually, the halachot they are taught are the stricter opinions, opinions they might reject if they knew the process of how those opinions came to be, and if they knew of the more lenient opinions of the tradition. This is a general trend with regards to how mitzvot regarding gender and sexuality are taught, especially to girls.

For example, there is a kallah teacher used by some of the more right-wing Modern Orthodox Washington Heights girls who teaches that a) one may not laugh with one's husband during Niddah b) one may not give/receive gifts, flowers, etc. c) one may not tell one's spouse "I love you" during Niddah. Not only are all of these things ridiculous - and have been outed as "ridiculous" by mainstream YU rabbis - but they also can negatively impact one's spousal relationship, because these "issurs" are about one's emotional connection with one's husband - laughing, saying "I love you", giving each other little presents - these are not sexual, and they are the little things that form the basis of a strong relationship. Especially if one is not engaging in physical contact, verbal "I love you"s are extremely important.

A friend of mine told me how during Niddah, her husband had a crisis, and she was really frustrated by her inability to hug him. To me, hugging someone is not sexual, and especially during a time of crisis, it is really important to be able to comfort one's spouse. Judaism stresses the value of shalom bayit - household peace is the literal translation, but I would like to think of it more as a healthy household/family life - and not being able to hug one's husband in a crisis is not healthy for one's family life. According to the midrash - ie, rabbinic philosophy as reflected in exegisis - God lied to Avraham in order to cover up Sarah's thinking Avraham was old, because God valued the health of Sarah and Avraham's relationship over the truth*, and God allowed His** name to be erased in the Sotah ceremony in order to maintain "shalom bayit". (The ceremony was supposed to quell the jealousies of husbands and restore peace between man and wife.)*** If God is willing to lie - despite Biblical injunctions like "From words of falsehood stay away" and to have His name erased for healthy households, it is hard for me to beleive that Judaism would have halachot that detract from the health of households, which is why I can not beleive Niddah laws would truly santion not hugging one's husband when he is sad, or not telling each other "I love you". I think the Orthodox community needs to have a real conversation about how Niddah impacts relationships, and about how to prevent it from having a negative impact - which means lightening up on harkachot.

I think that these letters are a good illustration of the problem - and by the way, I find the answers unsatisfying:
http://www.yoatzot.org/question.php?id=4181
http://www.yoatzot.org/question.php?id=2627

* Sarah asks how she can conceive when Avraham is old, but in repeating her words to Avraham, God changes them to Sarah asking how she can conceive when she is old, thus skipping over her questioning of Avraham's virility and changing it into a question about her own
post-menopausal state.
** Yes, God is genderless, but English has no gender-neutral pronoun
*** Think about it: If she drinks the water and nothing happens, she is assumed to be innocent and her husban must show contrition for accusing her of infidelity to begin with. If something happens and she dies, she is assumed to be guilty. There are two ways of seeing this: 1. God performed a miracle with Sotah water so innocent women lived and guilty ones died - this is certainly how the Talmud saw it 2. The water never had the power to kill; it was normal water that certain harmless elements were mixed into during the course of the ritual. Thus, the water served the social function of restoring household peace since all women survived, and their having drunk it and survived proved their innocence to their husbands. This is the theory about the effectiveness of much of African tribal medicine, where the medicine cures a social ill: For example, a woman who complained of her husband's anger was told when she thought of his anger to put a large stone in her mouth for a few minutes. This did decrease the husband's anger, because they fought less, since the woman was not saying things that angered her husband. Of course, the official reason given was that the stone had certain powers. But in any event, I think such medicine is valid, because it is getting done what it is meant to get done and improving people's lives. Of course, I do not think it should come at the expense of Western medicine, and if the two were to conflict I would side wit Western medicine - thus for example, I am against FGM, which in modern medical terms is thought of as extremely unhealthy for the woman, despite is esteem in certain heritages - which is beginning to change thanks to organizations like Tostan.