Is Giving Birth a Sin? — BT Niddah 31b — #33

R. Shimon b. Yochai was asked by his disciples: Why did the Torah ordain that after giving birth a woman should bring a chatat (sin offering)? He replied: When she kneels in childbearing she swears impetuously that she will never again have intercourse with her husband. The Torah, therefore, ordained that she should bring a sacrifice. R. Yosef said: Does she not [in swearing she will never have intercourse with her husband again] act presumptuously, in which case the absolution of [the oath] depends on her regretting it? Furthermore, she should have brought a sacrifice prescribed for an oath.

INTRODUCTION

Torah imposes a peculiar requirement upon a woman who gives birth. Following an initial period of ritual impurity (seven days for a son, fourteen days for a daughter) she remains impure for an addition period of time (33 days for a son, 66 days for a daughter). After this, Leviticus 12:6-7 specifies that the woman must bring two sacrifices to the Temple: a lamb as an olah (burnt offering) and a pigeon or turtledove as a chatat (sin offering). Why does she bring a chata? What sin has she committed? Certainly giving birth is not a sin. The students of R. Shimon bar  Yochai asked him these very questions.

COMMENTARY

R. Shimon bar Yochai tells his students that in the midst of hard labor women swear an oath that they will never again have sex with their husbands. Presumably the pain is so intense that they abhor the idea of ever having sex again lest they become pregnant and have to endure again the ordeal they are experiencing. Certainly, an oath of the sort R. Shimon has in mind would be problematic, both from the standpoint of the man’s religious obligation to procreate, and from the perspective of the couple’s marital relationship. 

Really? All women swear such an oath? After all, Torah requires all women to bring a chatat after giving birth, so the reason must apply to all women. Curiously, the Gemara does not address R. Shimon’s broad, sweeping generalization about women. Rather, it shoots two gaping holes in the logic behind R. Shimon’s contention for even a single woman. The first challenge is brought by R. Yosef, who points out that if a person behaves impetuously and swears a rash oath that needs to be annulled or retracted, the proper procedure is for a priest (or in his day, a rabbi) to discern that the individual sincerely regrets having sworn the oath and wishes to retract it. But Torah makes no such allowance: all women bring the chatat and none are questioned by the priests. The second challenge is offered by the anonymous voice of the Gemara. Had the woman’s sacrifice been intended to atone for an inappropriate oath that she wished to retract, the proper offering would have been a lamb or a goat—not a bird as Torah prescribes. Hence Torah could not have had in mind atonement for the sin of making an impetuous oath, as R. Shimon claims.

R. Shimon bar Yochai’s strange claim about the behavior of women in childbirth has been repeated ad nauseam, and can be found today in range of Torah commentaries that even includes the Conservative Etz Hayim (which presents it as Talmudic speculation; see p. 651). The JPS commentary penned by Jacob Milgrom (Leviticus, p. 74) tells us that “sin offering” is an acceptable translation if understood properly, because the ancients “seldom distinguished between ‘sin’ and ‘impurity.’” The Torah commentaries of the Reform Movement, however, do not repeat R. Shimon’s canard. The Torah: A Modern Commentary (p. 826) explains: “Obviously, having a baby is not a sin; it is in fact the fulfillment of a divine Command (Gen. 1:18). The reference here is to ritual purgation and nothing else.” The Torah: A Women’s Commentary (pp. 642) explains: “…blood from the sacrifice serves as a ritual detergent…The passage of time, the offering of sacrifices, and perhaps a ritual bath…all contribute to her renewed ability to touch and eat sacred food and enter holy space.”

Did R. Shimon bar Yochai ever attend a childbirth? Undoubtedly not. Men did not do so until very recently, and certainly not during the Talmud period. Those who have felt compelled to repeat his  absurd claim might have consulted masechet Keritot 26a, where his opinion is mentioned and dismissed. There, Talmud affirms that the woman’s offering is “for the purpose of permitting her to partake of consecrated food, and is not expiatory.” In other words, the sacrifice is not a sin-offering at all; it is the last ritual of purification that restores the woman to a state of ritual purity. 

QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER AND DISCUSS

1. Why might R. Shimon b. Yochai have imagined that women in hard labor swear an oath never again to have intercourse with their husbands? Could his contention reflect anxiety felt by men who are separated from their wives at a time when their wives experience pain? Could they have imagined that, in their pain, women might have wanted to forswear sex lest they ever have to go through labor again?
2. Why do you suppose that R. Shimon bar Yochai’s explanation, logically dismantled on Niddah 31a and summarily rejected on Keritot 26a has nonetheless been repeated as a valid explanation for more than 15 centuries?
3. The history of this passage reflects a phenomenon we have seen often and continue to see in the public sphere: A negative generalization about a group of people is made and repeated again and again despite all logic and readily available facts to the contrary because it has emotional resonance. Where do you see this phenomenon happening today? Can you propose a way to counter it? Could we understand our passage as Talmud’s model for responding calmly and logically to an irrational and emotional claim?