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Tazria Metzora – Niddah and the Paradox of Purity
Unclean. Contaminated. Filth. Shameful. Corrupt. Defiled. Profane. Desecrated.
These are what we think of when we hear the word impure. So when the Torah labels a woman as “impure” during her menstrual cycle and after giving birth, we can see why misogynistic attitudes might come about. Especially when considering that a woman is “impure” for twice as long when she gives birth to a girl. But to tie such negative attitudes to both women’s natural functions and the concept of Jewish purity is regrettably misinformed.
How do we know this? An individual can become “impure” by performing a mitzvah. But since a mitzvah is the way in which we connect with Hashem, fulfilling a mitzvah cannot, by definition, bring a person to become diminished. Assuming they’ve performed the mitzvah correctly. In fact, arguably the greatest mitzvahs such as, escorting and burying the dead, giving birth, and the mitzvah of parah adumah (the red heifer) all cause the person performing it to become “impure.” So clearly whatever Jewish impurity is, it is not a value judgment.
From here on out, I will use the Hebrew words tahor (which is translated as pure) and tumah (which is translated as impurity) as well as tammei (the adjective of someone who is “impure”.) I’ll continue to use the English next to the Hebrew for convenience.
Tahor or being in a state of tahara doesn’t mean special or holy or elevated in any way. It would be better to be thought of as regular or functioning properly. Tahor might best be described as transparent or unblocked. A chaste virgin wearing white holding a rose shouldn’t be the image of purity. Also for the most part, tahara has no practical application in our world today. Without a Temple, we can’t eat the holy sacrifices that required us to be tahor. However, niddah ( the separation of man and wife while a woman is in her cycle) is still practiced and many religious men frequent the mikveh (ritual bath) especially before the holidays. But I’ve not clarified what tahor actually refers to. Being tahor means unblocked, but from what? Simply put… eternal life.
“Eternal life” as an answer may sound puzzling, so now, by contrast, let’s consider tammei, or impurity.
We find that all tumah is associated with things that are either connected to death or connected to the loss of potential life. Cemeteries, carcasses of non-kosher animals, even cut hair and nails have a level of tumah because they were once connected to a living body. So when a woman goes through her niddah period, she becomes tammei not because Judaism considers her unclean or spiritually inferior, it’s because the part of the body that was once connected is shedding, but more essentially, a potential for human life has expired. When a man has a seminal emission, even during intercourse that results in a pregnancy, because there is loss of the millions of other sperm that didn’t become a life, the man becomes tammei. Advertisement
So now we have the question of birth. The act that could not exemplify life and connection to eternity more, results in not only tumah, but a prolonged duration of tammei status. Why? Simply put, even in life there is death. Like the seed that germinates into a plant, the husk must fall off and decay, so too there are parts of the woman’s body that are discarded and die becoming susceptible to tumah. But there is a deeper aspect that gets to the heart of what tumah and tahara are all about.
When I said that things that are tahor/pure are things that connect us to eternal life, it is really about being connected emotionally, spiritually, psychologically, to hope. Specifically, hope that the world is inevitably heading towards the ultimate good. Ultimately that is trust in Hashem. Judaism believes that Heaven isn’t a place in the clouds we go to when we die, but what the Earth will become once we complete Hashem’s act of creation. Heaven on Earth is called Olam Habah, The World to Come. The World to Come is free of death, is eternal, and is when Hashem’s presence will be wonderfully revealed.
Whether we actually have Olam Habah as a personal goal or not, the optimism that our world and our lives will get better is essential to building a relationship with God. The inability to see a path to improvement and the belief that ones actions are ultimately meaningless are key elements of depression. Death isn’t just the loss of life, but the reality that something can no longer progress. Poverty is compared to death. Even going through life by rote, is a form of death.
When one comes into contact with death, feelings of sadness are almost inevitable (unless that individual has dulled themselves to the feeling.) If someone doesn’t know how to deal with those feelings, the sadness can leave trauma, become depression, or worse. This is the blockage the word Hebrew tumah refers to. The feelings that come from death can cause us to question Hashem, the concept of a perfected world, and even ourselves. There’s nothing wrong with that. In fact, it is a good thing to take a good hard look at our assumptions, ask hard questions, and develop compassion. Niddah is about separation so the couple can return to their identity as individuals, so they can then return to their union more authentically. That’s why periods of tumah are built into the design of a woman and are an inevitable outcome of a man’s most base pursuit. When a woman gives birth to her child, the woman she was, dies, so to speak. She’s a mother now. Even if it isn’t her first child, she is deeply changed as a new unique relationship is literally born. There are feelings and realities to assess and work through.
But why does the birth of a daughter require twice the time of niddah compared to a son? Does that imply a girl is half as pure as a boy? Actually, quite the opposite. As I said above, death is likely to cause feelings of sadness. But the most tragic of losses is that of a child. The more potential, the more painful the loss. When it comes to tumah it is the same. The more spiritual potential something has, the more tumah it imparts when it dies. The dead body of a person leaves behind more tumah than that of an animal and certainly more than hair and nails. A Jewish male requires bris milah to become complete, while a Jewish girl is born perfect. A boy does not begin producing their seed until puberty while a girl at birth has already produced over one million eggs. So the spiritual potential of a girl at the time of birth far exceeds that of a boy, so it makes sense why the mother’s niddah period would be doubled.
I wish I could purge the words pure and impure from our memories because of the baggage they carry. There’s no shame in doing what is necessary to deal with dark feelings in a healthy way. Becoming “blocked” is a part of life and you can almost literally set your watch to it. As Solomon famously said “A time to be born and a time to die… A time to kill and a time to heal… A time to weep and a time to laugh.” That’s why the Torah prescribes the rituals for tahara, not punishments for tumah. Tending to the needs of “impurity” may be the holiest thing a person can do.
This post is from my weekly Torah Blog.
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