Time in the Teachings of Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi

6. Women in the future-to-come. 
The envisioned elevation of the female in the future-to-come to the top of the 
theosophical structure does not seem to have any significant implications for the 
place and role of women in the redeemed world, and nor does it ascribe any 
redemptive significance to the commandments performed by women.
186
Rashaz’s 
presentation of the transposition of gender hierarchy as a result of the redemption 
rather than a path leading to it has the effect of neutralizing the subversive message 
of his teachings regading the female, while also reaffirming the 
status quo
rather 
than challenging it.
187
Moreover, even his scant comments on the fate of women in 
the redeemed world do not anticipate any change in their status or roles. An example 
of this is his elaboration on the status of the commandments in messianic times. 
About women in this context he writes:
It will be further necessary to know the laws governing the impurity of a 
woman who has given birth; as Scripture says [Jer 31:8]: “A woman with 
child and her that travaileth with child together.” Even if a woman gives birth 
every day as a result of one marital union, nonetheless, the law with respect 
to restrictions resulting from her impurity will not change.
188
 
Even though women are only a marginal concern of Rashaz in this passage, one may 
learn from it that he subscribes to the view that women will continue to fulfil their 
function of giving birth, albeit with an unconstrained capacity for this function, as 
they will give birth every day.
189
To avoid the contradiction implicit in the notion 
that the laws of ritual purity will persist and yet women will conceive every day, 
the daily 
‘Amidah 
of the morning service “something of this nature” occurs [
yesh ketsat me-‘ein zeh
]” 
(
Seder tefilot 
54d). 
186
The seventh Habad leader, Rabbi Menahem Mendel Schneerson, claimed otherwise. See Wolfson, 
Open Secret
, 220-23.
187
See Rapoport-Albert, 
Women and the Messianic Heresy
, 121-23, and eadem, “From Woman as 
Hasid,” 445-6.
188
T4, 26:143a-b [Appendix 23]. 
189
Based on 
b
Shabat 30b. 

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250 
including their quota of impure days following childbirth, Rashaz adds that all these 
daily births will result from a single marital union.
190
Subsequent Habad thinkers, who noted that Rashaz mentioned explicitly the 
impurity of a woman who gives birth but made no reference to the issue of her 
menstrual impurity, took this to be a hint at the annulment of menstrual impurity in 
the world-to-come.
191
The Tsemah Tsedek, for example, explains that the meaning of 
female impurity, 
nidah
, is that the 
Shekhinah
has wandered away from God during 
the exile,
192
while in the redeemed world of the future, when the exile comes to an 
end, the state of impurity caused by distance from God will cease to occur, and the 
laws of impurity will become redundant.
193
The Tsemah Tsedek seems to conform to 
Rashaz’s grasp of menstrual impurity
194
as a connection to the external forces, which 
will not prevail in the future-to-come.
Be that as it may, the future capacity of women to give birth every day will 
arise from the eradication of the barriers between the spiritual and the material 
spheres of reality: 
[
b
Shabat
 
30b] “In the future a woman will give birth every day,” that is to 
say, the sowing and growing [
ha-zeri’ah veha-tsemihah
] will occur every day 
in full disclosure, so that it will not be necessary for them to take as long as 
nine months.
195
While in this world the limitations of materiality account for the lapse of time 
between the “sowing” of the divine life force and its disclosure, these limitations will 
be removed in the future-to-come, when the sowing will yield immediate fruit, or - 
190
Mi-bi’ah ahat
. An interpretation given by the Rebbe, Menahem Mendel Schneerson, reads this 
phrase alternatively as 
mevi’ah ahat
– “she shall bring one [offering].”
 
See 
Igerot kodesh
, xxiii, 296-
97; 
Likutei sihot
, xii, 178, and Wineberg, 
Lessons in Tanya
, v, 130-31. 
191
See Schneersohn (
Tsemah Tsedek
), 
Or ha-Torah
, Be-reshit, i, 51a; idem, 
Be’urei ha-Zohar
, ii, 945. 
192
An idea based on the word play 
nidah 
– 
nad he
: the letter 
he
representing the 
Shekhinah
, which has 
wandered. 
193
See Schneersohn (
Tsemah Tsedek
), 
Or ha-Torah
, Be-reshit, i, 51a.
194
See for example 
Seder tefilot 
57a-b. 
195
MAHZ 
Ketsarim
, 534 [Appendix 24]. 

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251 
as in the excerpt quoted above – women will give birth immediately after 
conception.