Shabbat 86: Secretions of Semen and Ritual Purity; Mount Sinai and Days of the Week

We learn a new Mishna: How do we know that a woman who discharges semen on the third day after intercourse is ritually impure like one who touched semen (Leviticus 15:17)?  Because semen remains fit for insemination it can transmit impurity (Exodus 19:15) says that people should prepare for three days; do not approach a woman.   Further, one may wash a circumcision on the third day is taken from  Genesis 34:23, where on the third day they were in pain.  This is the same amount of time that a child is in danger from the circumcision.  Another allusion: we learn that one ties a scarlet strip of wool to the head of the scapegoat sent to Azazel because our sins will become white as snow.  And another one: smearing oil on one's body is like drinking and is similarly prohibited on Yom Kippur, whcch we learn about in Psalms 109:18: And it comes into his inward parts like water and like oil into his bones".  

The Gemara wants us to know which rabbis may have said which part of the Mishna is in accordance with which rabbi.  Rabbi Elazar ben Azarya taught that a woman who discharges semen at any point on the third day is ritually pure.  Rabbi Yishmael says that she is ritually impure.  He says that we have to tally the number of twelve hour periods.  If she discharges semen at the fifth or sixth twelve-hour period, she is called ritually impure.  Rabbi Akiva says that it is always five twelve-hour periods; if she had relations after part of the first period passed, she is given part of the sixth period to complete the full five periods so that sixty hours will have passed between intercourse and discharge.

The rabbis then discuss which other rabbis hold which positions.  They note that Moses came down from tMount Sinai in the morning to help us understand that people were supposed to separate in the early morning; not to engage in intercourse during the day.  But why was this necessary?  Rava notes that as long as the home was dark or darkened (a Talmud scholar could cover the light with his cloak to allow relations during the day)..

Some rabbis argue that the Torah was given to those who immersed themselves during the day.  In ideal circumstances, the entire community receives Torah at the same time after all have immersed.  Rav Sheshet notes that in the Torah, we learn that "and every garment, and every hide on which there is semen shall be immersed in water where it is impure until evening (Leviticus 15:17).  Semen is thought to be impure as long as it is still moist and if it is foul.

Rab Pappa wonders about the semen of a Jew in the "womb" of a gentile woman.  Does the semen become foul faster because their body temperatures are cooler (Jews have hotter body temperatures because we are eager to fulfill the mitzvot.  The rabbis ask other questions about different reasons that semen might become foul, like a longer corridor to the womb.

We learn that the Torah was given to us on Shabbat.  The New Moon was established on the first day of the week and the first day of the week He did not say anything to them because of their weariness.  A chart is provided to explain what happened at Mount Sinai according to days of the week.