Sotah 27 ~ When is a Woman Most Fertile?

Today's daf  has a gynecological theme. The Talmud describes a dispute about when a  woman is most fertile. One opinion is that "a woman only conceives close to her period"  (אין אשה מתעברת אלה סמוך לווסתה), and a second opinion is that "a woman only conceives close to her immersion in a mikvah" (אין אשה מתעברת אלה סמוך לטבילתה).  Today, we will figure out which of these competing medical theories is correct.

Medical students spend many hours learning the hormones whose rise and fall causes ovulation.  But understanding the ovulation cycle is the key to understanding this passage in the Talmud, so let's spend a paragraph on...

Ovulation in women

There are two important hormones that regulate ovulation in a woman. One is called Follicle Stimulation Hormone, or FSH. This is produced in the pituitary gland deep in the brain and it acts on the ovaries to produce follicles, which are little groups of cells that may produce an egg. Under the action of FSH, the ovaries produce many follicles, but usually only one will go on to produce and release an egg. (If more than one follicle releases an egg, and both are fertilized, the result is non-identical twins.)  

A sudden spike in FSH and another hormone called Luteinizing Hormone (LH) causes the winning follicle to release its egg, which floats down the Fallopian tube and into the uterus. If the egg meets a sperm cell, they unite and start down the pathway to producing a baby. But if no sperm cell is encountered, there is a drop in the level of two other critical hormones, progesterone and estrogen (also known as oestrogen for our British readers). This causes the lining of the uterus to slough off, and menstrual bleeding begins, until the whole cycle begins again.

Diagram from here.

Assuming a twenty-eight day cycle, the FSH-LH level peaks just before or around day fourteen, and these hormones trigger ovulation - the release of the egg from the ovaries - soon after.

“Scholars of the ancient world thought that menstruation represented an excess of blood from which the woman must periodically rid herself in order to cleanse her body from noxious substances. Only during the twentieth century has the scientific basis for the menstrual cycle and its hormonal relationships been clarified.”

— Avraham Steinberg. Encyclopedia of Jewish Medical Ethics. Feldehim 2003. Vol II p650.

Counting the Days to Mikveh

As outlined in the Torah (Leviticus 15:19), a menstruating woman is ritually unclean - Niddah - for seven days. After that she undergoes a ritual bathing in a mikveh, and she may resume physical and intimate contact with her husband. However the biblical seven day period was transformed in talmudic and later rabbinic tradition. The result was the addition of another (minimum) of five days to the length of time that a couple must abstain from physical intimacy. As a result, if we assume that day one of the onset of menstruation is the first day of the 28 day average menstrual cycle we discussed above, then the earliest day for a woman to immerse in the mikveh is on day twelve, or two days before ovulation is likely to occur.

The length of the menstrual cycle varies to a remarkable degree among different populations and in different age groups. In women age 19-41 in the US it varies from about 23 to 38 days (with a mean of 31 days.) In Danish women aged 20-35, however, the cycle is about 26-31 days, with a mean of 28 days. And each different cycle length will have its own ovulation day, and each varied ovulation day will affect the day on which conception is most likely.

Cycle length distributions for selected samples from various human populations. The numbers at the far left of each sample identify the corresponding sample and data. From Amy L. Harris & Virginia J. Vitzthum. Darwin's Legacy: An Evolutionary View of Women's Reproductive and Sexual Functioning, The Journal of Sex Research 2013. 50:3-4, 207-246.

The Timing of Sexual Intercourse and the Probability of Conception

The next issue in deciding which of the two opinions in today's page of  Talmud might be correct is this:  on which days around ovulation is a woman most fertile?  This question was addressed in a study published in the esteemed New England Journal of Medicine in 1995. The authors followed 221 healthy woman who were trying to become pregnant (for a total of 625 menstrual cycles!!).  The women kept records of when they had sexual intercourse, and their urine was tested for hormone metabolites to estimate the day of ovulation.  The study found that  "conception occurred only when intercourse took place during a six-day period that ended on the estimated day of ovulation." The authors note that couples who abstain from sexual intercourse until they have evidence of ovulation may miss the opportunity for conception.   

