Sifra

What else to make of the Sifra, a third-century commentary on Leviticus often cited by the Talmud, forbidding the Israelites from copying what they believed to be Egyptian practices:

Elizabeth Abbott: Is New York's Gay Marriage Truly Historic? Elizabeth Abbott 2011

What else to make of the Sifra, a third-century commentary on Leviticus often cited by the Talmud, forbidding the Israelites from copying what they believed to be Egyptian practices:

Elizabeth Abbott: Is New York's Gay Marriage Truly Historic? Elizabeth Abbott 2011

Cohen speculates that this practice was widespread in Greece a couple of generations before R. Hillel under Karaite influence and that his comments on Sifra were the result of an unsuccessful campaign to change the practice or a desire that they sin in ignorance rather than intentionally.

Female Purity (Niddah) Annotated Bibliography. leBeit Yoreh 2009

The Rabbis state that in matters of greatness, one begins with the great and proceeds to the minor, but as for curses, the minor precedes the major; this they deduce from the Garden of Eden narrative, since God began with the minor — the serpent — before continuing with the woman, and then concluding with the man, as each in turn was cursed (Sifra, Shemini 1: 39).

Eve: Midrash and Aggadah. 2009

The first discussion of female homoeroticism in Jewish texts is found in Sifra, a postbiblical commentary on the book of Leviticus, edited in the second century a.d.

Lesbianism. 2009

Once the halakhic midrash, Sifra, understood the verse to mean that uterine blood found in the vagina is impure, then the repercussion of internal examinations or some other mode of distancing a man from impurity had to be put into place.

Female Purity (Niddah). leBeit Yoreh 2009

There are many similar instances in Sifra and Sifrei.

Modesty and Sexuality in Halakhic Literature. 2009

Thus, for example, the Rabbinical exegesis (Sifra, Aharei Mot 9: 13):

Modesty and Sexuality in Halakhic Literature. 2009

The son left the court and blasphemed, using the fully-pronounced Name of the Holy One, which he had heard at Sinai (Sifra 14: 1 – 2).

Shelomith 1: Midrash and Aggadah. 2009

Sifra, the legal exegesis on the book of Leviticus from the tannaitic period, distinguishes between a minor zava, who saw uterine blood for one or two days beyond the seven-day limit or at a time when she should not have been menstruating, and the major zava, who saw uterine blood for three consecutive days in those situations.

Female Purity (Niddah). leBeit Yoreh 2009