Nishmat's Women’s Health and HalachaIn memory of Chaya Mirel bat R' Avraham

  • Hebrew
  • English
  • Espnaol
  • Francais
  • donate
Menu

Might have missed sunset

15 December, 2015

Question:

On Shabbos, I had an afternoon nap, woke, quickly did a hefesk taharah, put on a robe, ran downstairs to see the time and it was 6:23pm. Candlelighting was 6:02. I doubt more than two minutes passed between getting on a robe and going downstairs, so it's likely that the hefsek taharah was done 1 or 2 minutes past shkiah. How black and white is the shkiah deadline? I did another hefsek taharah on Sunday just in case.


Answer:

Our position is that a hefsek taharah performed even a few minutes after shkiah is too late and the clean days may not begin that night. (In a situation of extreme need – such as confirmed infertility, or serious shalom bayit issues there may be room to permit a hefsek or bedikah within a few minutes after shkiah. Each case must be individually assessed.) However, since there is doubt about the time you actually performed your hefsek – perhaps you really did perform the hefsek at shkiah – you may rely on your Shabbat hefsek taharah.

For the future we recommend performing a backup hefsek in the morning on the day you later plan on performing an afternoon hefsek. This way if you forget or miss shkiah you may rely on your morning hefsek.

Please feel free to get back to us with any further questions.

B'Hatzlacha!


This internet service does not preclude, override or replace the psak of any rabbinical authority. It is the responsibility of the questioner to inform us of any previous consultation or ruling. As even slight variation in circumstances may have Halachic consequences, views expressed concerning one case may not be applied to other, seemingly similar cases. All health and health-related information contained within Nishmat's Women's Health & Halacha Web site is intended to be general in nature and should not be used as a substitute for consulting with your health care professional. The advice is intended to offer a basis for individuals to discuss their medical condition with their health care provider but not individual advice. Although every effort is made to ensure that the material within Nishmat's Women's Health & Halacha Web site is accurate and timely, it is provided for the convenience of the Web site user but should not be considered official. Advice for actual medical practice should be obtained from a licensed health care professional. For further questions or comments:  The Nishmat Women's Health and Halacha Site is a public service of Nishmat, The Jeanie Schottenstein Center for Advanced Torah Study for Women. This project and others like it are made possible by contributions from people like you. If you have benefited from the service, and wish to enable us to help others, click here to donate.

Users of Internet filtering services: This site discusses sensitive subjects that some services filter without visual indication. A page that appears 100% complete might actually be missing critical Jewish-law or medical information. To ensure that you view the pages accurately, ask the filtering service to whitelist all pages under yoatzot.org.

Accessibility Toolbar