Hagit Molgan Hamil's Bedikah cloths

Some years back, a woman named Hagit created an art exhibit featuring Bedika cloths.

I actually met this woman last year although it was in a completely different context having nothing to do with niddah or art- or sephardim for that matter. I believe Hagit happens to be a Traditional Sephardi (not sure which edah specifically) although like me she seems to have been raised in an Ashkenazi environment. Hagit's simultaneous rebellious-in-attitude- but-obedient-in-practice is similar to what I see amongst many Orthodox Ashkenazi women: Resentment, but sucking it up. Many women try to infuse the experience with spiritual meaning, and use it as a medium for some sort of communion between them and god, but that takes great effort for them. To explain via contrast; few people talk about how they have to overcome their difficulty going to synagogue or lighting shabat candles by trying to view it as a moment of communion with god.

Perhaps even a better comparison is Pesah cleaning. Pesah cleaning is only once a year but surely rivals Niddah in pressure and inconvenience. Not to mention in pure mundaneness. Yet the discussion around Passover cleaning revolves on how to make it easier. I don't recall any discussions on how to infuse it with meaning and spirituality. This indicates to me that the trying-to-find-meaning-in-Niddah discussion isn't about dealing with the bother of it but something deeper- the violation.

Hagit's art exhibit focuses on one of the more taboo aspects of Niddah: not the sexual separation or the dipping in the mikveh, but about the internal vaginal exams that women are supposed do daily, at specified times, for 7 days, just to make sure their periods have ended. Its understandable that no one talks about these; because there is very little that even the most creative kiruv professional to pretty this up. Brides are informed of this in private, secret tutorials just before their wedding.

The more I learn the more it boggles my mind how out of touch the halachot of Niddah are with reality. Particularly female reality; which, since we are talking about menstruation here, is the only reality that counts. Somehow I managed to figure out when my period was over for the decade + between menarche and the time I got married.

I stopped doing this long ago, a combination of convenience of conviction, but mostly of conviction.

Hagit is still doing it (at least at the time of the article), despite her convictions against.

Both of us are traditional Sephardi women; but neither of us is following the golden traditional sephardi rule : Don't challenge the Tradition, while Doing Whatever the Hell You Want.