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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]How common are the 'purity' ceremonies for women in the orthodox community?

Do you believe that the orthodox Jewish faith is more or less supportive of women's rights than other orthodox denominations?[/quote]

[b]I've never heard of a "purity ceremony".  Married jewish women are required to immerse in a ritual bath after their periods before they can have sex with their husbands.  Almost every orthodox married woman I know does this.[/b].[/quote]

Dontcha think that indicates that there's some kind of.... hangup?  Going on there?  I mean a religion that actually requires washing your "hoo-hoo" (to borrow a phrase from the political forum) before sex?  Because, menstuation, ick!

While a good idea and one I personally engage in, having a religion dictate it?  Really?  [/quote]

Ritual baths are not to remove physical impurities, but rather to remove spiritual impurities. Before immersing, one must already be completely clean having soaked in a bath and removed all make-up, dirt, nail polish, etc.  The concept stems from the spiritual impurity of death. Since every egg is a potential life, every period is sort of a death, in that it was a loss of potential life. The mikvah (ritual bath) cleanses the spirit, not the body.

Orthodox judaism dictates basically every aspect of my life, this is just one more thing.[/quote]

But when this rule was created, people didn't know about eggs, right?  And if it's a spiritual impurity, why doesn't focus solely on prayer or burning incense?  Is there any male impurity that requires bathing?  And, I recall in Leviticus lots of other rules about mentruation.  Do you have to follow all of them?  I think there were rules about burning sacrifices after childbirth.  Also, why do you think a woman is "ritually unclean" for a longer period of time after giving birth to a female child vs. a male child?

Also is it true the men won't shake a woman's hand because she might be menstruating?

http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/says_about/menstruation.html

http://www.enduringword.com/commentaries/0312.htm[/quote]

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