supply of fresh, sweet water. Ibn Ezra ridicules the fear that the tekufah water will cause swelling, and ascribes the belief to the "gossip of old women" (ib.). Hezekiah da Silva, however, warns his co-religionists to pay no attention to ibn Ezra's remarks, asserting that in his own times many persons who drank water when the tekufah occurred fell ill and died in consequence. Da Silva says the principal danger lies in the first tekufah (Nisan), and a special announcement of its occurrence was made by the beadle of the congregation (Peri Ḥadash, on Oraḥ Ḥayyim, 428, end). The danger lurks only in unused water, not in water that has been boiled or used in salting or pickling. The danger in unused water may be avoided by putting in it a piece of iron or an iron vessel (Bet Yosef on the Tur, and Isserles' note to Shulḥan Aruk, Oraḥ Ḥayyim, 455, 1; Be'er Hetev, to Yore De'a, 116, 5). R. Jacob Mölln required that a new iron nail should be lowered by means of a string into the water used for baking matsot during Tekufat Nisan (Sefer Maharil, p. 6b, ed. Warsaw). References Bibliography External links Jewish Encyclopedia article for Tekufah, by Joseph Jacobs and Judah David Eisenstein. Hebrew calendar