When a person has on the skin of his body a swelling, a rash, or a discoloration, and it develops into a scaly affection on the skin of his body, it shall be reported to Aaron the priest or to one of his sons, the priests.

The idea that others would examine and report on intimate details of our bodies—that such things would be of communal concern, and subject us to institutional regulation—may seem archaic. But as transgender people know, when it comes to gender, this kind of surveillance is alive and well.

Every trans person has experienced gender surveillance—the ongoing scrutiny of bodies, clothing, voices, and gestures to determine if we are male or female. Gender surveillance happens in stores, on the street, in the work place; it is conducted by strangers and friends, bosses and employees, police and people who are homeless, doctors and accountants. Wherever we go, whomever we encounter, others, consciously or unconsciously, are looking at us to determine whether we are male or female—which is why the therapist who helped me through gender transition instructed me to always carry a letter, addressed “To whom it may concern,” in which she assured whoever was reading it that I was not presenting myself as a woman in order to defraud or otherwise harm others.

I am not only an object of gender surveillance; I participate in the communal monitoring of gender. When I see someone, I immediately try to determine if they are male or female, because so many of my habits of understanding and relating to others are premised on determining who they are in terms of binary gender. I have lived my entire life engaging in gender surveillance, subjecting everyone—myself included—to that binary-enforcing gaze.

The spate of “bathroom bill” legislation in North Carolina, Texas, and elsewhere—laws designed to force trans people to use the restrooms that correspond to the sex on our birth certificates—has drawn national attention to gender surveillance. “Bathroom bills” require people whose bodies visibly vary from the norm to undergo intensive, intrusive examination and, if our differences are officially found to be defiling, to be expelled from communal spaces and publicly stigmatized.

 commands similar responses to bodies whose differences are officially deemed “leprous”:

As for the person with a leprous affection, his clothes shall be rent, his head shall be left bare, and he shall cover over his upper lip; and he shall call out, “Impure! Impure!” He shall be impure as long as the disease is on him. Being impure, he shall dwell apart; his dwelling shall be outside the camp ().

In , the Torah expands the range of bodies that are to be expelled because they are considered defiling:

The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Instruct the Israelites to remove from camp anyone with an eruption or a discharge… Remove male and female alike; put them outside the camp so they do not defile the camp of those in whose midst I dwell. The Israelites did so, putting them outside the camp (vv. 1-4).

The image of organized searches for those whose bodies may “defile” their society may seem like an outgrown relic of Iron Age notions of ritual purity. But as Jews found out during the Holocaust, and, as Latino communities in the U.S. targeted for immigration “sweeps” can attest to today, human beings have never left such practices behind.

To my knowledge, trans people have never been subjected to this sort of formal “removal” process. Until recently, most of us have lived in hiding or “below the radar”: too few and too scattered to inspire formal searches and “removals.” But many trans people know what it’s like to be seen as defiling our families, homes, workplaces, and communities, and forcibly removed as a consequence—expelled, sometimes violently, because the “eruptions” of our transgender identities are seen as a threat to communal health, harmony, religious life, or social order.

The removals of defiling bodies commanded by the Torah are in many ways less harsh than the removals many transgender people endure. The Torah’s commandments target temporary physical conditions that may affect anyone, rather than singling out a specific minority for discrimination. Unlike today’s gender-based removals, the Torah’s laws don’t stigmatize those who are removed from the camp, or suggest that they are guilty of moral failing, sin, or crime. (While leprosy was later interpreted and stigmatized as divine punishment, “eruptions and discharges” are common events.) And while the Torah allows those who have been removed to rejoin the community after completing rituals of purification, such as those detailed in , many transgender people are exiled for years, decades—sometimes for the rest of our lives.

