Commentary for Niddah 78:20

<br><br><big><strong>הדרן עלך בנות כותים</strong></big><br><br>

and once ceased laying for two days and again laid on the following day. When it reverts to its former habit,<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' Laying on alternate days. ');">¹⁹</span> does it do so in accordance with the present<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' Lit., 'as before it', i.e., laying on alternate days beginning with the last day (the sixth in the case submitted) refraining on the seventh and laying again on the eighth, and so on. ');">²⁰</span> or in accordance with the past?<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' Lit., 'as originally', i.e., alternating with the day on which laying should have taken place (the fifth in the case submitted), thus laying on both the seventh as well as the sixth. ');">²¹</span> You have no alternative but to admit that it would do it in accordance with the present.<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' Since alternation with the day on which laying should have taken place would only result (cf. prev. n.) in a new disturbance of the regularity (laying on two consecutive days). Similarly, in the case of the woman, a reversion to her regular periods can only be effected by counting the days from the one on which her discharge last appeared, viz., from the twenty-seventh day. ');">²²</span> Said R. Papa to him: With reference, however, to what Resh Lakish ruled, 'A woman may establish for herself a settled period during the days of her <i>zibah</i> but not during the days of her menstruation' and to what R. Johanan ruled, 'A woman may establish for herself a settled period during the days of her menstruation', is not one to understand this as being a case,<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' Lit., 'how is one to imagine, not?' ');">²³</span> for instance, where she observed a discharge on the first day of the month, on the fifth of the month and again on the first of the second month and on the fifth of that month, and finally<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' Lit., 'and now'. ');">²⁴</span> she observed a discharge on the fifth of the month while on the first of that month she observed none? And yet it was stated that 'a woman may establish for herself a settled period during the days of her menstruation'. It thus clearly follows<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' Since the fifth day of the month is regarded as of the 'days of her menstruation'. ');">²⁵</span> that we reckon the days from the first day of the month?<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' Though on that day no discharge had appeared. From which it follows that the counting of the days begins from the day on which the discharge should have appeared and not from that on which it appeared the last time. ');">²⁶</span> — No, the other replied, it is this that R. Johanan meant: A woman, for instance, who observed a discharge on the first day of the month, on the first day of the next month and on the twenty-fifth of that month, and on the first day of the following month, in which case we presume that<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' The reason why the discharge made its appearance on the twenty-fifth day of the second month and not on the first day of the following month. ');">²⁷</span> she experienced an influx of additional blood.<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' And, as a result, the discharge whose regular time of appearance was still the first of the month made its appearance a little earlier. The first day of the month being within seven days from the twenty-fifth of the previous month (on which the discharge appeared) may well be described as within the days of menstruation. ');">²⁸</span> So also Rabin and all seafarers, when they came,<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' From Palestine to Babylon. ');">²⁹</span> reported the tradition<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' Of R. Johanan. ');">³⁰</span> in agreement with the explanation of R. Huna son of R. Joshua.

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