The Yoetzet Halacha is Awesome!

Dana, my fantastically awesome roommate, told me that I should go hear Dr. Deena Zimmerman speak at today's Midreshet Yom Rishon.

I did so. Firstly, everyone throughout the Jewish world should be aware of these amazing programs YU offers almost every Sunday- there's Kollel Yom Rishon for men and Midreshet Yom Rishon for women. It's totally free and the speakers are awesome. So come, no matter who or what or where you are- just come and learn!

Did you know there was such a thing as halakhic infertility? I didn't! That's when the lady ovulates before she goes to mikvah, so even though she is perfectly fertile she is halakhically infertile. So then come the many rabbanim with their teshuvos about what can be done (basically most of them figure out ways to shorten the 5-day hefsek tahara period) but there's also lots of cool hormone treatments that can help out (estrogen, progesterone, artificial insemination if necessary, etc.)

Plus now I understand what Rebbetzin Gettinger meant when she said women are really all zavot as opposed to niddot. Because otherwise we should go back to the fun tradition of just having seven days as the Written Torah says, but being stringent and accepting the seven extra days came about because of the confusion re: the laws of being a zava. Oh, stringent daughters of Israel, how you have complicated our lives. Ah well. So now we all have (at least) 12 days but lots of women make mistakes regarding the count and when they are really in the category of nidda so everyone should get much better education about this. Oh, and then we digressed into a whole discussion of what does and does not accept tumah (and got into fun discussions regarding pantiliners- and did you know there's such a thing as colored pantiliners? Who knew? Because those women can have two things to rely on, first of all the color where we can be lenient and also the fact that this paper liner does not neccessarily accept tumah...) Which is why you can buy Dr. Zimmerman's book or call the Yoetzet hotline or become a yoetzet (wouldn't that be so cool? I could do that! I think I could do it well) or take their online kallah class in addition to your conventional kallah teacher setup...and basically it's a party. Huzzah.