One woman wrote to a rabbi in 2021: “It’s terribly frustrating that I feel powerful attraction to my husband specifically in the week of the 7 clean days, with the height of desire occurring on mikveh night, and the following day. After that, my desire slowly fades, until I have no desire whatsoever. So in the second week when we’re allowed to be intimate, I don’t want to be with him. Is there a way to overcome this frustrating obstacle?” 

The rabbi answers that “this is one of the most challenging problems in halacha today, and I’ve written about it at length. Unfortunately, there is no halachic solution.” 

This story highlights two charged and traditionally guarded subjects: the possibility of finding creative solutions within the realm of halacha (Jewish law) when it comes to counting the seven clean days, and the place of female desire within Jewish marriage. 

Orthodox brides-to-be routinely learn that a Jewish wife is obligated to count seven days from the time her period ends until the time she immerses in a mikveh (ritual bath) and resumes relations. For an average of two weeks every month, a woman is off-limits to her husband. What’s challenging is that many women experience ovulation or a rise in libido during the seven days, as the levels of estrogen and testosterone naturally increase. By the time these women go to the mikveh, it’s too late in their cycle to get pregnant, and too late to feel desire, as their hormone levels are on the way down.

What’s apparent from the story above is that although the rabbi is well-versed in halachic literature, he doesn’t understand what this woman feels and cannot relate to her experience. Rabbinic responsa often regulate women’s intimate lives while offering limited acknowledgment of female emotional and sexual perspectives (1).

Fortunately, there are rebbetzins and female halachic advisors who do understand what women experience. The only problem is that most of these women are not authorized to give halachic rulings. The few women who are qualified are unfortunately derided and dismissed by the rabbinate, and sometimes by the husbands as well.

One rebbetzin told me: “For years I’ve been begging rabbis to give the matter serious halachic attention, but it’s not happening.”

In recent years, medical science has highlighted the role that hormones play in a woman’s cycle. The rising levels of estrogen and testosterone preceding ovulation are also responsible for the increase in a woman’s sex drive (2). Ironically, these two epic moments in female experience can occur in the seven clean days – the halachic time when a woman is not permitted to be with her husband.

If a woman ovulates during the seven clean days, before she goes to the mikveh, she cannot get pregnant naturally. This phenomenon is well-known in religious communities, and even has a name: halachic infertility. It’s responsible for about 21% of sterility problems in the observant community (3). The problem becomes more frequent in women over 35, who have much shorter cycles. 

The classic rabbinic answer to halachic infertility does not use halachic methods to find a solution, but rather shifts the onus to medical practitioners. The majority of rabbis propose to solve the problem with medical interventions: either by taking hormones that postpone ovulation to after the seven days, or by the husband’s artificial insemination before his wife goes to the mikveh. Both these interventions are problematic on a number of fronts: taking large amounts of hormones to delay ovulation disrupts the body’s hormonal balance, and artificial insemination is invasive and painful for a couple who are healthy and physically capable of creating a child naturally. What’s more troubling is the assumption that the halachic cycle is more important than a woman’s natural hormonal cycle, or that it’s OK to alter a woman’s body and healthy cycle only because it doesn’t fit the halachic mold.

Shalom bayit: Female desire........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)