Niddah 19b (יט:) — the Talmud in English

And it answers:

The difference between them is:

to suspend judgment concerning

the teruma. The tanna kamma, who stated that only five types of blood are certainly impure, did not intend to say that the remaining types are pure; rather, their status is one of uncertainty. It follows that according to the tanna kamma, the two appearances mentioned by Beit Shammai are impure by uncertainty, whereas according to Beit Hillel they are certainly pure.

We learned in the Mishna: Blood that is

green —

And the Gemara asks:

Akavya ben Mehalalel deems impure.

And the Gemara asks:

And

if

Akavya does not accept

the derivation from

“her bloods—

her bloods,” which yields four types of blood, why does he not accept it?

And it answers:

If you wish, say:

Indeed,

he does not accept it!

And if you wish, say: He does accept it.

Rather,

did Rabbi Hanina not say: “Black

is actually red, but it has deteriorated”? Here too,

the green blood is actually red, but

it has merely deteriorated!

We learned in the Mishna:

And the Sages deem

the green blood pure.

The Gemara challenges this:

Is this not the opinion of the tanna kamma,

who said that only five types of blood are impure?

And it answers:

The difference between them is

to suspend judgment concerning

the teruma: According to the tanna kamma, the teruma is impure by uncertainty, whereas according to the Sages it is certainly pure.

We learned in the Mishna: Rabbi Meir said: If he does not deem green blood impure

due to a stain—

he should deem it impure as a liquid! Rabbi Yohanan said: “He descended” [

he agreed]

and Rabbi Meir adopted the position of Akavya ben Mehalalel and deemed

the green blood impure.

And this is what

Rabbi Meir said

to the Rabbis: Granted, when

the woman

finds a green stain on a vessel [

on her garment],

you do not deem it impure,

because green blood is not commonly discharged from a woman’s body, and therefore we attribute the blood to an external source. But

when she sees green blood issuing from her body—

she should be deemed impure,

for it is blood, is it not?

And the Gemara asks:

If so,

what is the meaning of Rabbi Meir’s statement,

“If he does not deem it impure due to a stain—

he should deem it impure as a liquid”?

For the expression “he should deem it impure

because she saw

blood”

would have been necessary

for Rabbi Meir to employ.

Rather, the Gemara retracts this explanation and presents Rabbi Meir’s statement differently:

The Gemara says:

This is what he said to them—

Granted, when she initially sees green blood, you do not deem her impure,

because seeing green blood is not considered seeing impure menstrual blood, such that the woman should become impure with the impurity of a menstruant. This is what he said to them: “If he does not deem it impure due to a stain,” since it is unlike menstrual blood, which is also impure as a stain. Nevertheless,

when she initially sees red blood,

she becomes impure with the impurity of a menstruant on account of the red blood.

And afterward,

when she is already a menstruant,

she sees green blood, she should be deemed impure

as a liquid: people, vessels, and pure foods that touch the green blood become impure.

Just as is the case with the liquid of a zav or a zava,

for all liquids discharged by a zav or a zava—such as saliva and urine—render one who touches them impure. Why should green blood discharged by a menstruant be less severe than urine or saliva, which the Sages completely purify?

And the Rabbis,

who disagree with Rabbi Meir and deem green blood entirely pure, hold that a menstruant’s liquid renders one impure only when it is

analogous to saliva—

just as saliva

normally

collects,

being gathered initially,

and then emerges

afterward,

so too every

liquid

that collects and emerges

renders one impure as a menstruant’s liquid.

This excludes this one,

the green blood [or any other blood],

which does not collect and emerge,

since it does not gather but drips from her immediately, drop by drop as it is formed.

The Gemara challenges this:

If so, did the Rabbis answer Rabbi Meir properly?

For Rabbi Meir too does not dispute that only a liquid that collects and emerges renders one impure. If so, why would he deem green blood impure, when it does not collect and emerge? On the basis of this question, the Gemara retracts this explanation and offers another:

Rather, this is what he said to them:

Why do you deem green blood entirely pure, so that it does not even render foods capable of receiving impurity like an ordinary liquid?

And why

should

green blood

not be

an ordinary

liquid capable of rendering seeds

susceptible to impurity?

And the Rabbis—

it is necessary

for blood that renders something capable of receiving impurity to be called a “liquid,” since only those substances called “liquids” render susceptible, and not every blood is called a “liquid”; rather, only blood in which the soul departs is called a liquid, as it is stated:

“He shall drink the blood of the slain,” and this is not present here!

