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I just learned in Sefer Ahava, hilchos mila, perek aleph, that apparently a baby can be fully formed in either seven months or nine! This sheds new light on the pregnancy of tamar vs Rivka Imeinu.
Does this concept come up elsewhere? If that’s the case maybe I should daven to have a seven month pregnancy – save two months of annoyance, lack of energy etc etc!
What new light are you talking about?
Someone remind the Halacha regarding a person who kills a fetus in the eighth month versus the seventh or ninth month.
Yeah…. Actually anyone that does Chumash & Rashi gets that…
Does this concept come up elsewhere?
Yes, in gemaros referring to havchana – determining who the father is when a woman was divorced or widowed and then quickly remarried.
Hilchos Shabbos regarding Bris Milah on Shabbos. Brought in the Alter Rebbe.
See Ibn Ezra Shmos 2:2 שלשה ירחים that according to some Moshe Rabenu was born to the 7th month – that is why they were able to keep him for 3 months.
It’s in several gemaras. Obviously, it flies in the face of modern reality, where an eight-month baby has fewer risk factors than a seven-month baby, and we even have survival of some 22-week babies today.
See below link from Rav Silberstein of Bnei Brak (SIL of Rav Elyashiv ZTL) for detail regarding nowadays that there is an incubator etc. See what he quotes from the Rogatchover and the psak of the Chazon Ish that ‘nishtaneh heteva’.
http://www.hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=28410&st=&pgnum=83
I’m certainly no expert, but I suspect there are eight-month babies who don’t require medical intervention such as incubation. The survival of seven-month babies but not of eight-month babies in the the times of the gemara can’t be explained by modern medical intervention.
I think neshtaneh hatevah is the only way to explain these gemaras. The Gemara talks about 7 month pregnancies as if they were a miut hamotzui, i.e. a common minority. And the children born from a 7 month pregnancy were not pre-mature. They were full term on a shorter gestation.
But today, every 7 month baby (or at least almost every 7 month baby) is premature, requiring a few weeks of hospitalization.
Some say that human nature has changed over the millennia.
Joseph/Ben
In this matter we definitely need to say “‘nishtaneh heteva” as in the explained below link, based on the Chazon Ish and the fact that many premature survive…
See below link again:
http://www.hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=28410&st=&pgnum=84A simple google search will tell you that this is either true, or that this is something, that while true, was something the world at large was aware of.
Fascinating!The interesting part was that a 7th month birth was safer than an 8th month birth.
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