27 — Tazria-Metzora: We Niddah Get Purified, Babe

This week, we talk Biblical sexism, cleaning up rashes via blood ritual, and Torah's complete squeamishness about the word "penis." Also featured are 90s boy bands and Talmudic voyeurism, so you know there's a lot of excellent stuff going on.

Full transcript available here.

Content notes: This episode is rated explicit, unlike our usual content, because in the second half of the episode, beginning at around 30 minutes it, there is a long discussion of sex and bodily fluids such as semen and menstrual blood. Also, there's swearing in this episode, and it contains a somewhat gory discussion of animal blood in the context of sacrifices.

The book Jaz recommends at the beginning is True Sex: The Lives of Trans Men at the Turn of the Twentieth Century by Emily Skidmore. The Ramban's sexist commentary on women and conception can be found here. You can listen to "MMMBop" by 90s boy band Hanson here (it's a remarkably long song). The bit of Talmud where we get the story about a student spying on their rabbi and justifying it by saying, "It is Torah and I must learn" is in Berachot 62a.

If you'd like to know more about how some communities are handling questions of niddah during the pandemic, the Orthodox Union has written about it here and here, there are articles on Mikvah.org here, and there's a more general news article with an overview from late March. (Note: we don't necessarily endorse any perspectives expressed here.)

Our music is by the band Brivele. This week, our audio was edited by Lulav Arnow and our transcript written by DiCo and Jaz. Our logo is by Lior Gross, and we are not endorsed by or affiliated with the Orthodox Union.