The Talmud's Red Fence: Menstrual Impurity And Difference In Babylonian Judaism And Its Sasanian Context

by Shai Secunda

The Talmud's Red Fence explores how rituals and beliefs concerning menstruation in the Babylonian Talmud and neighboring Sasanian religious texts were animated by difference and differentiation. It argues that the practice and development of menstrual rituals in Babylonian Judaism was a product of the religious terrain of the Sasanian Empire, where groups like Syriac Christians, Mandaeans, Zoroastrians, and Jews defined themselves in part based on how they approached menstrual impurity. It demonstrates that menstruation was highly charged in Babylonian Judaism and Sasanian Zoroastrian, where menstrual discharge was conceived of as highly productive female seed yet at the same time as stemming from either primordial sin (Eve eating from the tree) or evil (Ahrimen's kiss). It argues that competition between rabbis and Zoroastrians concerning menstrual purity put pressure on the Talmudic system, for instance in the unusual development of an expert diagnostic system of discharges. It
shows how Babylonian rabbis seriously considered removing women from the home during the menstrual period, as Mandaeans and Zoroastrians did, yet in the end deemed this possibility too "heretical." Finally, it examines three cases of Babylonian Jewish women initiating menstrual practices that carved out autonomous female space. One of these, the extension of menstrual impurity beyond the biblically mandated seven days, is paralleled in both Zoroastrian Middle Persian and Mandaic texts. Ultimately, Talmudic menstrual purity is shown to be driven by difference in its binary structure of pure and impure; in gendered terms; on a social axis between Jews and Sasanian non-Jewish communities; and textually in the way the Palestinian and Babylonian Talmuds took shape in late antiquity.

224 pages, Hardcover

Published August 16, 2020

Reviews

[Mansoor · Rating 4 out of 5]

در فقه اسلامی، زنان در زمان قاعدگی اجازه ندارند به قرآن دست بزنند. برخی از زنان یهودی هم خود را ملزم می‌دانند که در زمان قاعدگی به تورات دست نزنند. این احکام سخت‌گیرانه‌ی مربوط به قاعدگی زنان و نجاست و طهارت از کجا سر برآورده‌اند؟ منشا فقه اسلامی مطلب پوشیده و مرموزی نیست. پیش‌تر می‌دانستیم که بخش بزرگی از فقه اسلامی، از جمله احکام طهارت و نجاست، برگرفته از فقه زردشتی ساسانی‌اند. حالا این کتاب پرجاذبه نشان می‌دهد که ریشه‌ی احکام قاعدگی زنان در تلمود یهودی هم احتمالا به فقه زردشتی ساسانی برمی‌گردد. احکام سختگیرانه‌ی مربوط به قاعدگی در فقه زردشتی ساسانی قطعا از نگاه امروزی تحقیرآمیز به نظر می‌رسند؛ مثلا جداکردن زنان دستخوش قاعدگی از دیگران، یا این‌که براساس فقه زردشتی اگر زنی درباره‌ی قاعدگی‌اش دروغ بگوید، شوهرش می‌تواند او را طلاق دهد