Nazir 59: On Armpit Hair and Testing One's Students

In amud (a), the rabbis continue to discuss whether or not men are permitted to shave their armpit hair.  In particular, whether or not nazirites can shave under their arms when they shave their heads.  Today's arguments begin with the prohibition: "A man shall not put on a woman's garment" (Deuteronomy 22:5).  A woman is also forbidden from putting on a man's garment.  Either action is considered to be an abomination.  But noone is wearing a garment!  We are learning about shaving one's armpits, not wearing gendered clothing.  The Gemara explains that women and men are not permitted to wear each others' garments and then sit among members of another sex.  

Rabbinic law teaches that men may not adorn themselves with the cosmetics/ornaments of women, either.  Women are not permitted to go out to war with weapons, which are associated with men's adornment.   We are told the story of a man who was to be flogged for a transgression.  When he removed his shirt, all could see that he did not shave his armpit hair.  His flogging by Rabbi Ami, for he was considered to be "meticulous in observance of mitzvot".  Thus even if men are permitted to shave their armpits (due to pain if the hair grows too long or due to local custom, for example), men who are stringent will not shave their armpit hair.

Rabbi Yochanan forbid nazirites to shave their armpit hair, but his colleagues noticed that he himself had no armpit hair.  Rabbi Yochanan explained that his armpit hair fell out due to old age.

Before moving on to a new Mishna, the rabbis wonder whether or not one can remove armpit hair through rubbing with one's fingers or through rubbing at one's armpit with fabric.  And is this permitted during prayer?  The Gemara teaches that we can never touch the armpit directly during prayer, as it is considered to be a unclean part of the body.  

Amud (b) brings us back to our initial question in Perek VIII: if one of two nazirites becomes tamei and we do not know whom, who brings which offerings?  A twist: what if one of those two nazirites dies before we know whether or not s/he was tamei.  Which offering should be brought to the Temple by the remaining nazirite?  S/he must bring an offering that is required for purification, indispensable  permitted in cases of uncertainty, and so on.  A bird sin-offering is one possibility and a bird burnt-offering is another.

The Gemara notes that Rabbi Yehoshua suggested that the nazirites bring their offerings in halves, or in stages, only to sharpen the minds of his students and not to suggest such a halacha.  For this, he is teased by Rav Nachman - what will Rabbi Yehoshua do with the spoiling intestines of his offerings while he waits thirty days between the slaughtering and burning of those animals?

Finally, another new Mishna:  we are introduced to a nazirite who is impure by contact with a corpse, though uncertainly.  He is also a confirmed tzaara as a matter of uncertainty.  He is permitted to partake of sacrificial food sixty days after becoming impure.  He must wait 120 days after becoming impure to drink wine and become impure from the dead.  He cannot shave twice (after seven days and then again after another seven days) as a leper because the shaving of leprosy, a positive mitzvah, overrides the prohibition of shaving for a nazirite only when the tzaara is definite.  

Whew!

Did all women shave under their arms?  Was it painful?  Did they shave their pubic hair?  Were they thought of as 'unfeminine' or worse, 'behaving like a man', when they did not shave?  Just a few of many, many thoughts...