Weekly passages: Leviticus 12:1-13:59; 2 Kings 4:42-5:19; John 6:8-13; Matthew 8:1-4.
This week's Torah portion is called Tazria, meaning 'She has conceived' because it begins with regulations for childbirth.
Many have puzzled over the regulations about childbirth. It seems odd to suggest a woman would be "teme'ah" or ritually impure after bringing life into the world. Why is the period of ritual impurity twice as long after giving birth to a girl? Some rabbis have said these laws are beyond our understanding. There is certainly no definitive answer.
Women in Jewish Culture
First, let's consider the position of women. There is a famous prayer that is said daily by Jewish men which includes thanks to God for not creating them a woman. It has been viewed typically as misogynistic, but there is another view, which is that men are thankful for the religious obligations bestowed upon them. Women are exempt from many religious obligations because of motherhood (an exalted state in Jewish tradition) and its attendant domestic duties.
Contrary to our negative view of being in a state of ritual impurity during menstruation and after childbirth, this was not onerous or restrictive for women. It released them from religious obligation so they could pursue family duties. It also gave them dignity, privacy, space and time away from men. The prohibition against touching a woman in a state of ritual impurity protected women from unwanted male attention.
It also reminded husbands to respect their wives, that they wives were not theirs to own and approach as they wished, they belonged to the Lord.1 This prohibition: "If a man has sexual relations with a woman during her monthly period, he has exposed the source of her flow, and she has also uncovered it" (Lev 20:18) serves as a reminder of the sacredness of the creation of life, that it is the Lord who is the source of all created life and that an appropriate order and discipline applies to the most intimate spheres of existence.
Since it was common to have large families, most women probably spent much of their lives in a state of ritual impurity, as Joshua Tilton points out: "if a woman chose, she could postpone purification until her childbearing years were over, and then purify herself. The disadvantage was that she could not enter holy places or eat holy food until she was purified, but sometimes this disadvantage was outweighed by the inconvenience of going to the Temple for purification."2 This would particularly be the case if she lived a long way from Jerusalem. David Flusser comments that individuals and communities could choose the level of ritual purity they maintained.3 If they lived in Jerusalem and visited the Temple frequently they would need to maintain the highest levels of ritual purity.
We also have to remember that women were respected and empowered in Old Testament culture.4 They had the right to buy, sell and own property, and make their own contracts, rights which women in Western countries (including America) did not have until about 100 years ago. In fact, Proverbs 31:10-31 (which is traditionally read at Jewish weddings) speaks repeatedly of business acumen as a trait to be prized in women.5 Women were also prophets (one of the best known in Jewish tradition was Huldah, who has gates in the Temple Mount named after her) and they were officials in synagogues.6
Understanding Ritual Purity
Secondly, we need to attempt to understand ritual purity, something the sages of Israel grappled with but found opaque. However, we can establish the foundational principle, which is that God is eternally alive and he is the Creator of all life. Death is the opposite of his divine nature and purposes for his creation.
This makes it is easier perhaps to understand why women were considered ritually impure during menstruation, because it indicates the end of the possibility of life being conceived. It is a "whisper of death", as one woman describes it.7 Being declared to be ritually impure is not a judgment on character or sentence passed on wrongdoing. After all, there is nothing sinful in menstruation or giving birth. Ritual purity is simply the state mortal beings need to be in for contact with the holy immortal One.
Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks gives some further insights from the sages: "When a mother gives birth, not only does she undergo great risk (until recently, childbirth was a life-threatening danger to mother and baby alike). She is also separated from what until now had been part of her own body (a foetus, said the rabbis, "is like a limb of the mother") and which has now become an independent person. If that is so in the case of a boy, it is doubly so in the case of a girl – who, with G-d's help, will not merely live but may herself in later years become a source of new life. At one level, therefore, the laws signal the detachment of life from life."8
He suggests also that women do not need to visit the Temple to be connected to the life of God, but when they did, it was in thanksgiving for a new life and for passing safely through the danger of childbirth: "It is as if G-d were saying to the mother: for forty days in the case of a boy, and doubly so in the case of a girl (the mother-daughter bond is ontologically stronger than that between mother and son), I exempt you from coming before Me in the place of holiness because you are fully engaged in one of the holiest acts of all, nurturing and caring for your child."9
For a fuller discussion of ritual purity, click here.