The Torah is often cited as the basis for religious communities to exclude, exile, and stigmatize transgender people—and even to deny us urgent medical care—but the Torah never commands, approves, or encourages such things. Even when Moses declares that those who cross-dress are “abhorrent” to God, he does not claim that God demands that they be “removed from camp.” Though there have always been people who do not fit into the categories of male and female, the Torah says nothing about us. It does not portray us as a threat or an abomination; it doesn’t declare us unclean or unfit to participate in communal worship or activities; it doesn’t demonize us, curse us, punish us, relegate us to the margins or the shadows, order gender surveillance to guard against our entry into the community or the Tabernacle, or organize searches to locate and expel us.

The Torah’s silence opened the door for the rabbis of the Talmud to adapt halakhah to enable intersex Jews to participate in Jewish communal life, and, more recently and locally, for Yeshiva University to tolerate my presence as an openly transgender professor. But because the Torah does not acknowledge that there are human beings who are not simply male or female, it shrouds us in silence and incomprehensibility.

The Torah’s detailing of defiling physical differences ensured that these differences could be recognized, spoken of, and understood by communities as part of being human. In order to fully include transgender people, Jewish communities have to follow the Torah’s example—to speak frankly about transgender identities, to recognize and pragmatically address our differences, and to face up to, and change, the communal policies, practices, and habits that, intentionally or not, lead so many of us to be removed, or to remove ourselves, from the camp.

When this d’var Torah was first published in 2017, so-called bathroom bills—laws criminalizing trans people’s use of public restrooms that fit the gender with which we identify—were relatively new and, to me, surprisingly unpopular. Now, nine years later, this kind of anti-trans legislation has metastasized. Thousands of trans people and their families have become internal refugees, moving from state to state in search of health care, equality, and safety; others, including me, have either fled or are preparing to flee the country. All of us are waiting to find out if we will be subject to the invasive processes described in Leviticus 13 and Numbers 5: inspecting our bodies, officially designating us as “unclean,” and forcibly removing us, as lepers and other “unclean” Israelites were, from American society. 

The publication and distribution of the 91�첥 Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee (��”l) and Harold Hassenfeld (��”l).

We can get bogged down in “if only” and “I told you so,” tripping ourselves in regret and blame. Too much looking back, we can’t move forward. Too little, we fail to learn from history and experience. Blame is rarely productive or compassionate. It can be an understandable defensive strategy to help us make sense of difficult or painful reality. If someone else is at fault, it puts distance between those terrible events and our own responsibility, as well as the possibility that we could suffer a similar fate. Sometimes there is clear culpability, and it is important to be honest. Often the real story is unknown. 

Classical midrash and commentaries look for culpability to understand the puzzling verse describing the fate of Lot’s unnamed wife.

וַתַּבֵּט אִשְׁתּוֹ מֵאַחֲרָיו וַתְּהִי נְצִיב מֶלַח׃

Lot’s wife looked back, and she thereupon turned into a pillar of salt. (Gen 19:26)

If the warning not to look back (19:17) was intended to spare Lot and his fleeing household the consequences of witnessing the destruction wrought on Sodom andGomorra(seeRambanon 19:17)or betray any regret about leaving their material belongings or their neighbors, Lot’s wife’s backward look was some kind of violation.BereishitRabba51 imagines that this unusual punishment was poetic retribution for an imagined sin in Sodom, where she tried to avoid welcoming the angels into their home by asking the neighbors for salt to borrow, thereby informing them of the angels’ arrival.

Many contemporary writers are puzzled by this theatrical punishment for such a natural impulse. How do we not look back? There is a fascinating body of poetry primarily by women poets whose imaginations were captured by the enigma of Lot’s wife. 

The American Israeli poet  who was certainly aware of the rabbinic commentaries, offered a counter narrative in her poem, His Wife:

But it was right that she
looked back. Not to be
curious, some lumpy
reaching of the mind
that turns all shapes to pillars.
But to be only who she was
apart from them, the place
exploding, and herself
defined. Seeing them melt
to slag heaps and the flames
slide into their mouths.
Testing her owl lips then,
the coolness, till
she could taste the salt.

