Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots by Deborah Feldman

Author:Deborah Feldman
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Hasidim - New York (State) - New York - Social Conditions, Non-Fiction, Hasidim, Hasidim - New York (State) - New York, Religion, Biography, Feldman, Deborah, Jews - New York (State) - New York
ISBN: 9781439187005
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2011-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

6

Not Worth Fighting For

“I don’t want to fight for anything. I want to just be and do, with no one saying they’re letting me.”

—From The Romance Reader, by Pearl Abraham

Niddah, says my marriage teacher, literally translates as “kicked aside,” but it doesn’t really mean that, she rushes to assure me. It’s just the word used to refer to a woman’s “time,” the two weeks out of the month when she is considered impure according to Judaic law. That’s what I’m learning now in marriage classes, the laws of niddah.

I asked her to translate the term for me. She didn’t want to answer me at first, but I pressed her, and as she hurried to explain to me the benefits that the laws of niddah offer to a marriage, I felt the blood rise to my head. The term kicked aside, even because of impurity, is humiliating. I’m not dirty.

She says in times of the Temple women weren’t allowed inside the actual building because of the danger that they might begin to menstruate and thus defile the entire Temple. You never know when a woman will menstruate, really. Women, says my kallah teacher, have very unpredictable cycles. Which is why it’s important, she says, to rush and inspect yourself if you think you might be getting your period.

A woman becomes niddah or “kicked aside” as soon as one drop of blood exits her womb. When a woman is niddah, her husband cannot touch her, not even to hand her a plate of food. He cannot see any part of her body. He cannot hear her sing. She is forbidden to him.

These are some of the things I learn in marriage classes. Every time I exit the mud-colored projects building where my kallah teacher lives, I am compelled to divide the women on the street into two categories—the ones who know all this, and the ones who don’t. I am in the middle, beginning to learn about the pulse that really beats through this world I live in, but still in the dark about many things. I can’t help but stare accusingly at the pious married women pushing double strollers down Lee Avenue. “Is this okay with you?” I want to ask. “Agreeing that you are dirty because you are a woman?” I feel betrayed by all the women in my life.

I didn’t expect things to be this complicated. Marriage was supposed to be simple, about me finally making a home for myself. I was going to be the best housekeeper, the best cook, the best wife.

After a woman stops menstruating, my kallah teacher says, she must count seven clean days, doing twice-daily inspections with cotton cloths to make sure there is no sign of blood. After seven consecutive “white” days, she immerses in the mikvah, the ritual bath, and becomes pure again. So my kallah teacher says. I cannot imagine all my married cousins doing this.

When you’re pure, usually for two weeks out of the month, everything is okay. There are very few rules when a woman is “clean.

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