Monday, 9 April 2018

Tazria -Leviticus 12:1-13:59

In this parashah, which is normally combined (but not always) with the next one, we read about menstrual blood, semen, and a supernatural disease that turns the skin white (often badly translated as "leprosy").

The core of this has to do with purity (t'hor), but since the term "pure" has some baggage, it's best that I cover exactly what "pure" and "impure" actually means.

A Quick Overview

In most translations, "tamei" is transformed into "unclean" or "impure". 

But what is the difference between being "clean" and "pure" (t'hor) in the Biblical sense?

Let's say that you take a scalding hot bath, using the strongest lye soap that you can find and scrub your epidermal layer with a loofah sponge, and when you are done, you leap into a pool of the cleanest water that there could be, exiting and grabbing a brand new towel, vigorously drying yourself. You might even have a private pedicurist and manicurist and dental hygienist as well.

If you began this tamei, you are still, after all of this: tamei.

Being t'hor has nothing to do with being clean. In fact, the only way to become tahor (the opposite of tamei) is to have a Kohen (priest) sprinkle ashes from a red heifer on you. He has to be tahor, and as soon as he does it, you are tahor, and now he is tamei

That is the Biblical form of going from tamei to tahor. The text is also clear on what things can make you tamei. Dead bodies, wet dreams, and so forth. One of the more interesting forms is if you get the supernatural disease "tza'arah", which is often incorrectly translated as "leprosy". This disease turns your hairs white, then your skin, then your clothes, and then your house - this is certainly not leprosy!

Once you get this supernatural disease, you need to repent (the Talmud infers that there is money involved. It also infers that speaking badly of another would also cause God to curse someone with this, since Miriam is the first person in the Bible to get it, and only after she got Yahweh upset by speaking badly about her brother, Moses.

If you do not repent, then the disease remains and you are tamei, and will have to leave the gates of the city. 

An odd thing about this is that once you are 100% afflicted, you are considered tahor, and you can return, but you have to announce to everyone as you walk among them that you are afflicted. If you repent and the disease begins to recede, then you are tamei again, until it is completely gone, and then you are tahor again.

In that model, tamei, can mean impure, since it indicates not 100%. But it does not work for all models.

If a man has a "nocturnal emission", then he is tamai. Even if he washes himself thoroughly, he remains that way.

If a woman gives birth, then she remains tamei, and that duration will change, depending upon the gender of the child. Once that time limit is over, she immerses herself in a ritual bath, provides a goat as a chatas offering, and after the ashes, she is now tahor. (The goat offering is the result of having sinned while giving birth for probably thinking that you would not want to do this ever again!).

Now some extremely religious Jews have been known to ride an airplane wrapped in a plastic bag because the flight route will go over a cemetery, and the tumah (the noun) of a corpse will rise vertically to the heavens. For some reason, they believe that this specially made plastic bag (available at a religious-extremist store near you) will stop something that the metal hull of the plane cannot (not it's plastic insulation). 

There is also Rabbinical tamei. Legally, a Torah scroll is tamei, which is one of the reasons you do not touch it. This was enacted because the priests would store Torah scrolls in closets along with their t'rumah (priestly portion), and rats would come and eat the Torah as well as the grain. Since the grain needs to be tahor (and rat eaten grain is still tahor), the priests would keep the Torah scroll in a separate and safer place. 

And a man who had a nocturnal emission should not handle a tamai Torah scroll - one is Biblically tamai, and the other is Rabinically tamai.

Rabbinically, non-Jews can never become tamei, including their corpses, so a dead gentile will not make a live Jew tamei. There are historical reasons for this relating to the fall of Beitar after the Bar Kochba rebellion.

And, of course, a woman who is menstruating cannot be touched, lest you be rendered tamei for even passing her a napkin. According to the Ramban, the blood of a menstruating woman can kill an animal that consumes it, and if she stares at a mirror, even without touching it, droplets of blood can appear.

If this all sounds like a lot of supernaturalism, well, welcome to the world of "pure" and "impure".

One thing about the red heifer.

If there is no red heifer, how does one become tahor again? You cannot. What about those who go to the mikvah (ritual bath)? That is just as a reminder of what we once did. It is only half of a two-part process, and even though we cannot do both, we do one to remind ourselves of our active participation in attempting to become tahor.

In closing, tamei is a spiritual (supernatural) definition, not a physical one.  

So, as you can see, tamei and tahor should never be read as "unclean" and "clean", and if you come across these words in Scripture, mentally change them to tamei and tahor!

A side point:

The washing of the hands before eating bread was enacted Rabbinically. Tradition has it that King Solomon enacted it. One need not do so if not eating bread, and if there is no water, sand and pebbles and other things on the ground are just as good.

So those who claim that the Bible was a great introduction to sanitary habits needs to read it a bit more.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Richard Carrier and the Talmud

In Dr. Kipp Davis' YouTube video "Reviewing Richard Carrier's "On the Historicity of Jesus", part 1" , He brings...