In ) Ruti Timor approaches the story with similar  empathy, basing her reading on a midrash from Pirkei Derabbi Eliezer 25 which imagines Lot’s wife (to whom midrash assigns a name, Idit or Irit) overcome with compassion for her married daughters who she fears are remaining in Sodom:

 He said to her: Quiet, woman! Do as I say! She was silent. And the angels took them out of the city, and Lot did not say to his wife a word of what they said. He walked sure-footed, and she lagged behind him. Her heart was heavy upon her, she looked back and saw her city, her family, and her property going up in flames. And his wife looked behind, and became a pillar of salt (Gen 19:26). Tear after tear dripped from her eyes, and the tears grew fuller and fuller, stronger and stronger, until they became a pillar of salt. She stumbled and fell, and stirred no more. And Lot did not look back. Our Sages of Blessed Memory said, with salt she sinned and with salt was she punished. And I say, she sinned not, but was punished all the same.

It takes tremendous spiritual work to greet others with compassion or empathy rather than blame. It is harder to see the world in its moral complexity, and to act accordingly.  

Dr. Gila Vachman, from Machon Schechter, brought to mind another midrash from Bereishit Rabba  on a passage later in the parsha when Hagar fears that Ishmael is dying of thirst in the desert. 

:אמר רבי יהודה ברבי סימון
,קפצו מלאכי השרת לקטרג
?!אמרו לפניו: רבונו של עולם, אדם שהוא עתיד להמית את בניך בצמא, את מעלה לו הבאר
?אמר להם: עכשיו מה הוא, צדיק או רשע
.אמרו לו: צדיק
.אמר להם: איני דן את האדם אלא בשעתו
(בראשית רבה נג, יד)

Rabbi Shimon said, ‘The ministering angels leapt to condemn [Ishmael]. They said, Creator of the universe, a person who is destined to kill your children by thirst, will You produce a spring for him?’ The Holy One said to them: ‘What is he right now, righteous or wicked?’ They said to him: ‘He is righteous.’ God said to them: ‘I judge a person only at his present time. “ (Genesis Rabba 53:25).

Here, the midrash reframes judgment as compassion, echoing the lesson implicit in Lot’s wife’s story: to see others as they are now, not as we imagine their past or future to be. May we rise beyond our instincts to blame and condemn, to try to greet one another, even those we do not understand, with compassion. May we learn from the past and from the complexity of the human experience, to move forward with empathy towards justice. 

The publication and distribution of the91�첥 Torah Commentaryare made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee and Harold (��”l) Hassenfeld.

This season, as I encounter the story of your pregnancy, I feel your fear in my chest.

Before you bravely took leave of your family, they blessed you that through your line would come thousands upon thousands of descendants. When you struggled to conceive, Yitzhak pleaded with God for you to bear children.

The Torah records how the boys thrashed about in your womb. וַיִּתְרֹצְצוּ הַבָּנִים בְּקִרְבָּהּ. You cried out, אִם־כֵּן לָמָּה זֶּה אָנֹכִי, “If this is how it is, why do I exist?” (Gen. 25:22).

You must have been so scared. Something did not feel right in your body. You were separated from your mother and your family of origin. Your mother-in-law, Sarah, was no longer alive. To whom could you turn to understand what was happening inside you? Midrash Bereishit Rabbah describes how in your suffering, you circled the entrances of the tents of the women, asking, “Was it like this for you, too?”

Rashi comments that in your distress, you regretted longing for the pregnancy in the first place. Ramban believes that, overcome with pain, you questioned why you were alive at all. Sforno says that you sank with dread that one of the twins would take the life of the other in utero, causing you to succumb to the perils of childbirth. Even before the boys emerged, you carried the terror in your belly that one might kill the other.

