Shulchan Arukh · Yoreh De'ah — Siman 198

📑 Table of contents

📜 The text of the Shulchan Arukh — seif 1 📋 Copy

Translation. She must immerse her whole body at one time; therefore there must be upon her nothing that interposes, even the least thing. And if people are in the habit of minding it at times, it interposes — even if she herself does not mind it now, and even if she never minds it at all — since most people are in the habit of minding it. And if the thing covers the greater part of the body, it interposes even though people are not in the habit of minding such a thing. Gloss of the Rama: a priori she should not immerse even with things that do not interpose, a decree on account of things that do interpose.

1. Opening the sugya — כל גופה בפעם אחת and the gader of chatsitsa

The foundation — two laws held together: the wholeness of the immersion and the absence of an interposing thing 📋 Copy

« שֶׁלֹּא יְהֵא דָּבָר חוֹצֵץ בֵּין בְּשָׂרוֹ לַמַּיִם » (עירובין ד׳ ע״ב)

As for the first pillar — that the whole body enter the water at one time — the Taz gives its derashah in his very first entry on the siman, and it runs not through the verse of chatsitsa but through the verse of the setting sun:

« דדרשינן ורחץ ובא השמש וטהר מה ביאת שמשו כולו כאחת אף רחיצתו כולו כאחת » (ט״ז יו״ד קצ״ח ס״ק א׳)

« דדבר תורה אינו חוצץ אלא ברובו ומקפיד עליו וגזרו רבנן ברובו שאין מקפיד משום רוב המקפיד וגזרו על המיעוט המקפיד גם כן משום רוב המקפיד אבל במיעוט ואינו מקפיד דתרתי לטיבותא לא גזרו כלל דהוה גזירה לגזירה » (ט״ז יו״ד קצ״ח ס״ק ד׳)

Torah-level chatsitsa therefore stands on two legs: quantity — רוב — and mind — הקפדה; and the two sides that are not from the Torah were forbidden by the Sages, each on account of the case where the two meet. The Taz adds that the Rama's decree at the end of seif 1, which reaches even the lesser part, speaks only a priori: after the fact we do not decree a decree upon a decree.

2. דרך בני אדם להקפיד — private minding and general minding

This is the theoretical heart of the siman: what is the "minding" that determines chatsitsa — that of this woman, or that of most people; and how is it assessed in practice.

But the Taz sets a limit to the first of these two formulations, and the limit counts: "people are in the habit of minding it at times" suffices only if the rest of the sentence holds — either that she herself usually minds it, or that most people mind it.

« נראה ביאור לשון זה דרך בני אדם להקפיד על זה אע״פ שאין רוב בני אדם מקפידין רק קצתן וזו האשה רגילה להקפיד ג״כ על זה בפעמים אחרים רק שעכשיו אינה מקפדת או אפילו אינה מקפדת בשום פעם ורוב בני אדם מקפידים על זה חוצץ » (ט״ז יו״ד קצ״ח ס״ק ב׳)

« אבל אם מקצת בני אדם מקפידין וזו אינה מקפדת לעולם לא הוה חציצה » (ט״ז יו״ד קצ״ח ס״ק ב׳)

It follows that if only a minority of people mind it and she herself never minds it, there is no chatsitsa. The wording of seif 1 is therefore not a rule of pure objectivity: it crosses the usage of the many with the usage of this woman.

« והיכא דרוב בני אדם אין מקפידים והיא מקפדת כ׳ ב״י בשם הרמב״ם וטור דחוצץ » (ש״ך יו״ד קצ״ח ס״ק ב׳)

The Taz brings the same thing in his third entry: the Beit Yosef had remained in doubt, and the Darkhei Moshe rules from the Mordekhai that it interposes. The Taz adds that so wrote מו״ח — that is, his father-in-law, the author of the Bayit Chadash, and not the Taz speaking of himself.

« בב״י נסתפק אם שאר בני אדם אינם מקפידים וזו מקפדת וכתב בד״מ דבמרדכי כתב בהדיא שחוצץ » (ט״ז יו״ד קצ״ח ס״ק ג׳)

If private minding also binds, then minding is not merely the mark of an objective importance. Both directions are held by the apparatus, and we do not decide between them.