Probability of Conception on Specific Days near the Day of Ovulation.
The bars represent probabilities calculated from data on 129 menstrual cycles in which sexual intercourse was recorded to have occurred on only a single day during the six-day interval ending on the day of ovulation (day 0). The solid line shows daily probabilities based on all 625 cycles, as estimated by a statistical model. From Wilcox A. et al. Timing of sexual intercourse in relation to ovulation. N Engl J Med 1995;333:1517-21.

As you can see in the graph below, the day on which women are most likely to conceive is two to three days before ovulation. This is independent of their age.

Fertile window for four age groups. Probability of conception is highest for an act of intercourse occurring two days prior to ovulation. Redrawn from Dunson et al. (2002). Changes with age in the level and duration of fertility in the menstrual cycle. Human Reproduction, 17(5), 1399–1403, and cited in Amy L. Harris & Virginia J. Vitzthum. Darwin's Legacy: An Evolutionary View of Women's Reproductive and Sexual Functioning, The Journal of Sex Research 2013. 50:3-4, 207-246.

The chances of conception on a random day

In a review of the variability in ovarian function, Amy Harris and Virginia Vitzthum from Indiana University note that although it is the case that the fertile window is fairly narrow (about six days, ending within 24 hours after ovulation) “it does not follow that the fertile window occurs during a narrow range of days during the menstrual cycle. To the contrary, because the timing of ovulation during a cycle is quite variable, women have a 10% or greater probability of being in their fertile window on every day from cycle days 6 through 21, and more than 70% of women are in their fertile window before cycle day 10 or after cycle day 17.”

So they plotted the probability of conception on each cycle day and then calculated the mean probability of conception (i.e., clinical pregnancy following a single act of unprotected intercourse on a random day). What they found was that the average probability during cycle days 7-14 was 25% higher than that during cycle days 14-21. The average probability during the first two weeks of the cycle was 16% higher than that during the next two weeks. “Furthermore, in that subset of women who reported having irregular cycles, a not uncommon pattern, the average probability during cycle days 7-14 is less than half of that during cycle days 14 to 21.”

“Among healthy women trying to conceive, nearly all pregnancies can be attributed to intercourse during a six-day period ending on the day of ovulation. ”

— Wilcox A. et al. Timing of sexual intercourse in relation to ovulation. N Engl J Med 1995;333:1517-21.

Panel A: The probability of ovulation by cycle day. Normal variation in the length of the follicular phase of the menstrual cycle: effect of chronological age.

Panel B: Daily probability of conception on each cycle day; mean probability of conception during cycle days 7 to 14= 6% and during cycle days 14 to 21 = 4.8%

Panel C: Daily probability of conception on each cycle day for women reporting regular cycles (thick line) and for those reporting irregular cycles (thin line); in latter sample, the average probability of conception during cycle days 7 to 14 is 2.5% and during cycle days 14 to 21 it is 5.8%.

Halakhic Infertility

Sometimes, a woman may be biologically fertile, but unable to conceive because of halakhic considerations. If a woman has a menstrual cycle that is shorter than the average 28 days (and about 20% of women have just that), or if a woman bleeds for more than 5 days (resulting in a longer Niddah time, in which the couple may not have intercourse,) then  - and pay attention to this - then ovulation takes place during the Niddah time. And if that happens, as we noted above, then conception is all but impossible. This might be called halakhic infertility, and it is more common than you might have thought.    

In a study of the prevalence of halakhic infertility in a population of ultra-orthodox Jews seeking help from a fertility clinic, a group from Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem studied 45 infertile women. They found that precoital ovulation was prevalent in one-fifth (21%) of the patients.  "Since not obeying the halachic code of conduct is non-negotiable, and in view of the void of halachic solutions, most couples (68%) seek medical advice and treatment."  Fortunately such treatment is available: taking an an oral estrogen can delay ovulation to after the time of mikveh, and allow intercourse to take place at a time when conception is more likely.  

“A fifth of infertile couples were diagnosed as suffering from infertility due to a religious rather than biological cause...This significant proportion of infertile couples who suffer from sociocultural infertility mandates special attention, primarily of the Rabbinate [sic] authorities.”