Never one to simply let life happen to you, you got up and sought out answers. Some of your learned descendants say that you found your way to the ancient Beit Midrash of Shem and Ever, reaching for wisdom, wrestling for meaning. Others, like Ramban, insist that you cried out to God, longing for a prophecy of how the future would unfold.

When I was pregnant with my first child, I remember the day my center of gravity shifted. During a music rehearsal at the congregation where I was serving as a rabbi, I attempted to hoist myself backwards to sit on the edge of the bimah. It was a move I had done dozens of times without thinking, and that afternoon, the laws of physics no longer permitted it. I was shocked to learn that during pregnancy, organs shift, stretch, and shrink to accommodate the growing fetus. For nine months, I drank chocolate milk, craved rice and beans, and struggled to sleep. After two days of labor, my body feverish, my blood pressure high, there was a birth complication I hadn’t even known to worry about. Before I could process my fear, the care team had called a code. Nurses and doctors flooded the room. A midwife pushed on my belly, set my daughter free, and placed her hot on my chest.

When I recall your story, Mother Rivkah, I relive my own birthing experience, and I am awestruck. I ask with the intonation of wonder, “If this is so, how is it possible that I even exist?” If this is what it means to bring new life into the world, what are the odds that each cell would understand its assignment, that the myriad openings and closings would work according to plan?  

Pregnancy is perilous to begin with and pregnant people and their medical teams need every tool and resource available to care for them. In recent years in this country, legal protections have been stripped away from women. We have been denied reproductive healthcare at the expense of our lives, bouncing between emergency rooms and crossing state lines to seek out medical assistance, the way you went from tent to tent looking for anyone who could help you.

Rivkah, for your sake, I pray for the courage to ask and to act so that pregnant people receive the healthcare they need to live. May we feel safe enough to bring every question to our care providers and our communities, to give voice to each hope and each doubt. May we share the stories of what it means to live in our own bodies, each one of us, a singular soul.

Elohei Rivkah, God of Rivkah,
Harahaman, God of Compassion,
Choreographer of Wombs,
Be with us as we birth a new world into being.
Hold us when we are floored by your wonders.
See us when we sit in darkness,
afraid for what may come.

The publication and distribution of the 91�첥 Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee (��”l) and Harold Hassenfeld (��”l). 

Part of our fall learning series, Zionism: Today, Tomorrow, and Beyond—Expanding the Conversation 

With Dr. Shuly Rubin Schwartz, Chancellor and Irving Lehrman Research Professor of American Jewish History, 91�첥, in conversation with Carol Ann Schwartz, Hadassah National President

Henrietta Szold, 91�첥’s first female student, was the most learned Jewish woman in America in the first half of the last century. Attracted to the Zionist dream as a teen in Baltimore, she channeled her intellect and love for the Jewish people into Hadassah. Defying gender norms and expectations, she transformed the way Jewish women thought about their capabilities and the way many Jews approach their relationship to Zionism.

What can this 20th-century Zionist leader teach us about Zionism today? Chancellor Shuly Rubin Schwartz and Carol Ann Schwartz, Hadassah National President, explore Szold’s experiences and reflect on its implications for us all.

These links were shared in the chat during the session:

This session is co-sponsored by and generously sponsored by:

Lori Gilman, in memory of her grandmother, Anna Goodman. Henrietta Szold was her heroine.
Karen Price Rafalowicz, in loving memory of her mother, Ruth Epstein Price

Shuly Rubin Schwartz, Irving Lehrman Research Professor of American Jewish History, a groundbreaking scholar of American Jewish history, and a visionary institutional leader, is the eighth chancellor of 91�첥. She is the first woman to serve in this role since 91�첥 was founded in 1886. Chancellor Schwartz was one of the first women on the 91�첥 faculty and played an instrumental role in introducing Jewish gender studies into the curriculum. As a scholar, she brings to light previously overlooked contributions of women to Jewish life and culture over the centuries and continually expands our understanding of American Judaism.  

