Traité Niddah

Traduction française en préparation — version anglaise (Steinsaltz) : The Gemara asks: Granted, according to the opinion of Rabbi Yoḥanan, just as there is a tanna who says that one day in a year is considered equivalent to a year, so too, there is a tanna who says that thirty days in a year are considered equivalent to a year.The baraita states that according to Rabbi Meir, a girl two years and one day old is considered like a three-year-old, following the opinion that one day in a year is equivalent to a full year. Similarly, Rabbi Yoḥanan maintains that there is a second tanna who says that thirty days in a year are considered equivalent to a full year, and therefore a girl can be betrothed by intercourse from the age of two years and thirty days.

Traduction française en préparation — version anglaise (Steinsaltz) : But according to the opinion of Rabbi Yannai, that Rabbi Meir requires a full three years, this baraita is difficult, as it explicitly states that in Rabbi Meir’s opinion even a girl aged two years and one day can be betrothed by intercourse. The Gemara concludes: Indeed, this baraita is difficult according to the opinion of Rabbi Yannai.

Traduction française en préparation — version anglaise (Steinsaltz) : § The last clause of the mishna teaches that if the girl is less than that age, i.e., younger than three years and one day, the status of intercourse with her is like placing a finger into the eye. A dilemma was raised before the Sages: What happens to this hymen, i.e., to the hymen of a girl under three with whom a man engaged in intercourse? Does it disappear and come back again later, or perhaps it is not removed at all until after she reaches the age of three?

Traduction française en préparation — version anglaise (Steinsaltz) : The Gemara asks: What difference is there in halakha between these two suggestions? The Gemara answers that there is a practical ramification in a case where a priest engaged in intercourse with a girl to whom he is married within her first three years, and found blood on her due to that intercourse, and again engaged in intercourse with her many times, including after she turned three, but on that occasion he did not find blood. If you say that after engaging in intercourse when the girl is younger than three, the hymen disappears and comes back again, here one can maintain that it disappeared due to the first time they engaged in intercourse and did not grow back because there was not enough time without intercourse for it to grow back.

Traduction française en préparation — version anglaise (Steinsaltz) : But if you say that the hymen is not removed at all until after she reaches the age of three, the fact that this girl did not emit blood after three years must be because another man engaged in intercourse with her after she turned three, in which case she is classified as a zona, a woman who has engaged in sexual intercourse with a man forbidden to her by the Torah, and is forbidden to her husband the priest. The Gemara reiterates: What, then, is the resolution of the dilemma?

Traduction française en préparation — version anglaise (Steinsaltz) : Rav Ḥiyya, son of Rav Ika, objects to this explanation of the practical ramifications of the dilemma: But even if one maintains that the hymen of a girl younger than three disappears and grows back, one can still contend that this girl engaged in intercourse with another man, as who will say to us that a wound that was inflicted within three years of a girl’s birth is not restored and healed immediately? Perhaps it is restored immediately, and this girl did not emit blood because another man engaged in intercourse with her previously, and she is therefore a zona who is forbidden to a priest.

Traduction française en préparation — version anglaise (Steinsaltz) : Rather, the practical difference between the two suggestions relates to a case where the husband engaged in intercourse with this girl within her first three years, and found blood, and engaged in intercourse with her again after she turned three, and again found blood. If you say that the hymen disappears and comes back again, this blood emitted when she is less than three years old is blood from the tearing of the hymen, which does not render her impure. But if you say that the hymen is not removed at all until after she reaches the age of three, then this blood she emitted when she was younger than three is menstrual blood, which renders her impure. What, then, is the resolution of the dilemma?

Traduction française en préparation — version anglaise (Steinsaltz) : Rav Ḥisda said: Come and hear the mishna: If the girl is less than that age of three years and one day, intercourse with her is like placing a finger into the eye. Why do I need the mishna to teach: Like placing a finger into the eye? Let it teach simply: If she is less than that age, intercourse with her is nothing. What, is it not correct that this is what the mishna teaches us, by its comparison to an eye: Just as placing a finger in an eye causes it to tear and tear again, when another finger is placed in it, so too after the intercourse of a girl under three the hymen disappears and comes back again?

Traduction française en préparation — version anglaise (Steinsaltz) : § The Sages taught in a baraita: There was an incident involving a gentile woman called Yusteni, the daughter of Asveirus, son of Antoninus, a Roman emperor, who came before Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi. She said to him: My teacher, at what age is a woman fit to marry, i.e., at what age is it appropriate for a woman to engage in intercourse, which would therefore be the appropriate time to marry? Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi said to her: She must be at least three years and one day old.

Traduction française en préparation — version anglaise (Steinsaltz) : Yusteni further inquired: And at what age is she fit to become pregnant? Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi said to her: When she is at least twelve years and one day old. She said to him: I married when I was six, and gave birth a year later, when I was seven. Woe for those three years, between the age of three, when I was fit for intercourse, and the age of six, when I married, as I wasted those years in my father’s house by not engaging in intercourse.

Traduction française en préparation — version anglaise (Steinsaltz) : The Gemara asks: And can a minor of that age become pregnant? But didn’t Rav Beivai teach a baraita before Rav Naḥman: Three women may engage in intercourse while using a contraceptive absorbent cloth, a soft fabric placed at the entrance to the womb to prevent conception, despite the fact that this practice generally is prohibited. They are a minor; a pregnant woman; and a nursing woman.

Traduction française en préparation — version anglaise (Steinsaltz) : The baraita specifies the reason for allowing these women to use contraceptive absorbent cloths: A minor, lest she become pregnant and perhaps die from this pregnancy; a pregnant woman, lest she be impregnated a second time and her older fetus become deformed into the shape of a sandal fish, by being squashed by the pressure of the second fetus; and a nursing woman, lest she become pregnant and her milk dry up, in which case she weans her son too early, thereby endangering him, and he dies.