Niddah 25b — the Talmud in English

And

when examining it, whether it has these limbs on its head,

they do not examine it with water, because the water is harsh, ![](pamud.bmp "

Exact column location")

and they scrape off

the dissolved material

from it; rather, they examine it with oil,

for the oil is soft, and polishes it.

And they see

it

only in sunlight,

for by its light it is possible to discern even small details.

And the Gemara asks:

How do they examine it?

And the Gemara expresses astonishment at the question:

How do they examine it?!

But the difficulty of the examination is

as we said

in the beraita!?

And the Gemara explains the question:

Rather,

the question is:

With what do they examine it, to know whether it is male or whether it is female?

[And this is referring to a case in which the signs explicitly stated in the beraita were not recognizable: a lentil for a male and a barley grain for a female .]

And the Gemara explains:

Abba Shaul bar Nash, and some say

Abba Shaul bar Ramash says: He brings a smooth-headed splinter and moves it in that place—

if it scrapes,

the splinter,

it is known that it is male,

for the member impedes the splinter, and through this the scraping is caused;

but if not, it is known that it is female!

And the Gemara adds:

Rav Naḥman said that Rabba bar Avuha said: They taught

that scraping is a sign only when he moves the splinter

from below upward 148,

for then the scraping is evidence of a male, since in a female there is nothing that would impede the splinter.

But

if he moves the splinter

from the sides,

scraping is also possible in a female, because

say that they are the walls of the womb,

for the splinter encounters the walls at the opening of the womb and scrapes.

Rav Adda bar Ahava said: A tannay taught: If it was female,

it is discerned

[recognizable]

like a split barley grain!

And although the beraita states only “a barley grain,” without the addition “split,” the intention is that the appearance of the female is like the appearance of a split barley grain.

Rav Naḥman raised an objection against him:

If the split is the sign,

perhaps it is the cord of the eggs

[which separates the eggs]

that they are,

for it appears like a split.

Abaye said: Now, the eggs themselves are not recognizable

[they are not discernible];

is the cord of the eggs recognizable? Rav Amram said: A tannay taught

that when the cutting of his hands and feet begins to develop:

his two thighs are like two scarlet threads!

And Rabbi Amram said concerning this,

the threads with which the tannay compared the thighs of the fetus are

like

threads

of the woof,

which are thicker than the threads of the warp.

The tannay further said:

And his two arms,

of the fetus, appear

like two scarlet threads!

And Rabbi Amram said concerning this

that the intention of the tannay is that the thinness of the arms is

like that of

a thread

of the warp!

Samuel said to Rav Yehuda: Sharp one! Do not establish a practical ruling

to consider it a fetus

until it becomes hairy,

until the hairs of the head appear on it, and do not rely on the signs written in the beraita.

The Gemara asks:

And did Samuel really say this? But Samuel said, “For this one

whose shafir was clear,

and for this one

whose shafir was cloudy,

she is concerned,”

lest there was a fetus in it, even though the hairs of the head are not recognizable in it?!

And it answers:

Rav Ami bar Samuel said: For me, it was explained to me from the words of Master Samuel—

to be concerned

for the days of impurity like a woman who has given birth—

she is concerned,

and because of the doubt she sits in impurity for two weeks.

But

the days of purity

we do not grant her until it becomes hairy,

for only because of a lack of expertise did Samuel rule stringently and require that it have hairs; they do not prevent it according to the essential law.

And the Gemara asks:

Is this to say that Samuel was uncertain,

and did not know how to recognize a fetus without hairs?

But there was that shafir

[shafir]

that came before Master Samuel, and Samuel said:

Samuel said:

This one

is forty-one days old!

And Samuel knew how to estimate the exact age of the shafir,

and he counted from the day she went to immerse until that day, and it was only forty days 150. And he said to them,

“

Samuel:

This one had intercourse while menstruating!

For the age of the shafir was forty

and one

day, whereas only forty days had passed from the day of immersion; it follows that she conceived one day before immersing for her menstruation.

He bound her

and she confessed!

And if so, Samuel was greatly expert and knew how to establish the age even with a difference of one day; so how could he be uncertain and say that until it becomes hairy it is doubtful? And it answers:

Samuel is different, for his master’s strength was great,

for he was especially expert, but not everyone is as expert as he was; therefore he instructed others that so long as there are no hairs, it should not be treated as certainly a fetus.

We learned in the Mishna: If one expels a sandal

or a placenta, she sits [in impurity] for a male and for a female.

The Sages taught: A “sandal” resembles a fish of the sea

which is called by this name—“sandal.”

From the beginning

it was

a proper

fetus,

but

it was flattened,

crushed afterward because its twin brother pressed it inside the womb.

Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel says: A sandal resembles the tongue of a large ox!