Carol Ann Schwartz is Hadassah’s 28th national president. She has more than 30 years of service to Hadassah at the local, regional, and national levels, including roles as member of the Board of Directors of the Hadassah Medical Organization, Speakers Bureau chair, national secretary, a national vice president and Cincinnati Chapter president, among others. Carol Ann was a recipient of the Presidents’ Award in 1994. Carol Ann, of Cincinnati, has been active in her local community, serving as president of Yavneh Day School (Rockwern Academy) and on the boards of Adath Israel Synagogue and Jewish Federation of Cincinnati. She earned a BBA in marketing and management from the University of Cincinnati and an MBA in finance from Xavier University. Following seven plus years in banking, Carol Ann now works with her family in commercial real estate. 

About the Series

What does it mean to be a Zionist in 21st-century North America? Expanding on conversations from our two-day convening “Zionism: Today, Tomorrow, and Beyond,” this webinar series will explore this and other questions, presenting significant insights and debate and enhancing the context that is informing contemporary issues. 91�첥 faculty will highlight the political, religious, and philosophical perspectives that shape the current landscape for Jews in North America in relationship with Israel. 

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Part of the series 91�첥 Alumni in the World: Scholarship and Impact 

�¾��ٳ���Rabbi Pamela Barmash, PhD(Rabbinical School ’90), Chair of the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards, The Rabbinical Assembly, and Professor of Hebrew Bible and Biblical Hebrew, Washington University, andRabbi Karen Reiss Medwed, PhD(Rabbinical School ’95and List College ’91), Member of the Joint Bet Din of the Conservative Movement and Senior Assistant Dean of Faculty Affairs and Network Engagement, Northeastern University College of Professional Studies

What are the essential components of an egalitarian marriage ceremony and divorce? How can we ensure that the Conservative/Masorti movement’s ways of Jewish marriage and divorce reflect our spiritual values and ethical ideals? Rabbi Pamela Barmash, PhD and Rabbi Karen Weiss Medwed, PhD discussed the progress that has been achieved in this area and the challenges that remain.

Rabbi Pamela Barmash, PhD, is the co-chair of the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards (CJLS) of the Rabbinical Assembly and a member of the Joint Beit Din of the Conservative Movement. She is a professor of Hebrew Bible at Washington University in St. Louis. Her scholarly research is in the areas of law and justice and of history and memory. Rabbi Barmash authored the 2022 teshuvah (legal responsum) that presented an egalitarian method for divorce and was approved by the CJLS. 

Rabbi Karen Reiss Medwed, PhD, is a member of the Joint Bet Din of the Conservative Movement, a member of the Rabbinical Assembly Executive Committee, and a member of the Rabbinical Assembly CJLS.  She is Teaching Professor Emerita at Northeastern University. She is the only certified female-identifying mesadderet gittin (officiator of divorce) currently practicing in the Conservative movement.   

About the Series

Our esteemed 91�첥 alumni are making important contributions through their work as scholars and thought leaders in their fields. Join them this summer for nine outstanding learning sessions. Through their engagement with Jewish text, history, and thought, they are enhancing the spiritual and personal lives of individuals, building more inclusive communities, and preparing the leaders of tomorrow, ensuring a stronger Jewish future.

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Part of the series 91�첥 Alumni in the World: Scholarship and Impact 

With Dr. Rachel Kranson (Kekst Graduate School ’00), Associate Professor of Religious Studies and Director of Jewish Studies, University of Pittsburgh 

We begin by tracing the history of how American Jews contributed to reproductive politics by developing first amendment-based arguments for abortion rights. We also discussthe ways in which reproductive politics transformed American Judaism. In particular, we look at the many rituals that Jewish feminist leaders developed to support people undergoing abortion care and galvanize activists working for reproductive rights.

