Simcha BabaevSix conditions must hold for a stain to render a woman temei'ah. But before applying those criteria, you first have to establish that what you are dealing with is a halachic stain and not halachic bleeding. We'll work through that distinction by way of the three contemporary approaches to hargashah.
Practical halachah — what we have covered so far
So far we have learned that six conditions must hold for a stain to render a woman temei'ah:
- The stain is larger than a gris.
- The stain is on a surface that can receive tum'ah.
- The stain is on a white surface.
- The stain is on or near a place that uterine blood can reach.
- The stain is a problematic color.
- The stain cannot be attributed to a non-uterine source.
First of all — stain or bleeding?
When a woman finds a stain, before she tests it against these criteria, she must establish that it is a halachic stain and not halachic bleeding.
What does that mean? Halachah distinguishes bleeding from a stain, and as we have seen, their laws differ. Many of the leniencies we have learned apply only to stains, not to bleeding.
An important example: a menstruating woman cannot say, "I am not a niddah, because I wore a black pad and black clothing, so all the blood was on a colored surface." When a woman is genuinely bleeding rather than staining, we assume she experienced a hargashah even if she did not notice it. A woman who saw a bloodstain on black underwear is in a different position: she is not a niddah.
How to tell a stain from bleeding
In practice, two factors help.
a) Whether there was a hargashah
If a woman experienced a halachically significant hargashah and saw red blood, this is bleeding, not a stain. She is therefore a niddah regardless of the size of the stain or the surface it was found on.
Poskim define a halachically significant hargashah differently. If the stain came with a particular bodily sensation, the woman should ask whether that sensation counts as a hargashah.
b) The size of the stain
Here too the approaches diverge widely:
- A stringent approach: some poskim hold that a red stain larger than half a credit card counts as "bleeding" and renders a woman temei'ah automatically, whatever the surface.
- A lenient approach (Rav Warhaftig shlit"a of Nishmat): as a rule, if a panty liner is enough to contain the staining over the course of a day, this is a halachic stain and not bleeding.
- Intermediate approaches exist as well.
A woman who finds a particularly large stain and is unsure whether it is a stain or bleeding should ask.
Expanding the sources — the source of hargashah
"And if a woman has a discharge, and her discharge in her flesh is blood, she shall be in her state of niddah for seven days." (ויקרא טו, יט)
Shmuel teaches in the Gemara that the word "in her flesh" (בִּבְשָׂרָהּ) establishes that a woman becomes a niddah by Torah law only if she had a hargashah in her body immediately before the blood emerged.
The poskim offer three explanations of which sensation counts as a hargashah:
1. Opening of the cervix
A sensation of the uterus opening before the blood is released (cited in the Pitchei Teshuvah).
2. A tremor through the body
A sensation of trembling or shuddering (cited in the Rambam).
3. A flow of liquid
A sensation of fluid flowing (cited in the Noda BiYehudah).
These sensations today
The first two are almost unheard of today. The third, a flow of liquid, is reported fairly often.
Poskim differ on how to treat it:
- Most poskim hold that to count halachically, the sensation of flowing liquid must be an internal one.
- Rav Moshe Feinstein zt"l held that an external sensation of flowing liquid also counts.
The reality — most women feel nothing
The fact we have to deal with is that the great majority of women today experience none of these sensations immediately before menstruation.
(Note that if they do not occur immediately before the bleeding, they are not a hargashah.)
Three main approaches address this:
The three approaches
1. Rav Shlomo Levi
Women today do not notice the hargashah, but it is occurring. So even when a woman says she had no hargashah, we assume she did — even if all she saw was a stain.
2. The Tzitz Eliezer
Women do notice sensations, but the vocabulary we have for bodily sensations does not match the vocabulary of the poskim. So when a woman is menstruating, the sensations accompanying her period count as a hargashah. If she experienced only staining, we do not assume there was certainly a hargashah.
3. Rav Warhaftig
Women today do not experience hargashot at all. So unless a woman insists that she had one, we assume she did not.