Slack Hands and the Rafters That Sink Before Sinai

"In the third month" (Exodus 19:1). This is what Scripture means when it says, "Through laziness the rafter sinks, and through slackness of hands the house leaks" (Ecclesiastes 10:18). What causes a woman to flow with blood? Because she is too lazy to examine herself, whether she is impure or not. Why? Our Rabbis taught: any hand that examines frequently among women is praiseworthy; among men, let it be cut off. There was an incident with the maidservant of Rabban Gamliel, who was carrying vessels of pure things and jars from house to house, and she would examine herself at every single jar. At the last one she examined herself and was found to be impure, and Rabban Gamliel was afraid, saying, perhaps the pure things have become impure. Rabban Gamliel called her and said to her, "Were you not examining yourself?" She said to him, "By your life, my master, I was examining myself at every single jar, and only at this last one was I found impure." Rabban Gamliel said, "Had this woman been lazy, all the pure things would already have been impure." "Through laziness the rafter sinks" (ibid.) — thus, because this woman is lazy she flows with blood; "the rafter sinks" [Hebrew mikreh], and "rafter" here means nothing other than blood, as it says, "and she has uncovered her fountain [mekorah]" (Leviticus 20:18). "And through slackness of hands the house leaks" (Ecclesiastes ibid.) — "And if a woman has a flow, her flow being blood" (Leviticus 15:25). Another interpretation: "Through laziness the rafter sinks" (Ecclesiastes ibid.) speaks of Israel when they came to Rephidim. What is written? "They journeyed from Rephidim and came to the wilderness of Sinai" (Exodus 19:2). And why was its name called Rephidim? Because they slackened [rippu] their hands from transgressions. "Through laziness the rafter sinks" (Ecclesiastes ibid.) — "And the LORD came down upon Mount Sinai, to the top of the mountain" (Exodus 19:20). "And through slackness of hands the house leaks" (Ecclesiastes ibid.) — because they slackened their hands from transgressions, "the house leaks," as it is written, "the earth trembled, the heavens also dripped, the clouds also dripped water" (Judges 5:4). And when did all these things happen? On the day of the giving of the Torah, "In the third month" and so forth (Exodus 19:1).