Dr. Rachel Kransonis director of Jewish studies and associate professor of religious studies at the University of Pittsburgh, specializing in the history of American Jews and the history of gender and sexuality. Before joining the religious studies faculty at the University of Pittsburgh, she earned a PhD in the joint History/Hebrew and Judaic Studies program at New York University and a master’s degree in Women’s Studies from the Jewish Theological Seminary. Dr. Kranson’s current research project is tentatively entitled “Religious Misconceptions: American Jews and the Politics of Abortion.”

ABOUT THE SERIES

Join esteemed 91�첥 alumni to hear about the important contributions they are making through their work as scholars and thought leaders in their fields. Through their engagement with Jewish text, history, and thought, they are enhancing the spiritual and personal lives of individuals, building more inclusive communities, and preparing the leaders of tomorrow, ensuring a stronger Jewish future.

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With special guest presenter , Director of The Jewish Publication Society 

How should English translators of the Hebrew Bible approach questions relating to gender? When should gender-inclusive language (such as “God” or “person”) be used for references to God and human beings, and when is gendered terminology (such as “King” and “man”) called for historically and linguistically? What does it mean to faithfully render biblical Hebrew into contemporary English, and how can translators share their methodologies and choices with readers and communities? We explore these questions, focusing on the newest Bible translation released by The Jewish Publication Society, THE JPS TANAKH: Gender-Sensitive Edition.

ABOUT THE SERIES 

Timely Insights, Timeless Wisdom 

Join 91�첥’s renowned faculty to learn about their current scholarly work and greatest passions. Drawing on their expertise, scholars will offer inspiring learning and expose us to new ideas and insights that help us connect the Jewish past with the Jewish future.

Many of these—“Do not sleep with a menstruating woman,” “Do not degrade your daughter,” etc.—put the emphasis on the male, not surprising given how personhood and sexuality were understood at the time (Lev. 18:19, 19:29). But these human interactions involve multiple parties. How might this section of the Torah inform the ways we today think about embodied mitzvot and the holiness of the entire community of Israel? Is there a way to hold earlier understandings of the mitzvot, the challenges of reading ancient texts about sexual ethics in light of contemporary values, and the belief that the Torah speaks to all of us at all times? 

As a feminist, observant Jew, I believe there has to be. My academic work at 91�첥 engages a disability justice approach to halakhah, using forbidden sexual relations—specifically the laws around menstruation—as a case study. ^[1] What might it mean to treat all of our bodies as holy? In reflecting on this question raised by the opening to Parashat Kedoshim, I suggest we turn to the resurgence of hilkhot niddah in liberal communities and the academic field of disability studies. 

Hilkhot niddah, like many areas of Jewish law about non-male bodies written by men, has its fair share of complications. Yet many observant Jews, including some liberal Jews, practice niddah. There are many reasons why, including a desire for halakhah to comprehensively inform our day-to-day lives. In her 2014 teshuvah, Rabbi Pamela Barmash spoke to such a phenomenon in the context of gender and obligation, writing, “Being permitted to perform a mitzvah is not the same as being required to perform a mitzvah, and women want to express their commitment to their lives as Jews by performing mitzvot on an equal basis with men.” Barmash’s assertion says as much about obligation more broadly as it does about women’s relationship to traditionally masculine mitzvot: for many of us, being fully, holistically obligated is a core part of our Judaism. So what happens when our foundational texts delineate the laws of �Ծ���岹��—or other embodied mitzvot—in a manner that does not completely align with our experiences of gender, sexuality, and/or physiology?

This dissonance offers the opportunity for a new approach. Enter the social model of disability, which understands disability as resulting from a gap between one’s embodied experience and their broader physical and social environment and attempts to close that gap through systemic change, which for halakhah would entail accounting for bodily diversity from the outset. The insights gained by individuals with marginalized bodily and sexual identities—who often navigate flawed medical systems, legislative attacks, and other societal challenges—can guide a response to the deep yearning for rituals and halakhah that resonate with our personal experiences of our bodies, especially when traditional texts seem at odds with these experiences. Integrating disability justice with halakhah provides a dual opportunity: it allows the insights of disability studies to enrich halakhic thinking and helps our communities better address diverse physical needs, affirming the holiness of the entire community of Israel.

