Shabbos Parashas Tazria - 5776

Shabbos Parashas Tazria - 5776

Rabbi Hal Miller

Speak to the children of Israel, saying: When a woman conceives and gives birth

to a male, she shall be impure for a seven-day period, as during the days of her

menstruant infirmity shall she be impure. [Vayikra 12:2]

The Torah commands us to have children and populate the world. Throughout

Judaism we have indications that having children is a great thing. Why is it that our

verse puts ritual impurity upon a woman for giving birth? Why is the child not tameh?

We see something similar where the kohen who sprinkles the water of the Parah

Adumah upon a tameh person, himself becomes tameh even though the one who

receives the sprinkling becomes pure. A possible explanation for both is that it is a

Torah law that we will never understand. But is there in fact something we can learn?

Rashi gives us two possible explanations. The first, this whole section is intended to

show that even though man and beast have similarities, man has something extra,

something different. Rashi's second explanation is a medical one, that the woman

becomes weakened through the loss of material from her body. But neither of these

have a clear and obvious tie to tumah, nor do they answer our question.

Ramban agrees that this is not a matter of illness, but of "affliction" or "anguish",

which he ties to the nature of a woman, but he does not explain why this would come

up in our verse.

Rav Hirsch thinks that our verse is telling us about how tumah laws in general apply.

He says, "The tumah laws apply only to the Jewish people, but by the word Isha, they

apply to every woman who belongs to the Jewish community, and so include servants

and converts."

Nechama Leibowitz makes an interesting observation, citing Abarbanel: "The reason

seems to be that a woman after childbirth would bring a burnt-offering on entering the

Sanctuary once her period of purification had terminated in order to cleave to her

Maker Who had performed wonderous things for her, in delivering her from the pain

and danger of birth." Leibowitz then explains this as, "Perhaps the new life within her

made her deeply conscious of the greatness of the Creator and of her insignificance

as dust and ashes and impurity."

The purpose of our verse, then, is not to make the woman impure, but to help bring

the woman close to G-d.

Nachshoni brings the idea that this is a demonstration of G-d's Attribute of mercy. In

this vein, we can understand that the child is not also tameh, as the child is not in a

position to learn this lesson.