For green blood is not blood in which the soul departs.

And the Gemara again challenges this:

If so, did the Rabbis answer Rabbi Meir properly?!

Rather, this is what he said to them—

Teach it [

teach them]

by means of a gzera shava

that green blood, or any other blood discharged from a woman while she is a menstruant, should be called a liquid and should render seeds susceptible to impurity. For

it is written here,

concerning a menstruant,

“Your channels are an orchard of pomegranates” [

see Rashi].

And it is written there, “and He sends water over the open places,”

and through a gzera shava we learn that blood discharged from a menstruant is called a liquid, just as water is called a liquid.

And the Rabbis—indeed,

a person may derive a kal va-chomer on his own,

but

a person may not derive a gzera shava on his own,

and there is no tradition from the halakha given to Moses at Sinai for deriving this gzera shava.

We learned in the Mishna:

Rabbi Yosei says—

neither this nor that.

And the Gemara asks: Rabbi Yosei—

is this not the tanna kamma?!

For green blood is not certainly pure; rather, the teruma is suspended on its account, and it does not render anything susceptible at all, since a person may not derive a gzera shava on his own.

And it answers:

The tanna of the Mishna teaches us this:

Who is the

tanna kamma?

It is Rabbi Yosei,

and

and whoever reports a statement in the name of its author brings redemption to the world!

We learned in the Mishna:

What is red?

Like the blood of a wound.

And the Gemara analyzes this:

What does “like the blood of a wound” mean?

The Gemara explains this in five ways:

A.

Shmuel said: Like the blood

of a slaughtered ox!

The Gemara asks:

Let him say—

like slaughter blood,

why did the tanna mention “like the blood of a wound”? And it answers:

Had he said, “like slaughter blood,” I would have said: like all the blood of slaughter,

since the appearance of blood from slaughter is not uniform, and its color changes into several shades. I would have said that all of them are considered red blood. Therefore,

he teaches us

that only the appearance that is

“like the blood of a wound,”

which is

like the beginning of a knife cut

during slaughter, is the appearance of red, impure blood.

B.

Ulla said: Like the blood of a live bird,

which emerges when it is struck; according to him, “like the blood of a wound” is understood literally.

They raised a dilemma:

When Ulla said, “like the blood of a

live

bird,” did he mean blood that emerges while the bird remains alive,

excluding

the appearance of blood from a

slaughtered bird?

Or perhaps

Ulla meant that only the blood of a healthy bird has a red appearance,

excluding

the appearance of blood from a

thin bird?

And the Gemara concludes:

Teyku!

C.

Ze'iri said in the name of Rabbi Hanina: Like the blood of a crushed

louse,

of the head!

The Gemara raises an objection:

A woman who sees a stain on her garment—if she

killed a louse—

she may attribute it to that louse,

as the stain was formed by the blood of the louse and not by menstrual blood.

And the Gemara infers: Is that not

saying that she may attribute it to any louse, even a louse

from anywhere on its body,

because the blood of all lice resembles menstrual blood, and not only the blood of a head louse?

The Gemara rejects this:

No!

The beraita means that she may attribute the stain only if she killed a louse

from the head

and may attribute it to that louse.

D.

Ami of Vardina said in the name of Rabbi Abbahu: Like the blood of the little finger of a hand that was injured, healed, and then injured again. And not the finger of every person, but that of a young man who has not married. And until what age

is he called a “young man”?

Until the age of twenty!

The Gemara raises an objection:

A woman who sees a stain

may attribute

her stain

to her son or to her husband

if either of them has a wound, since the blood did not come from her body but from the wound on their body when she touched them.

And the Gemara asks:

Granted, in the case of her son, it is possible

for her to attribute the stain to him, since the color of the stain resembles the blood of the little finger of a young man, in accordance with Rabbi Abbahu.

But

how can she attribute her stain to a wound on

her husband?

He is married, whereas according to Rabbi Abbahu only the appearance of blood like that of a young man who has not married is impure. And it answers:

Rav Nahman bar Yitzhak said:

It is possible,

for example ,

if she entered the bridal canopy but did not have intercourse,

in which case, if she finds a stain, she may attribute it to a wound on her husband’s little finger.

E.

Rav Nahman said—

like blood released by bloodletting!