Decree on Menstrual Purity

Together with several other leading rabbis of Egypt, Moses Maimonides enacted this Judeo-Arabic communal decree, declaring that a woman who does not immerse in a mikveh after menstruating loses the money owed her in her marriage contract (ketubah). Some historians conclude that Maimonides and his associates were criticizing women who followed Karaite practices, others that there was a “revolt” of women against rabbinic law, and still others that these women preserved ancient, nonrabbinic practices that were inspired by the Hebrew Bible but are not to be considered Karaite in origin. The text helps reconstruct the otherwise lost voices of female piety. The italicized words, including the biblical quotes, are in Hebrew in the original.