« צבע שצובעות הנשים על פניהן וידיהן ושער ראשן אינו חוצץ » (שו״ע יו״ד קצ״ח:י״ז)

« וכן מי שאומנותו להיות שוחט או קצב וידיו תמיד מלוכלכות בדם אינו חוצץ שרוב בני אומנות זו אינן מקפידים » (שו״ע יו״ד קצ״ח:י״ז)

The second sentence is the gloss of the Rama, not the text of the Mehaber. For a tradesman, then, we follow the usage of his fellows in the trade and not that of the world. There is room to examine how the two directions are to be reconciled: one may say that in the case of the trade the thing is not important to him — it is nullified for him as for his fellows — whereas a thing that people at large mind is important in itself, and her private lack of minding does not undo that importance. This reconciliation is a line of study; the text itself does not state it.

3. The hair — threads, braiding, and the married woman

The text of the Mehaber and the Rama (seifim 2 to 6) 📋 Copy

Translation. Seif 2 — woollen threads, linen threads and straps with which the hair of the head is bound: she shall not immerse with them until she loosens them; and if they are inside the braid of her hair, loosening is of no avail. Seif 3 — if these threads are hollow, made in the fashion of a net, they do not interpose. Seif 4 — threads of hair do not interpose; gloss of the Rama: if they were gilded they interpose, for she minds not soiling them; likewise if they were soiled beforehand, she minds being dirtied by them in the water, and they interpose. Seif 5 — two hairs or more tied together in a single knot do not interpose; a single hair that was knotted interposes, provided she minds it. Seif 6 — the hair facing the heart and that of the beard, stuck together by sweat, interpose; that of the head and of the armpit do not interpose; and that of that place: in a man it does not interpose, and in a woman — in a married woman it interposes, in an unmarried woman it does not. Gloss of the Rama: those who have a kind of braid of hairs stuck to one another, formed at night, which it is dangerous to remove — these do not interpose.

« עד שיהא רוב שערה קשור נימא נימא בפני עצמו » (שו״ע יו״ד קצ״ח:ה)

It emerges from the seifim that hair is adjunct to the body and yet counts for chatsitsa: on one side, what is wound into the hair — the threads — interposes, since it keeps the water from the hair; on the other, the hair itself, when stuck together, is held to be "interposing" in the places where it is minded. And the Taz, when he explains why the nail itself does not interpose, says it in a word by tying the nail to the hair:

« לפי שהוא מגוף האשה ודומה לשערותיה » (ט״ז יו״ד קצ״ח ס״ק כ׳)

An important consequence follows for the קליעה of seif 2: in a braid, loosening is of no avail, because the braided hair is gathered and the threads are buried within it, so that the water does not reach the place of the threads even if they are loosened — unlike loose hair.

« לפי שהיא מקפדת שלא תתגנה על בעלה » (ט״ז יו״ד קצ״ח ס״ק י׳)

It would seem that there is here a "private" side to minding, against the rule of seif 1 which follows most people. The reconciliation is given in the same entry, but it is not the Taz's own: he reports what מו״ח — his father-in-law, the author of the Bayit Chadash — corrected, namely that even a married woman whose husband does not mind the thing, it interposes, because we follow the usage of most married women.

« דאזלינן בתר רוב נשואות » (ט״ז יו״ד קצ״ח ס״ק י׳)

Here too, then, we follow the usage of the many — except that the many divide into two groups, the married and the unmarried. This is the case of "some people" defined by state and not by individual. The Taz further reports in the same entry that the Beit Yosef had written that the Tur need not have stated the law of the unmarried woman, there being no nafka mina in it for us.

4. Chatsitsa in the laws of the body — rheum, blood, plaster, nail and mud

The text of the Mehaber (seifim 7 to 23, selections) 📋 Copy

Translation. Seif 7 — rheum outside the eye interposes, even when moist; that which is in the eye does not interpose; and if it is dry it interposes — that is, once it has begun to turn green. Seif 9 — dried blood upon a wound interposes, and the discharge within it does not. Seif 10 — a plaster upon the wound interposes. Seif 18 — filth under the nail, at the part not facing the flesh, interposes; facing the flesh it does not interpose; and dough under the nail interposes even facing the flesh. And since they cannot judge what is called "facing the flesh" and what is not, women have taken up the practice of cutting their nails at the time of immersion. Seif 20 — the nail itself does not interpose. Seif 23 — bracelets, nose-rings, finger-rings and neck-chains: if they are loose they do not interpose, and if they are tight they interpose.

« ושאר כל הטיט כשהוא לח אינו חוצץ שהרי הוא נמחה במים וכשהוא יבש חוצץ » (שו״ע יו״ד קצ״ח:י״ד)

And yet the Rama, in the same seif, sets the limit: minding prevails even over moistness.