— Haimov-Kochman R. et al. Infertility associated with Precoital Ovulation in Observant Jewish Couples; Prevalence, Treatment, Efficacy, and Side Effects. Israel Medical Association Journal 14 (2011): 100-103.

Back to the Daf - Which Opinion is Correct?

Let's now return to the question with which we opened; which of the following two opinions is correct?

1. A woman only conceives close to her period(אין אשה מתעברת אלה סמוך לווסתה).

2. A woman only conceives close to her immersion in a mikvah (אין אשה מתעברת אלה סמוך לטבילתה).

The first opinion is most certainly not supported by modern medicine. The second opinion is often likely to be true, but - and this is a BIG BUT - only for women for whom both the menstrual cycle is not short and menstrual bleeding is not long. For a sizable number of women, conception is no longer possible when they are ready to go to the mikveh.

It is a remarkable fact (and one I have never seen addressed or even acknowledged) that orthodox Jewish practice has evolved to permit intercourse only in that part of the menstrual cycle which has a lower chance of conception. As a result, orthodox Jews have become in this respect, halachically subfertile. Fortunately that doesn’t seem to have made much of a dent in their rates of reproduction. “Being Orthodox” wrote Michelle Shain of the Center for Modern Jewish Studies at Brandeis, “increases the odds of having any births by a factor of 7.18 and, among women who have given birth, increases the expected number of births by a factor of 6.14.” Remarkably, this is in spite of, and not because of, the laws of ritual impurity that are a foundation of Jewish practice.

Mean expected number of births by age, education and Orthodoxy. From Michelle Shain, Understanding the Demographic Challenge: Education, Orthodoxy and the Fertility of American Jews. Contemporary Jewry 2019. 39: 273.

“Consultation with a Rabbinate [sic] authority was reported by 64% of women, but no halachic solution was provided to any of the applicants. ”

— Haimov-Kochman R. et al. Infertility associated with Precoital Ovulation in Observant Jewish Couples; Prevalence, Treatment, Efficacy, and Side Effects. Israel Medical Association Journal 14 (2011): 101.

Sotah 26 ~ When a Man (or Woman) Loves an Animal

First, A Warning

As we noted last year, the Talmud often discusses hypothetical cases. But not all unusual cases are hypothetical, even if they seem to be so. So please be advised that this post will discuss sexual relations between people and animals. If this is something that you would rather not read over breakfast, please skip this post, as well as page 26 of Sotah, (and pages 59a-b and bits of 63a of Yevamot).

This page of Talmud discusses details about bestiality, and whether a woman can undergo the Sotah orderal if she is suspected, not of adultery, but rather of bestiality, which is a legal a term for sexual relations between a human and an animal. (The preferred psychiatric term is zoophilia.) This ruling is derived from the Mishnah that we learned two days ago, which teaches that a husband cannot forbid his wife against seclusion “with one who is not a person [lit. a man].”

סוטה כו, ב

וְאֶלָּא לְמַעוֹטֵי מַאי? אָמַר רַב פָּפָּא: לְמַעוֹטֵי בְּהֵמָה, דְּאֵין זְנוּת בִּבְהֵמָה

On today’s page of Talmud, Rav Pappa suggests exactly what is meant by the phrase “with one who is not a person.”

Rav Pappa says: This serves to exclude an animal, as the concept of licentiousness does not apply with regard to an animal. Therefore, the halakhot of a sota do not apply in this case.

What about a Cohen?

In Yevamot we learned that according to Rabbi Shimi bar Hiyyah, a woman who had relations with an animal may marry a Cohen (though he does not clarify why the Cohen would want to marry such a woman). This is learned from that phrase again “one who is not a person.”

יבמות נט, ב

אָמַר רַב שִׁימִי בַּר חִיָּיא: נִבְעֲלָה לִבְהֵמָה — כְּשֵׁרָה לַכְּהוּנָּה. תַּנְיָא נָמֵי הָכִי: נִבְעֲלָה לְמִי שֶׁאֵינוֹ אִישׁ, אַף עַל פִּי שֶׁבִּסְקִילָה — כְּשֵׁרָה לַכְּהוּנָּה

Rabbi Shimi bar Hiyya said: A woman who had intercourse with an animal is permitted to marry into the priesthood. This is also taught in a baraita: If a woman had intercourse with one who is not a person, i.e., an animal, although she is liable to stoning if she did so intentionally and in the presence of witnesses who forewarned her of her punishment, she is nevertheless fit for the priesthood.

