in connexion with the pedlars hawking their wares in the open, the expression is used םפני בבודן של בנות ישראל 'on account of the dignity of the daughters of Israel', and after this they made a regulation that the citizens must not prevent these pedlars from freely moving about to sell their wares.[1]
The tenth taḳḳanah, שתהא אשה חופפת וטובלת, evokes expressions of surprise in the Babylonian Talmud, to this effect: Since according to the ordinance of the Torah a woman must dress her hair before taking the ritual bath, wherein does the taḳḳanah consist? what new element does it contain? Had the redactors of the Babylonian Talmud been aware in this case of the Palestinian Gemara, they would not have asked this question, for there they would have seen שלשה ימים הוא (עזרא) החקין שתהא חופפת קודם למהרתה 'He (Ezra) amended the law, so that a woman might dress her hair three days before her purification'.
The reason for the taḳḳanah was as follows: When a woman at the close of her separation period desired to cast off her uncleanness, she had to take the prescribed ritual bath at night;[2] the dressing of her hair had (originally) to be on the day immediately preceding her ṭebilah.[3] However, if her time for ṭebilah fell on Saturday night or on a Sunday night, Sunday itself being Yom Ṭob, and so she could not by reason of the sanctity of Sabbath or of Yom Ṭob cleanse and comb her hair—what was
- ↑ This taḳḳanah, that the citizens should not hamper the pedlars in their efforts to sell their goods, was made because these men, who had formerly entered houses were now out of regard for the reputation of Jewish women disallowed to enter houses; the merchants of the city were, therefore not to hinder them from exercising the privilege granted by the other taḳḳanah of going about in the cities to sell their wares. See Baba batra 22 a.
- ↑ Yoma 6a.
- ↑ See Niddah 67b and 68a.