« מיהו אם היא מקפדת אפילו בדבר לח חוצץ » (שו״ע יו״ד קצ״ח:י״ד — הגהת הרמ״א)

« ומאחר דכבר נהגו ליטול הצפרנים אפילו אם צפורן אחת נשאר בידה וטבלה צריכה טבילה אחרת » (שו״ע יו״ד קצ״ח:כ — הגהת הרמ״א)

And there is room to ask: the nail itself does not interpose, as the beginning of that same seif says. One might say that once the practice of cutting them is established, a nail that was not cut becomes a thing she minds — since her practice is to cut — and we are back at "people are in the habit of minding it". The practice would thus generate the minding. But that is not the only reading, and the Shakh does not follow it: he notes that this stringency is found in no posek, that the reason given by the Hagahot Shaarei Dura is that it is impossible that no mud remain beneath, and he further brings what he found in the ראב״ד — we keep the siglum as the Shakh prints it and do not expand it; he refers to siman שכ״ו and a folio, where the Rama's gloss at seif 43 refers for its part to the ראב״ן with the same siman and folio reference — for whom the nail itself interposes once it is due to be cut.

« באמת חומרא זו לא נמצאת בשום פוסק ואדרבה מהמשנה והרבה פוסקים וט״ו נראה מבואר דכל שהצפורן נקי בודאי אינו חוצץ » (ש״ך יו״ד קצ״ח ס״ק כ״ה)

« אלא ההגהת ש״ד כתב דטוב להחמיר ותטבול שנית » (ש״ך יו״ד קצ״ח ס״ק כ״ה)

The Taz goes the same way on the starting point, recalling that the taking of the nails is but a practice and not a law:

« דהא כל הפוסקים כתבו כאן דאינו אלא מנהג בעלמא ליטול הצפרנים ואינו מן הדין » (ט״ז יו״ד קצ״ח ס״ק כ״א)

Three explanations thus present themselves for the Rama's stringency: the practice that creates the minding, the impossibility that nothing remain under the nail, and the nail due to be cut which interposes of itself. The Shakh and the Taz discuss further the cases in which a second immersion is not imposed. We report, and we do not decide.

5. בית הסתרים, the order of the immersion, and the balanit

The text of the Mehaber and the Rama (seifim 24 to 43, selections) 📋 Copy

Translation. Seif 24 — she must clean her teeth, that there be between them nothing that interposes; and some have the practice not to eat meat on the day they go to the immersion house. Gloss of the Rama: she should not eat between the washing and the immersion. Seif 25 — if she did not rinse the hidden folds and the creases of her body and an interposing thing was found in them, her immersion did not count. Seif 27 — if she put her hair in her mouth, or pressed her lips together, or closed her fist in such a way that the water did not come into them, her immersion did not count. Seif 40 — an adult Jewish woman, over twelve years and one day, must be set over her at the hour she immerses, that she may see that nothing of the hair of her head remains floating on the surface of the water. Seif 43 — a poultice, a compress and a plaster upon the hidden folds interpose.

« אף על פי שאינם צריכים שיכנסו בהם המים צריכי׳ שיהיו ראוים ולא יהא בהם דבר חוצץ » (שו״ע יו״ד קצ״ח:מ״ג)

There is therefore a fundamental distinction between the exposed body, which requires actual contact with the water — hence the invalidation of seif 27, the hair in the mouth or the closed fist — and the hidden folds, where fitness suffices. And the reason for the distinction: in the hidden folds water has by nature no way of coming, and so fitness was deemed enough; but an exposed place requires the very contact of the water.

6. Immersion performed without intent — is intent required?

The text of the Mehaber and the Rama (seif 48) 📋 Copy

Translation. A niddah who immersed without intent — for example that she fell into the water, or that she went down to cool off — she is permitted to her husband. Gloss of the Rama: and there are those who are stringent and require another immersion of her (the Beit Yosef in the name of the Rashba, Rabbenu Yerucham, the Rokeach and the Hagahot Asheri); and one should be stringent a priori.

7. Chakirah and nafka mina for practice

8. Summary tables

Table — the matrix of chatsitsa (רוב / מיעוט · מקפיד / אינו מקפיד), after the Taz ס״ק ד׳

Table — the siman by families (forty-eight seifim)

Table — central machlokot and gedarim of the siman

Table — the sources of the sugya