Moving right along, the Talmud in Yevamot then relates this very disturbing story:

מַעֲשֵׂה בְּרִיבָה אַחַת בְּהַיְתָלוֹ שֶׁהָיְתָה מְכַבֶּדֶת אֶת הַבַּיִת, וּרְבָעָהּ כֶּלֶב כּוּפְרִי מֵאַחֲרֶיהָ, וְהִכְשִׁירָהּ רַבִּי לַכְּהוּנָּה. אָמַר שְׁמוּאֵל: וּלְכֹהֵן גָּדוֹל. בִּימֵי רַבִּי כֹּהֵן גָּדוֹל מִי הֲוָה? אֶלָּא — רְאוּיָה לְכֹהֵן גָּדוֹל

There was an incident involving a certain girl [riva] in the village of Hitlu who was sweeping the house, and a village dog sodomized her from behind. And Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi permitted her to the priesthood,as she was not considered a zona. Shmuel said: And Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi permitted her even to a High Priest, as she was still considered a virgin. The Gemara is puzzled by this comment: Was there a High Priest in the days of RabbiYehuda HaNasi? Rather, Shmuel meant that she is fit for a High Priest.

Just to be clear: this incident is not cited as a hypothetical “what would happen if?” kind of case. It actually happened, or was believed to have been true.

It’s Time not to be WEIRD

Almost all of the readers of Talmudology, you included, are likely to have fall into the WEIRD demographic, where WEIRD stands for Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic. But WEIRD people represent only about 12% of the current population of the world, and certainly did not exist during the era in which the Talmuds were written. To appreciate the rest of this post, we need to leave behind our WEIRD mindsets. Just because we can’t imagine, doesn’t mean it ain’t so.

The Case of William HAtchett

Buried in the Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England for 1642, just after the granting of 600 acres of land to a Mr. Stephen Day, and right before the authorization to publish some new law books, is the following sentence:

William Hatchet, for beastuality with a cowe, is condemned to bee hanged, and the code to bee slayne & burnt or buried

The historian John M. Murrin, in his classic paper Bestiality in Colonial America, described what happened next:

Only then did Hatchet confess "the full completing this foul fact, and attempting the like before." He became so penitent that his execution was postponed an extra week to let the grace of the Lord complete its work. "There is no doubt to be made but the Lord hath received his soul to his mercy," Winthrop affirmed.

In March 1643 the Court of Assistants sentenced an Irish servant, Teagu Ocrimi, to stand at the place of execution with a halter around his neck and to be severely whipped "for a foule, & divilish attempt to bugger a cow of Mr. Makepeaces."

Whether or not William Hatchet was really guilty of the crime is not known. Remember, he was tried by the same people who brought you the Salem witch trials, in which over two hundred people were accused of being witches. Nineteen were hung. But bestiality was certainly on the minds of the Puritan settlers of New England, and it is the topic of at least two fascinating scholarly papers (one here, the other here). John Carnup, the author of one of these papers noted that William Bradford (d. 1657) who served as Governor of Plymouth Colony for some thirty years

…was probably right in ascribing the greater evidence of bestiality in Plymouth to the magistrates' diligence in bringing the guilty to trial. And it is possible that the Puritans' intense biblical-mindedness, especially in their reading of Leviticus, encouraged them to detect and prosecute crimes that justices in England were more inclined to ignore. Two years after Samuel Danforth inquired into the cry of Sodom, a writer in England remarked that 'such crimes as these are rarely heard of among us.' Rarely heard of does not mean rarely committed. Bestiality may indeed have been a common practice among young men in England's rural areas, as Thomas Granger hinted when he confessed that he had acquired the habit from a man who, in turn, had picked it up among keepers of cattle in England.

But how widespread was this practice in the rest of the world?

“Bestiality - human sexual relations with animals, has been part of the human race throughout history, in every place and culture in the world.”

