Simcha BabaevThe Gemara discusses garments set aside for the niddah period. Neither the Mishnah nor the Gemara says anything about garments for the seven clean days.
The custom of the Rokeach
The Rokeach records a custom: women wear white and spread white sheets on their beds after the hefsek taharah and until the end of the seven clean days. That way a woman can notice any bloodstains that appear after the hefsek.
The rulings of the Shulchan Aruch and the Rema
The Shulchan Aruch accepts the custom, but understands it as wearing clean garments and spreading clean sheets. The color of the garment doesn't matter.
The Rema also accepts the custom, but reads it differently: after a hefsek taharah the garments and sheets do need to be white.
The dispute may rest on how the word lavan is read. לבן means white, the color, but the root is the word מלבן — to launder, to clean.
The historical background — underwear
It's worth knowing that underwear is a relatively recent invention. In the time of the Rokeach, the Shulchan Aruch and the Rema, a woman did not wear underwear, so she could easily bleed onto her clothing or her sheets.
Contemporary poskim agree that today a woman need wear only clean white underwear. The rest of her clothing need not be white.
The difference between Ashkenazim and Sephardim
The difference between the Shulchan Aruch and the Rema is the source of the difference between Ashkenazi and Sephardi practice today.
Sephardi practice (Rav Ovadia Yosef)
Although the Shulchan Aruch writes that a woman must wear clean garments regardless of color, Rav Ovadia ruled that lechatchilah a woman wears white underwear after a hefsek taharah.
Still, if she is concerned about staining she may wear clean colored underwear (which allows stains to be treated leniently, as we will cover in the laws of ketamim). She may also spread clean colored sheets on her bed. She may do this on her own initiative, without guidance from a rav.
Ashkenazi practice
Ashkenazi poskim rule like the Rema: after a hefsek taharah a woman wears white underwear. If she is concerned about staining during the seven clean days, she may not decide on her own initiative to wear clean colored underwear. She needs halachic guidance to be permitted to.
If it was not possible
The Rema also says that if for some reason a woman could not wear white after a hefsek taharah — she is traveling, for instance — her seven clean days are still valid.
Practical halachah
After performing a hefsek taharah, a woman wears clean white underwear.
If there is reason to be concerned about staining:
- A Sephardi woman wears clean colored underwear instead.
- An Ashkenazi woman should ask whether she may wear clean colored underwear. Some Ashkenazi poskim will not permit the leniency of colored underwear and will instead instruct her to wear a panty liner during the seven clean days (according to most poskim, stains on a panty liner are treated leniently much as on colored underwear).
Sheets
Lechatchilah a woman changes the bedding to clean white sheets. If she suspects she will have staining:
- A Sephardi woman may lechatchilah spread clean colored sheets (having checked in advance that they carry no stains).
- An Ashkenazi woman will need to ask.
One important leniency worth knowing: despite the custom of spreading white sheets, a woman who always wears underwear while sleeping is not halachically obligated to spread white sheets. If she has staining or bleeding it will certainly show on her underwear, since there is no way for the blood to reach the sheets without passing through them.
And b'dieved
If a woman was unable to keep the custom and had no clean white underwear or sheets, her hefsek taharah and seven clean days are still valid.