One area of hilkhot niddah that could better account for different experiences is bedikot, the series of internal checks a menstruant^[2] performs at the cessation of bleeding to exit the status of niddah.^[3] People with pelvic health issues like endometriosis and vulvodynia may experience pain with insertion, as well as symptoms such as vulvar itching, incontinence, and discomfort when sitting or wearing tight pants. Hilkhot niddah have long taken into account the reality that some people might have difficulty with vaginal insertion, establishing cases in which someone would only have to do the first bedikah—hefsek tahara. Yet for those for whom even this one check is difficult, it is normative to seek out individualized guidance that might provide leniencies and heterim (permissions). Given that one in four people with vulvas are impacted by pelvic health issues at some point during their life, and the broader reasoning that we should proactively account for embodied difference, a contemporary approach to hilkhot niddah should see pelvic health issues as part of the normal range of menstrual experiences, not an anomaly to be dealt with if they come up.

A disability justice-informed approach to bodily diversity would see responding to one’s physical and emotional realities not as necessitating employing a leniency, but as part and parcel of what it means to seriously live a rigorous halakhic life. While not everyone perceives “leniency” to be a bad thing, it often has a negative connotation in halakhic communities, implying that someone is choosing to be “less observant.” Furthermore, in the disability community, people sometimes hesitate to use mobility aids or pursue institutional accommodations out of fear of “not being disabled enough,” and a similar line of thinking could lead people to be wary of relying on a halakhic leniency. We can affirm people by relating to halakhah in a way that does not set up a strict/lenient hierarchy but rather draws them closer to Jewish practice with, to the extent possible, halakhic language that speaks to their lived experiences.

For bedikot, expanding halakhic thinking with an eye toward disability justice might include accounting for the reality that not everyone is physically able to perform a hefsek tahara and elaborating on what this might mean for the transition to shivah neki’im—the seven “clean days” between menstruation and exiting niddah status through immersion. Alternatively, for the menstruant who observes a form of niddah that understands the entirety of niddah to be seven days and still wants to do some sort of check before going to the mikveh when night falls on/after the seventh day, it might entail discerning a rigorous way to check in with one’s body that does not cause physical or emotional distress. The halakhic approach to hefsek tahara that I wish to see is one that understands that not everyone might be able to do even a single bedikah, and that this is not necessarily a temporary situation. 

My proposal reflects a deeper, personal desire to navigate the tension between my own experience as a person sensitive to pain and a longstanding tradition. I know that, for me, taking both Judaism and my experience of my body seriously means engaging in a comprehensive religious practice, inclusive of niddah. This is not unique to people who have chronic health challenges. From pregnant people discussing how to think about fasting to trans folks writing teshuvot about whether to wear a chest binder when immersing in a mikveh, many of us are expressing a desire for halakhah to be informed by and speak to a diversity of lived experiences.^[4] Halakhah’s ability to respond to the complicated reality of human existence is part of what maintains its holiness. The extent to which we respond to the diverse embodied needs in our communities is central to answering the call for each of us to be holy.

The publication and distribution of the 91�첥 Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee (��”l) and Harold Hassenfeld (��”l). 

^[1] The “Unwell” Woman: A Disability Justice Approach to Halakhah and Spiritual Care, submitted in partial fulfillment of the Jewish Gender and Women’s Studies MA and Certificate in Pastoral Care and Counseling at 91�첥.

^[2]  When discussing biblical and rabbinic sources, I refer to “women” in an attempt to provide a translation or summation of the source that best reflects the texts’ understanding of gender and anatomy. When talking about contemporary best practices and scenarios, I use gender-inclusive language such as “menstruant.”

^[3] How this period of time is counted largely depends on one’s communities (ethnically, denominationally, etc.).

^[4] For example, see and