— Hani Miletski. A history of bestiality. In Beetz E.M. and Podberscek A.L. Bestiality and Zoophilia. Berg, 2009. 1.

Bestiality: A Very Short History

In the introduction to her article on the history of bestiality, Hani Milestski wrote that “most of the material reviewed and discussed is anecdotal, some is unbelievable, and occasionally authors provide conflicting data. It is important to take into consideration that some of the facts and views presented came from works that are questionable with regard to their validity.” All of which makes for a rather poor foundation on which to build an edifice known as history. But let’s go on.

Bestiality seems to have been part of the very earliest human activities. Among the many cave paintings found at Valcamonica in the Italian Alps paintings is one depicting a man having sex with a horse. The painting may date back to the Paleolithic era, some 8,000 years ago (although it may also be considerably younger, say only 4,000 years old).

Continuing with Dr. Miletski’s study of anecdotal and unreliable sources, she notes that “animal–human sexual contacts are occasionally portrayed on Egyptian tombs. Apparently, “Egyptian men often had sexual intercourse with cattle or any other large domesticated animal, while the women resorted to dogs.” Despite this, bestiality was punishable in Egypt, “by a variety of torture mechanisms, leading to death,” though we have no way to weigh the truth of her claim, based as it is on self-published monographs more than fifty years old. Meanwhile, in ancient Rome,

Emperors, such as Tiberius (AD 14–37), his wife Julia, Claudius (AD 37–41), Nero (AD 54–68), Constantinus (a.k.a. Constantine the Great, AD 274–337), Theodora (Emperor Justinian’s wife, AD 520s), and Empress Irene (AD 797–802), had been known to either engage in bestiality or enjoy watching others engage in bestiality..

We will skip over the records of bestiality in the Middle Ages. There are many of them (and there’s an entire book on Sex in the Middle Ages. It might make a nice Mother’s Day gift). Instead, let’s move to more recent research. One of the first modern studies on the phenomenon was performed by Alfred Kinsey. In his 1940 survey of American sexuality, he discovered that with about 8% of all men reporting a history of sexual activity with animals and nearly half of boys growing up on a farm reporting at least one episode of sexual activity with an animal. In women, 1.5% of respondents had sex with an animal before adolescence and 3.6% had sex with an animal after adolescence. Subjects reported that three-quarters of the animals in these encounters were dogs. “Kinsey's findings” wrote one psychiatrist, “seem to suggest that bestiality may be a relatively common phenomenon.”

Bestiality and Psychiatric Illness

Psychiatrists have also learned that bestiality, or better, zoophilia, is far more common in those with psychiatric illness than it is in the general population. In one 1991 study demonstrated a lifetime bestiality prevalence rate of 30% in a group of 20 randomly selected psychiatric inpatients as compared to 0% in control groups of 20 medical inpatients and 20 psychiatric staff. Before generalizing, remember that this study has a very small sample size “and did not consider the presence of active symptoms of mental or general medical illness such as delusions, disorganized thought process, manipulative personality traits, or delirium that may have influenced their results.” In other words, perhaps some of the patients were making the whole thing up. Another (multi center!) study revealed that zoophilia is also associated with penile cancer.

Before leaving the topic, we should take note of the fact that psychiatrists encounter zoophilia often enough for one of them to have developed a new classification of it. Subtypes include a “zoophilic fantasizer” who only dreams about it, a “regular zoophile” who might turn to humans when animals are unavailable, and perhaps scariest of all, a “homicidal zoophile” whose proclivities extend to preferring to have sex with dead animals over living ones.

From Aggrawal A. A new classification of zoophilia. J Forensic Leg Med 2011;18(2):73–8.

Sometimes that Talmud discusses cases that are most certainly hypothetical. And sometimes it discusses cases that might seem to our WEIRD minds only to be hypothetical, when in fact they do occur. And sometimes it is hard to tell which is which.

