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Nidah 031: The positions of the fetus
h.j. bueno de mesquita <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> asked:
(b) According to the Gemara, the girl turns round as it is being born,
whereas a boy does not, and it is that which causes the excessive pain at
childbirth.
(c) A girl turns round, because she needs to face upwards (as we shall see
later in the Sugya), and during the pregnancy she is facing downwards like
a boy.
Dear rabi,
could one explain[or have any idea about this idea],what the talmud means
with the above mentioned answer? [quoted from your questions and answer on
the daf]
what is known now adays,is that there is no difference of the position of
the foetus,being it a boy or girl.
I would appreciate any suggestion you would have.
also,now adays ,according to the general opinion [chogmat gojiem??]the
birth of a boy is more complicated or difficult,but this is not my main
concern.
toda raba ,
h.j. bueno de mesquita, jerusalem,israel
----------------------------------------------
Rav Joseph Pearlman replies:
On the simplest level this is just another example of "Nishtanu
ha'Tevi'im." We find many cases of this such as the inability to conceive
from Bi'ah Rishonah, the Ben Shemonah Chadashim who is not a Bar Kayama,
the size of a k'Zayis, etc.
It is quite clear that the Gemara assumes a different position for a female
fetus than that of a male. So too in Midrash Rabah Bereishis 17:8: "They
asked Rebbi Yehoshua, 'Why does the male emerge with his face downward and
the female with her face upwards?'"
The commentary of Midrash Rabah ha'Mevu'ar writes, "This was the nature of
the thing in their days. The nature has changed such that both a son and a
daughter emerge sometimes this way and sometimes that way."
In this instance it is not Halachically relevant but the Acharonim have had
to grapple with this concept in many other instances. To take just one
example, see Chazon Ish YD 155:4 and EH 115:4 in regard to the eight-month
fetus: "And it appears that now the nature has changed, and according to
the expertise of the doctors, it is possible that their (the fetuses')
completion occurred after the seventh month and is completed in the eighth."
On a deeper level, however, it is possible that Chazal spoke in code
language in Aggadic passages and did not necessarily mean it actually
happened that way physically. It could be conceptually so. Here is what the
Ramchal writes in his Ma'amar Al ha'Agados:
"Furthermore, you must know that many matters of fundamental secrets were
hinted at by Chazal in discussions of matters of the natural world..., and
they used the studies that were taught to them in those generations by men
of wisdom of the natural world. However, their main intention is not the
particular issue of nature that they discussed, but rather the secret that
they wanted to allude to in it. Therefore, whether or not the outer garb of
allegory in which they clothed the secret is accurate does add or detract
to the truth of that which is alluded to in it. This is because the
intention was to clothe the secret in information that was well-known in
those generations among the wise men, and that matter could have been
clothed in a different garb according to the information that was
well-known in other generations. Indeed, that is how the Sage himself would
have disguised his teaching had he said it in a different generation.
So in this case it could also be nothing more than a Mashal; for example,
that a girl fetus experiences such movement mean that there are more
problems involved with bringing a girl into the world than a boy (for a
girl needs to be looked after and protected from abuse, it costs quite a
lot to marry her off, and there is none of the kudos attached to having a
boy, as per the end of Kidushin). And although here we are talking of
Tza'ar Leidah, nonetheless the amount of pain one actually suffers must of
necessity be related to the beneficial consequences which will subsequently
flow from it.
Kol Tuv,
Joseph Pearlman
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