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Walk Through the Parsha by Rabbi David Walk
Birth
Tazria 5768
April 2, 2008
Every week I have to decide which issue to write about that week. This
week I have to choose between the weekly Torah reading with its concern for
ritual purity in cases of child birth and the affliction of pseudo-leprosy on
the one hand and the special reading about preparations for Passover on the
other hand. Foolishly, I’ve come to the decision to discuss this
week’s parsha, because there’s an issue there which I find interesting.
So, please, forgive my folly.
Parshat Tazria begins with the following statement: Speak to the children of
Israel, saying: If a woman conceives and gives birth to a male, she shall be
unclean for seven days; as the days of her menstrual flow, she shall be unclean.
The term for conceiving is Tazria and is the name of our parsha. This word
is usually associated with the offspring, and God uses it many times in
conversation with the Patriarchs. They are often promised that their
relationship with God will be perpetuated with their children referred to as
seed, zera. So, our first problem is a linguistic one. Why does the
verse eschew the normal word for conception (hirayon, in Modern Hebrew that
means pregnant) and opt for the atypical term tazria? However, the most
famous problem with our verse isn’t limited to technical jargon. This
conundrum is essential to the entire matter. How come we attach impurity
to birth at all? This blessed event should be unalloyed joy, why mix in
the depressing subject of ritual impurity?
Let’s touch on the second question first. There is a famous answer given
by Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch (1808-1888), the famous nineteenth century German
Rav. He explicates that ritual impurity is related to death. Whenever
we have impurity in humans it’s because death lurks in the neighborhood.
Even when we have the impurity of a woman’s monthly cycle, it’s
because that month’s egg has died, which caused the bleeding, that
precipitates the impurity. What is the reason for death causing this
spiritually negative state of impurity? It’s the change from one
spiritual plane to the next. We leave this world to enter another. This
change
of venue is difficult for the soul to assimilate so we reflect that spiritual
anxiety with impurity. Well, the same thing happens to a soul coming into
this realm.
It’s disoriented or perhaps even disappointed that it entered this domain so
far from heaven (especially if arriving in a place like New Jersey). Hence,
we have impurity.
Now for something completely different; a new approach to the problem. Let’s
look back at the verse. It begins with instructions to the Children of
Israel, then it refers to all womankind, and finally discusses birthing or
seeding of a new life. The Talmud (Kritut 7b) explains the first two items
by describing how these rules only apply to Jews. No gentiles must deal
with these laws of ritual impurity.
However, don’t think that only a Jewess from birth must follow these customs.
These injunctions are equally applied to both a convert and a female slave, who
is considered semi Jewish. So, we go from a term limited to our ethnicity
to a more general term, more inclusive of all women. The next term for
birthing which is based upon the word for seeds, seems to refer to all living
things. So, why does the verse go from the particular to the general?
The point, I believe, is that even though Jews share these physical realities of
birthing and bleeding with all humans and, indeed, all animals, we relate to
them differently. The entire topic of ritual purity, which is so central
to the book of Leviticus, is based upon the premise that the more closely one
connects to holiness the more that individual must do to remain pure. Holiness
requires more than just an intellectual attachment to the idea. It
necessitates acts on our part to bolster that connection. Judaism has
always demanded that we act upon ideas. This is the concept behind our
rituals at a Seder. We can’t just discuss the ideas of the redemption
from Egypt, we demand symbolic acts and customs to help demonstrate and
reinforce the concepts. This educational approach is central to Jewish
thinking. The great 14th century book on the mitzvah system, called Sefer
Hachinuch (the book of education) explains that many mitzvoth are based upon the
philosophy that thoughts follow actions.
Assuming that this is true we can understand a quote from Rav Avraham Yitzchak
Hacohen Kook (1860-1935) the first modern chief rabbi of Israel. Rav Kook
in his book Orot, posited the following principle: The degree of purity required
is a function of the comprehensiveness of the spiritual framework. In
other words, the
more holy a situation is the higher requirements exist for ritual purity. For
example, even though a non-Jew is just as human as a Jew (we share the exact
same physical attributes, no DNA difference can be discerned), nevertheless,
since we have the system of Torah Law which brings one to a higher spiritual
plane, therefore there are greater rules of purity. We can extend this
principle to geography. There are higher standards for purity in Israel
than the rest of the world, because we believe it’s the Holy Land. This
idea of greater purity extends to Jerusalem, then the Temple Mount, and reaches
the highest levels in the Holy of Holies. I don’t believe that there is
a physical reality which can be measured for these holiness levels, but we
behave as if there were.
Just as we wash perfectly clean hands before sanctifying a meal to demonstrate
to
ourselves and to the world, the spiritual nature of our meal, so, too, we must
perform purifying actions when a holy event has occurred. So, even though
every human and beast has kids, we need to proclaim the spirituality of this
blessed event. We do that through a procedure we call tuma’ah and tahara,
ritual purity. These rituals aren’t caused by disgust; they demonstrate
our awareness of sanctity. These rules teach us to be in awe of the
miracle of birth.
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