“וְאָמַר רַבִּי אֶלְעָזָר, מַאי דִּכְתִיב: ״זֹאת הַפַּעַם עֶצֶם מֵעֲצָמַי וּבָשָׂר מִבְּשָׂרִי״ — מְלַמֵּד שֶׁבָּא אָדָם עַל כל בְּהֵמָה וְחַיָּה, וְלֹא נִתְקָרְרָה דַּעְתּוֹ עַד שֶׁבָּא עַל חַוָּה

And Rabbi Elazar said: What is the meaning of that which is written: “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh” (Genesis 2:23)? This teaches that Adam had intercourse with each animal and beast in his search for his mate, and his mind was not at ease, in accordance with the verse: “And for Adam, there was not found a helpmate for him” (Genesis 2:20), until he had intercourse with Eve.”

— Yevamot 63a.

Sotah 20b ~ Queen Esther, Mood, and Menstruation

There is a great deal of scientific work investigating the effect of the menstrual cycle on a women's mood. There has been less examination of the effect of mood (or stress) on the cycle.  In today's page of Talmud, there is a digression into gynecology and psychology, and specifically the role of psychological stress on menstruation.  

Queen Esther's Stress

סוטה כ, א

למימרא דבעיתותא מרפיא אין דכתיב ותתחלחל המלכה מאד ואמר רב שפירסה נדה והא אנן תנן חרדה מסלקת דמים פחדא צמית ביעתותא מרפיא

Does fright loosen the womb [and causes a woman to menstruate]? Yes, as the verse states (Esther 4:4) "...and the Queen [Esther] became very afraid" about which Rav explained:" she began to menstruate."

But haven't we learned elsewhere in a Mishnah (Niddah 39a) that fear suspends the discharge of menstrual blood? In fact, fear that is not sudden contracts [the womb and prevents bleeding], but sudden fear loosens [the womb and causes early menstrual bleeding].

Here are some of the things that the rabbis of the Talmud believed could induce menstruation:

1. Carrying a heavy load (Tosefta Niddah 9:1)

2. Jumping (ibid)

3. Sudden fright (Niddah 71a, and Niddah 39a)

4. Yearning for intercourse (Niddah 20b)

5. Garlic, onions and peppers (Niddah 63b)

In today's daf, Rav opined that fear can induce menstruation. Let's take a look at the medical literature and see whether or not it supports his assertion.

“Data from both animal and human research indicate that psychological stress is associated with altered menstrual function.”

— Barsom S, et al. Association between psychological stress and menstrual cycle characteristics in perimenopausal women. Women’s Health Issues 14 (2004) 235-241

The Effect of Stress on Menstrual Function

In a review from the Department of Biological Sciences at Ohio University, researchers acknowledged that stress is difficult to define. However, one final common pathway of stressors is the low availability of dietary energy. Ovulation - which is the first part of the cascade that leads to menstruation - has been blocked in hamsters "by food restriction, pharmacological blockers of carbohydrate and fat metabolism, insulin administration (which shunts metabolic fuels into storage), and cold exposure (which consumes metabolic fuels in thermogenesis)." Women athletes frequently experience a lack of menstruation, which is found in up to 65% of competitive young runners. But what about psychogenic causes of a disturbed menstrual cycle - after all, Rav taught that it was fear that caused Esther's presumably early onset of menstruation? While not adressing this directly, the Ohio University researchers had this to say about the relationship between psychological stressors and amenorrhea (the lack of menstruation. Remember that word - it will come up again):

Associations between psychological disturbances and amenorrhea or infertility have long been interpreted as a causal relationship, but prospective studies demonstrating that psychogenic factors contribute to reproductive dysfunction in women are almost completely lacking . Early psychoanalytic conclusions that psychological conditions underlie involuntary infertility in women have been criticized recently on several grounds: first, the same psychological conditions have been found in analyses of fertile women; second, other women with very serious psychic problems conceive with ease; and third, couples with an unfulfilled desire for a child do not show psychological disorders any more frequently than do couples without fertility disorders. Even the direction of causality is questionable, because there are grounds for believing that infertility and its medical treatment cause the depression and anxiety observed in some infertility patients. These findings have led to the recommendation that the term ‘psychogenic infertility’ should be withdrawn from use because it is simplistic and anachronistic.

