We continue in chapter 4, mishnah 4, in the series of mishnayos listing further disputes between Beis Shammai and Beis Hillel in which Beis Shammai hold the lenient view and Beis Hillel the stringent one. Here we are given the opinion of Rabbi Eliezer, though there are versions that read Rabbi Elazar. Rabbi Elazar was a contemporary of Rabbi Yosi and Rabbi Yehudah, as fits their being students of Rabbi Akiva; Rabbi Eliezer, according to our version, was Rabbi Akiva's teacher, that is, two generations earlier. Either way, he says: "Shnei devarim mikulei Beis Shammai u'mechumrei Beis Hillel" - he adds two items to the list in the previous chapter in which Beis Hillel are the stringent ones and Beis Shammai the lenient ones: the first in our mishnah, and the second in the next one.
Background: the days of purity of a woman who has given birth:
The subject of the mishnah is the tumah status of blood that comes from a woman during her period of purity, the days of dam tohar. As we have already seen several times in this tractate, a woman who gives birth to a boy is temeiah for the first seven days with the status of a niddah; but during the following thirty-three days, even if she continues to see blood from her womb, that is dam tohar. After seven days she may immerse in a mikvah and become tehorah, and from then on the blood is of no consequence. This is not complete purity - full purity is achieved only after forty days, when she brings her offerings - but apart from eating Terumah, and once she has immersed in a mikvah, she is tehorah and permitted.
The question: a woman who gave birth and did not immerse:
What is the law regarding a woman whose seven days have already passed (or fourteen, if she gave birth to a girl), who is in the period of dam tohar and sees blood, but who has not yet immersed in a mikvah? What is the status of that blood? During the first seven days (or fourteen for a girl) the blood certainly has the status of the blood of a niddah: she is a yoledes, and the blood is a source of tumah in its own right.
An introduction is needed here: a niddah, a zavah and a yoledes - and likewise a zav - have 'wellsprings', that is, fluids that as it were flow within their bodies and issue from them, and those fluids are themselves an av hatumah; among them are mucus, urine and saliva. Technically, blood that comes from the womb is not counted among these wellsprings. And we have already said that the wellsprings convey tumah only while they are still moist, and once they dry they cease to be a source of tumah, whereas the blood of a niddah or a zavah conveys tumah whether moist or dry.
So this woman has seen blood that we call dam tohar, but she herself has not yet become tehorah, since she has not gone to the mikvah. When she sees blood on the fifteenth day, for example, without having immersed - what is the status of that blood?
The dispute between Beis Shammai and Beis Hillel:
Beis Shammai: This is dam tohar, and by Torah law it is not tamei at all. However, since the woman herself is still temeiah - and this is where many people get confused - we treat it as tamei, but only with the status of a wellspring: it conveys tumah while moist and not once it has dried. This is not the ordinary law of womb blood, which, if it is tamei, is a source of tumah whether moist or dry; rather, they wanted a heker, a distinguishing sign, so that it would be recognizable that its tumah is essentially only rabbinic.
Beis Hillel: They disagree and say that the two matters are bound up with one another. As long as she has not immersed - even though she could have immersed after seven or fourteen days and did not - she is still temeiah, and the blood that comes from her is the blood of a yoledes, and like the blood of a niddah it is a source of tumah by Torah law, conveying tumah whether moist or dry.
The wording of the mishnah:
"Dam hayoledes shelo tavlah" - the blood of a woman who has given birth, whose seven or fourteen days have already passed and who is in the middle of her days of purity, but who has not yet gone to the mikvah.
"Beis Shammai omrim k'rukah u'chmei ragleha" - we treat the blood like one of her other wellsprings, urine, phlegm and mucus: tamei while moist, and once it has dried, it does not convey tumah.
"U'Beis Hillel omrim metamei lach v'yavesh" - Beis Hillel are stringent: since she is not tehorah, the blood of her womb is tamei with the status of a yoledes, like a niddah and a zavah, and therefore it is fully tamei, whether moist or dry.
"U'modim b'yoledes b'zov shehi metamah lach v'yavesh":
Even Beis Shammai, who are lenient here, concede in a different case: a woman who was a zavah - a major zavah - at the time she gave birth. How so? She had bleeding not in the normal way. A pregnant woman is not supposed to see blood; there is no menstrual cycle and no nidah blood. If she saw blood for three consecutive days she becomes a zavah, and she does not emerge from her tumah until she counts seven clean days. If she did not have seven clean days before the birth, then at the time of the birth she is still a zavah, and so too for the seven or fourteen days afterward, as long as she has not managed to count seven clean days from her days of zivah. It turns out that although by the law of a woman who has given birth she has days of purity, in her own right she is still a zavah.
Therefore the blood she sees on the eighth day after giving birth to a boy, or on the fifteenth day after giving birth to a girl, is still considered the blood of a zavah, and the blood of a zavah conveys tumah whether it is moist or dry. Everyone agrees, then, that even though she is in the period of the blood of purity, if she has a prior status as a zavah, the fact that she is not in a state of tumah as a woman who has given birth does not tell us that the blood is pure - for she is also a zavah. For this reason Beis Hillel and Beis Shammai alike concede that the blood of her womb, on account of her being a zavah, is tamei by Torah law, both while it is still moist and after it has dried.
In summary: In this Mishnah Rabbi Eliezer adds another case in which Beis Shammai are lenient and Beis Hillel are stringent: a woman who has given birth, has entered the days of purity, and has not immersed. According to Beis Shammai her blood is like her secretions - it conveys tumah only while moist, and only by rabbinic decree, as a distinguishing measure. According to Beis Hillel, as long as she has not immersed her blood is the blood of a woman who has given birth and conveys tumah both moist and dry. And both concede in the case of a woman who gave birth while a zavah, that her blood conveys tumah both moist and dry, since the tumah of zivah remains in force.
In the next Mishnah we will deal with the second matter that Rabbi Eliezer listed among the leniencies of Beis Shammai and the stringencies of Beis Hillel.