Skin Diseases and Evil Speech
The Torah portion goes on to describe the measures to be taken when dealing with defiling skin diseases and moulds. The skin disease is called tsara'at, often translated as leprosy, but translated as 'scale disease' by Jacob Milgrom, who has sought expert diagnosis of the skin disease described here, but apparently it does not correspond to any known complaint. Why is this mystery disease defiling? Because it gives the skin the appearance of a corpse, the skin peels as though the person is wasting away. Again, it is a reminder of death standing in opposition to God's life-giving Spirit and so cannot be tolerated in his presence.10
Rabbinic commentators were puzzled as to what this condition is and why it should be given such full treatment in the Torah. They decided that it was because it was a punishment for derogatory speech, known as lashon hara, literally 'evil tongue'.11 It is not the same as slander or gossip, but concerns imparting information which is detrimental to another. In Numbers 12, Miriam questions why Moses is so much more qualified to lead the Jewish people than anyone else. God hears and strikes her down with tzara'at or leprosy.12
'Evil tongue' is not mentioned in the Torah, but Psalm 34:13 contains the command to "keep your tongue from evil and your lips from telling lies". The sages of Israel regarded lashon hara as one of the worst of all sins, as bad as idolatry, murder and incest combined. They said it kills three people: the one who says it, the one he says it about, and the one who listens in.13 In Jerusalem's ultra-Orthodox district Mea Shearim, there are signs saying "Please no lashon hara".
Jewish prayer reflects the concern over evil speech. The Amidah, said at least three times a day, opens with a plea for pure speech: "Open my lips so that my mouth may declare Your praise" and also contains these words, "My God, guard my tongue from evil and my lips from deceitful speech. To those who curse me let my soul be silent; may my soul be to all like the dust."14
So leprosy was seen as a punishment for sin, particular sinful speech. Priests acted as spiritual doctors, authorising re-entry to the community by simultaneously declaring the person 'clean' physically - but by implication spiritually. They could re-join community life and worship. Moulds, however, were not seen as a punishment
Jesus: Healing, Cleansing and Restoring
In our New Testament readings, Jesus demonstrates a greater authority than the priests. In John 6, he shows that he is the prophet like Moses, promised in Deuteronomy 18:15, when he feeds the five thousand on a hillside, echoing the provision of manna in the desert and the commandments given to Moses on Mount Sinai.
In Matthew 8, he heals a leper with a touch. Instead of Jesus becoming unclean, the expected outcome, the leper becomes clean. Jesus is careful to obey God's Law by sending the man to show himself to the priest. He operates within God's word while at the same time demonstrating his divine nature and authority as the source of divine healing and forgiveness of sins. Through him, those who had suffered outside the camp, cut off from the community, could be brought near to be forgiven and cleansed.
Jesus identified with outcasts so that, as Hebrews 13:12 says, he "also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood". Our response should be: "Let us, then, go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore" (Heb 13:13). Our place is "outside the camp", in the place of suffering where the sinners are. Or are we too comfortable inside our cosy church 'camp'? It is outside the camp that we are reminded that, "here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come" (Heb 13:14).
We seek to bring the 'unclean' the gospel; not from a superior standpoint but sharing our experience of being made clean. Like our Master, we remain clean as we "continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise—the fruit of lips that openly profess his name" (Heb 13:15). Our clean speech, our open profession of the name of Jesus, protects and guards us from defilement of all kinds.
Author: Helen Belton
References
1 VanGemeren, WA (Gen. Ed.). New International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology & Exegesis, Vol 4, "Sexual Ordinances", p1204.
2 Tilton, J. A Goy's Guide to Ritual Purity, Jerusalem Perspective. 30 April 2014.
3 Flusser, D, 2007. Judaism of the Second Temple Period, Vol 1, 'Qumran and Apocalypticism'. Hebrew University Magnes Press, Jerusalem, p36.
4 By the time of Jesus, women were more restricted.
5 Verses 11, 13, 16 and 18 especially. See also Rich, TR. The Role of Women. Judaism 101.
6 Levine, LI, 2000. Women in the Synagogue, chapter 14 in The Ancient Synagogue: The First Thousand Years. Yale University Press, p499-518.
7 Goldstein, EM, Rabbi, 1996. Mikveh offers women a chance to 'take back the waters'. J Weekly, 8 November.
8 Sacks, J, Rabbi Lord. Holiness and Childbirth. Chabad.org.
9 Ibid.
10 Milgrom, J, 2004. Leviticus, A Book of Ritual and Ethics, A Continental Commentary. Fortress Press, Minneapolis, p127.
11 Sacks, J, Rabbi Lord. Tazria (5774) – The Price of Free Speech. RabbiSacks.org, 24 March 2014.
12 Leviticus 19:16.
13 See Maimonides, Hilkhot Deot 7:3.
14 See 6.