Menstruation and Incarceration

Some of the rabbis viewed Esther's association with King Achashverosh as being coerced: she was brought to his palace against her will, and remained there in a similar state. So with only a bit of a stretch, we might turn to a 2007 paper published in Women's Health Issues which addressed the influence of stress on the menstrual cycle among newly incarcerated women.  Researchers analyzed 446 non-pregnant women who answered a number of detailed questions about their menstrual cycles.  They found that 9% reported amenorrhea (I told you what that meant two paragraphs ago) and that a third reported menstrual irregularities.  

“Incarcerated women have high rates of amenorrhea and menstrual irregularity and the prevalence may be associated with certain stresses. Further research on the causes and consequences of menstrual dysfunction in this underserved population is needed.”

— Allsworth J. et al. The influence of stress on the menstrual cycle among newly incarcerated women. Women's Helath Issues 2007; (17) 202-209.

As might be expected, the stressors of the incarcerated women in this study included drug and alcohol problems and sexual abuse. These are not the same stressors that faced Queen Esther - who was held in such esteem by her kingly husband that he promised her (Esther 5:6) "up to half of the kingdom."  But this work does show how stress may impact the menstrual cycle.  

A Longitudinal Study of Psychological Stress and Menstruation

The final study we will review comes from a cohort of predominantly white, well educated married women of whom 505 were "invited to participate join a special survey focusing on midlife and menopause." Rather than ask about stress and current menstruation, the researchers performed a two-year analysis. Here's what they found:

In analyzing stress levels and cycle characteristics across 2 years...women with marked increases in their level of stress (n=30) are shown to have decreased length (-0.2 days/cycle) of menstrual cycle intervals and decreased duration of bleed (-0.1 day/cycle) compared with increases in these measures (+2.9 days/cycle for cycle interval; +0.3 days/cycle for duration of bleed) among women with no marked change in stress level (n=103); t-tests indicate that these differences are significant (p <0.05).

Some of the differences that the researchers found in this group were really small - "0.3 days/cycle for duration of bleeding" but if you are into statistics this difference can be significant (that's what those t-tests are all about). But these statistical associations were not powerful, and the researchers concluded that "the results of this investigation...suggest that, in the long term, stressful life events have little relationship to the length of menstrual cycle intervals and the duration of menstrual bleeding in perimenopausal women."

The three studies we've reviewed (even that last one with its weak findings) all suggest that there is indeed some relationship between psychological stress and menstruation.  Generally, the effect of stress is to increase the length of the menstrual cycle which may result in amenorrhea.  But according to Rav, stress caused Esther to menstruate sooner - the opposite of most modern research findings.  Single events should be used with caution when trying to build a general explanatory model, but Rav, and the other rabbis of the Talmud were onto something when they noted that both acute and chronic fear (which is of course just one type of stress) -  can effect a women's menstrual cycle.  

Sotah 13a ~ Metal Coffins and Green Burials

Joseph's Egyptian Coffin

סוטה יג, א

ומנין היה יודע משה רבינו היכן יוסף קבור אמרו סרח בת אשר נשתיירה מאותו הדור הלך משה אצלה אמר לה כלום את יודעת היכן יוסף קבור אמרה לו ארון של מתכת עשו לו מצרים וקבעוהו בנילוס הנהר כדי שיתברכו מימיו

הלך משה ועמד על שפת נילוס אמר לו יוסף יוסף הגיע העת שנשבע הקב"ה שאני גואל אתכם והגיעה השבועה שהשבעת את ישראל אם אתה מראה עצמך מוטב אם לאו הרי אנו מנוקין משבועתך מיד צף ארונו של יוסף

How did Moses know the place where Joseph was buried? — It is said that Serah, daughter of Asher, was a survivor of that generation. Moses went to her and asked: 'Do you know where Joseph was buried?' She answered him, 'The Egyptians made a metal coffin for him which they set in the river Nile so that its waters would be blessed'.

Moses went and stood on the bank of the Nile and said: 'Joseph, Joseph! the time has arrived about which God, swore, "I will deliver you", and the oath which you imposed on the Jewish People [to take your bones with them out of Egypt] has reached the time of fulfilment; if you show yourself, it is well and good; but if you do not show yourself, we are absolved of your oath'.  Immediately Joseph's coffin floated to the surface.

