Physical Description

Only edition. 23, [1] pp. plus wrappers, light age staining. A very good copy bound in the original wrappers, chipped.

 

Detailed  Description 

A work for women on the three precepts that are their domain in Yiddish by R. Elijah Mordecai ha-Kohen Maza (1896-1954). R. Maza was born in Smolevichi, Russia and came to the United States in 1926. An erudite scholar and gifted speaker he wrote and published many works in Hebrew and Yiddish dealing with the moral and ethical problems of American Jewry.

A niddah according to Jewish law, a man is forbidden to maintain relations with his wife during and for some time both before and after her menses. Relations may resume only after the wife has undergone ritual immersion at the appropriate time. Procedures for calculating the intervals of time when spousal contact is forbidden rely heavily on a woman's knowledge of the stages of her cycle. Fidelity to the rules of marital separation, self-examination, and expedient immersion comprise one of the three areas of ritual obligations specifically incumbent on women (together with hallah, separating a part of the dough used to make Sabbath loaves, and hadlakah, kindling Sabbath lights).

The precept of setting aside hallah applies to dough kneaded from one of the five species of grain (Hal. 1:1), since only from them can the bread (referred to in Num. 15:19: "when you eat of the bread of the land" etc.) be made. The time of setting aside the hallah is when the kneading is finished. Domestic bread production has always been a largely female task. From the early rabbinic period, "taking hallah" was considered one of three mitzvot (commandments), together with hadlakah (kindling Sabbath candles) and niddah, which women were obligated to perform. These three commandments are known as the HaNaH mitzvot, an acronym of hallah, Niddah, and Hadlakat ha-Ner, which, in a play on words also evokes Hannah, the mother of the biblical Samuel, considered a model of female piety. A number of midrashic sources declare that these obligations are female punishments or atonement for the disobedience of the first woman in the Garden of Eden and her responsibility for human mortality. According to the Mishnah (Shab. 2:6), women who neglect these commandments risk death in childbirth. Popular vernacular tehinnot, supplicatory prayers for women, are recited and offer positive interpretations of this tradition.

Although technically not a commandment specified in the Torah, Hadlakat ha-Ner, kindling lights to usher in the Sabbath and festivals was transformed into an obligation by the rabbis. Kindling lights is a positive time-bound commandment, a category of obligations from which women were traditionally exempted in Jewish law. However, from early rabbinic times, lighting Sabbath and festival lights was considered one of three mitzvot (commandments), together with hallah and niddah, which women were obligated to perform. Jewish women have traditionally taken the observance of kindling Sabbath and festival lights seriously. In the contemporary era, where candles are generally used, women usually light two candles. Some women, who forget for even one week, add an extra candle for the rest of their lives; others add a candle on the birth of each child. Among some groups women do not begin to light their own candles until marriage while among others, such as the Lubavitcher hasidim, even young girls are encouraged to light one candle. Since the candles are lit before the blessing is said, women have traditionally covered their eyes while saying the benediction so that the light will only become visible after the blessing is completed. On Friday night some women make circles with their arms and hands before covering their eyes in a gesture of welcome to the Sabbath queen. Several popular vernacular tekhinnot were written for women to recite after completing the benediction and before uncovering their eyes.

                     

References