Nidah 30 - 36
- The forty-day miscarriage
- Cleopatra's experiment
- Pre-natal paradise, learning and oath
- The hidden miracle
- Why atonement required after birth
- The status of females in Kutim and Tzedukim communities
- Status of menstrual blood of non-Jewess
- The stages of purity and impurity following birth
- Menstrual flow preceding birth
What Makes Them Different?
There are many differences between man and woman as a result of the difference in the raw material from which the original man and woman were created by G-d. In our gemara the focus is on two of them – one regarding personality and the other regarding voice.
"Why is it," ask our Sages, "that a man is flexible in accepting appeasement while a woman is not?"
The answer given is that man was created from soft earth while woman was created from man's hard bone.
"Why is a woman's voice so much more pleasant than that of a man?"
Man was created from earth and if one strikes earth no sound comes forth. Woman was created from bone that does produce a sound when struck.
To prove the quality of the feminine voice, a passage from Shir Hashirim (2:4) is cited:
“Let me hear your voice," is said to the beloved woman, "for your voice is pleasant."
Tosefot points out that when she speaks of her beloved, she describes him as "pure and ruddy" (ibid. 5:10) but offers no praise for his voice.
- Nidah 31b
What the Sages Say
"There are no days in which one enjoys so much good as those days in his mother's womb before birth."
- Gemara - Nidah 30b
