DailyHalacha.com for Mobile Devices Now Available

Click Here to Sponsor Daily Halacha
"Delivered to Over 6000 Registered Recipients Each Day"

      
(File size: 356 KB)
Drinking From One’s Wife’s Cup When She is a Nidda

It is forbidden for a husband to drink the leftover beverage from a wife’s cup while she is a Nidda. For example, if the wife was drinking soda and did not finish all the soda in the cup, the husband is not allowed to drink the remaining soda from her cup. The Sages enacted this measure as one of several safeguards against intimacy.

There are, however, a number of ways in which it would be permissible for the husband to finish the wife’s drink. Firstly, if the leftover soda was transferred to another cup or glass, the husband is allowed to drink the soda. Furthermore, he may drink the leftovers even from the original cup if some more soda was added. He may also drink the remaining soda if somebody else had drunk some of the wife’s leftovers beforehand. In all these situations, the husband may drink the leftovers because there is a "Heker" – a discernible reminder that they may not be intimate.

According to the strict Halacha, if a wife who is a Nidda drinks from a cup and does not leave over any beverage, the husband may use the cup immediately afterward. There is, however, a custom not to use a cup used by a wife (when she is a Nidda) before it is washed. Hacham Ovadia Yosef refers to this custom as a "Minhag Kasher" ("proper custom") which should be followed. Therefore, when one’s wife is a Nidda, he should preferably not drink from a cup from which she had drunk, until it is washed.

Summary: A husband may not drink a wife’s leftovers from her cup while she is a Nidda unless they are transferred to a different cup, some more beverage was added into the original cup, or somebody had drunk some of her leftovers before the husband. If the wife finished the drink, it is proper for the husband not to use her cup until it is washed.

 


Recent Daily Halachot...
Making a Zimun When a Third Person Joins After the First Two Finished Eating
Can People Form a Zimun if One Person’s Food is Forbidden for the Others?
When is Birkat Ha’mazon a Torah Obligation?
Can People Sitting at Separate Tables Join Together for a Zimun?
Birkat HaMazon If One Ate a Ke’zayit of Bread Slowly, Over the Course of an Extended Period
Kavana During Birkat Ha’mazon
Must the One Who Leads Birkat Ha’mazon Hold the Cup Throughout the Sheba Berachot?
“She’hakol” and “Boreh Nefashot” if One is Drinking Intermittently in One Location
Using for Kiddush or Birkat Ha’mazon a Cup of Wine From Which One Had Drunk
If the Group or Part of the Group Recited Birkat Ha’mazon Without a Zimun
If Three People Ate Together and One Needs to Leave Early
Should Abridged Texts of Birkat Ha’mazon be Printed in Siddurim?
Making a Zimun When a Third Person Joined After the First Two Finished Eating
The Importance of Using a Cup of Wine for Birkat Ha’mazon; Adding Three Drops of Water to the Cup
If One Ate Half a “Ke’zayit” of Fruit Requiring “Al Ha’etz,” and Half a “Ke’zayit” of Other Fruit
Page of 239
3585 Halachot found