I can still recall the thrill of seeing the sarcophagus of King Tutankhamun displayed at the British Museum in 1972. The boy king had been buried inside three nested coffins: The outermost one was made of cypress overlaid with gold foil.  Inside that was another wooden coffin with a gold overlay.  And inside that was a third coffin, this time made of solid gold.   We don't have any detailed description of Joseph's coffin from the Talmud, although the tradition that it was made of metal is a fascinating, since so many of the Egyptian coffins we know of today are made of stone rather than metal.     

Wooden Coffins from Jericho

When a Jewish cemetery outside Jericho was excavated in the late 1970s, a team of archeologists led by Rachel Hachlili discovered both wooden and stone coffins. The wooden coffins were made of local cypress or sycamore, and "[f]rom one to three individuals were found in each coffin, usually an adult and a child but occasionally two or even three adults, each lying on a leather mattress one above the other."  These excavations revealed that there were "two distinct burial customs among the Jews of Jericho. During the 1st century B.C. they buried their dead in wooden coffins; suddenly, at the beginning of the 1st century A.D., they began to practice secondary burial in limestone ossuaries. No completely satisfactory explanation of this change has been found..."

Metal Coffins in America, and In Israel Too

The author Jessica Mitford was best probably known for her classic 1963 book The American Way of Death, an expose of the funeral industry in the US. Shortly before her death in 1996, Mitford updated the book which was later published as The American Way of Death Revisited.  In that book, Mitford noted that until the eighteenth century, few people except the very rich were buried in coffins.  "The "casket," and particularly the metal casket, is a phenomenon of modern America, unknown in past days and in other parts of the world." This statement appears not be entirely correct however, as we have seen the Talmud describe Joseph's coffin as having been made of metal.  Even if that description was based on rabbinic imagination and not archeological facts, lead coffins have in fact been found in several excavations in Israel - though they did not necessarily contain Jewish remains. These include the Netanya coffin from the 3rd-5th century C.E, and the Ashdod coffin, discovered in 1986 in dunes outside of the modern city of Ashdod. (These, and other lead coffins were described in a 1986 paper published in the Israel Exploration Journal titled, rather blandly, More Lead Coffins from Israel).  Mitford noted that the metal coffin was an innovation of the nineteenth century that caused concern. Church authorities protested that "if parishioners were to get into the habit of burying their dead in coffins made proof against normal decay, in a few generations there would be no burial space left." Good point.  

“ The ‘casket,’ and particularly the metal casket, is a phenomenon of modern America, unknown in past days and in other parts of the world.”

— Jessica Mitford. The American Way of Death Revisited. Vintage Books 2000. p146

The Simplicity of Jewish Coffins

Jewish burial practices have of course varied over time and by location.  In Israel today, most religious funerals are conducted without a coffin (military funerals are an exception), which can be a jarring experience when seen for the first time. This is a change from talmudic times, when the body was first placed in a cave and some time later the bones that remained were gathered into a box  (ירושלמי ונציה מועד קטן פרק א טור ג).      

Tom Jokinen's 2010 book Curtains: Adventures of an undertaker in training is the last place I would have looked for an endorsement of Jewish burial practices. But you'll find it right there, on page 262, at the end of a chapter on the International Cemetery, Cremation and Funeral Association trade show, held, where else, in Las Vegas. There he encounters several innovative products, including "Shiva Shades, paper blinds for Jewish families, to cover mirrors during the seven days of shiva. The paper unfurls like an accordion and sticks to the glass with an adhesive strip. "No more cumbersome bedsheets."  But Jokinen then reflects on the fancy coffins and expensive funerals that are sold to families at a time they are most vulnerable, and has this to say:

I suppose if pressed to choose one way or the other I'd have to say I'm against death...I need to face up to its absurdity, find meaning in the mess. How?..Then it comes to me: I've already seen it. A simple act without the artifice of embalming or baroque funerary product. Just a direct application of body to ground where it's left to contribute to the great cycle: ashes to ashes and all that, back to Mother Earth in a shroud and a plain wooden box. Instead of confrontation with death through commerce, you face it, fill the hole by hand and then get on with the hard work of mourning..."I've seen the future...And it's Jewish."