On behalf of our Rabbis they testified: A sandal requires

that there be in it

the form of a face.

But if the facial limbs are not complete, we attribute it to having been crushed from the beginning of its formation, and it is not a fetus.

Rav Yehuda said that Samuel said: The halakha is

a sandal requires the form of a face!

Rav Adda said that Rav Yosef said that Rav Yitzḥak said: A sandal requires the form of a face,

but it is not necessary that the facial limbs be in their proper place; rather,

even

if the form of the face is

behind it,

it is a fetus.

This is analogous to a person who slapped his fellow

and turned his face backward;

so too, this fetus is attributed to having turned its head backward because of the pressure with which its brother pressed it.

In the days of Rabbi Yannai they sought to declare pure a sandal that had no form of a face. Rabbi Yannai said to them:

You have purified the fetuses,

for even without the form of a face it is a fetus!

And the Gemara asks:

But it was taught: On behalf of our Rabbis they testified—

a sandal requires the form of a face?!

And it answers:

Rav Bibi bar Abaye said that Rabbi Yoḥanan said:

This testimony “on behalf of our Rabbis” is not the halakha, because

this Mishna was taught only from the testimony of Rabbi Neḥunya

alone

and this Mishna was taught,

and it is an individual opinion, and the halakha is not ruled according to him!

Rabbi Zeira said: Rav Bibi merited it through his teaching,

his fortune caused him to precede me in stating this teaching;

for I and he were sitting before Rabbi Yoḥanan when he stated this teaching,

that this Mishna was taught only from the testimony of Rabbi Neḥunya,

and he preceded [me] and said

this teaching in the beit-midrash

and merited it,

so that it was called by his name!

And the Gemara raises a difficulty against the Mishna, which wrote: “If one expels a sandal, she sits for a male and for a female”:

Why did they mention a sandal

that she sits [in impurity] because of it for a male and for a female,

when there is no sandal that does not have a fetus with it

in addition, and if so, in any event she must sit for the additional fetus , even without the sandal?!

And it answers:

If a female was born together with it, it is indeed so,

that there is no need to mention that she sits because of the sandal.

Here, with what are we dealing? With a male having been born,

because of him she needs to sit only one week, and only because she also expelled a sandal, which may be female, does she need to sit in doubt for two weeks.

And the novelty concerning a sandal, more than concerning any fetus whose sex is uncertain, is this:

lest you say, since Rav Yitzḥak bar Ami said:

When the

woman emits seed first,

she gives birth to a male,

and if

the man emits seed first,

she gives birth to a female!

And therefore we would say:

from this one,

the additional fetus,

[it is] male

this one,

the sandal,

is also male,

for since in the formation of the male twin it is necessarily the case that the woman emitted seed first, so too the sandal, which was formed with it in the same intercourse , is male.

It teaches us this:

say that both emitted seed simultaneously: this one is male, and this one is female!

For when they emitted seed together, twins can be born, one male and the other female.

And the Gemara offers another answer:

Alternatively

the reason they mentioned a sandal in the Mishna is even when the twin born with it is female, and the Mishna teaches:

that if she gives birth to a female before sunset and to a sandal after sunset,

and it is not known whether the sandal is male or female,

she counts the “beginning of menstruation” from the first 156,

for she begins counting, on the eighty-first day after the birth of the first female, the days of her menstruation, since we are concerned that the sandal born second is male, for whom there are only forty days of purity, and the days of purity ended on the eightieth day after the birth of the first fetus. Therefore the blood she saw on day eighty-one renders her impure with menstrual impurity for seven days. However, since after sunset she gave birth to a sandal that may be female, her menstrual impurity is not certain impurity; rather, she counts

the beginning of menstruation

also

from the latter,

counting, because of the doubt, the eightieth day from the second day on which she expelled the sandal, and being concerned that perhaps the blood she saw on day eighty-one was blood of the days of purity. There is a stringency resulting from this concern if she sees again on day eighty-eight: for with every menstruant, after seven days of menstruation come eleven days of flux, during which she is impure for only one day; but this woman, since it is not certain to us that she was a menstruant on day eighty, is treated stringently when she sees on day eighty-eight, and is again impure for seven days with menstrual impurity.

It follows that because of the birth of the sandal, her count is disrupted, and she does not know when the days of menstruation ended and the days of flux began. For if the sandal was male and the days of purity ended on day eighty after the birth of the certain female, it follows that the days of menstruation began with the sighting on day eighty-one. But if the sandal is female, day eighty-one for the first is day eighty for the sandal, which was born after sunset, and the blood she saw on day eighty-one is pure blood. Only blood that she sees from day eighty-two onward is menstrual blood, and only after seven days from this blood do the days of flux begin.