posts so far for parshat Taz-ria

2009

1. Tazria sources -- links by aliyah and perek to an online Mikraos Gedolos, and links to many meforshim on the parshah and haftarah.
   
   
2. The famous midrash of Isha Ki Tazria; who promotes and who rejects the midrash (at least as peshat); and thought about the motivations for this midrash.
   
   
3. As an alternative to the advice in the aforementioned famous midrash, Chizkuni offers other reproductive advice on how to have male children, based on contemporary science. And how he reads this into, or out of, a pasuk in Shir HaShirim.
   

2008

• Dam Tohar
• and various unsuccessful and successful attempts to uproot this halachic entity declared by the Torah and Chazal.
  

2006

• Tekiat Shofar and Sisera's mother
• Where parshat Tazria factors in in that a midrash there states that a woman wails and cries out 100 times when giving birth, with possible parallels to the custom of 100 shofar blasts.

2004

• Isha Ki Tazria and Sex Selection Theory

• An updated account of the midrash that if a woman is tazria first (before the man), she has a boy (isha ki tazria veyalda zachar.) The original midrash operated under the assumption that she gave forth this seed on orgasm. But there is a debated theory that if a woman ovulates before coitus, she is more likely to have male offspring, but if coitus happens before ovulation, she is more likely to have female offspring, on the basis of endurance vs. speed of the two types of sperm. This is debated for humans, but is a known matter for several animal species. A link to some of the research, plus pictures of some of the animals for which this is true.
  

to be continued...