Ritual Purity and Impurity

 

A. Prohibition and mitzva relating to ritual impurity

 

     We shall open with a discussion regarding the scope of the laws of ritual purity and impurity. In what situations are these laws relevant? Is there a mitzva to be ritually pure? Is there a prohibition to remain in a state of ritual impurity? Rambam's position on the matter is clearly stated:

 

Everything written in the Torah and in the words of tradition regarding the laws of ritual impurity and purity applies only to the Temple and its holy sacrifices, to terumot and to second-tithe. For [the Torah] warns the ritually impure not to enter the Temple or eat consecrated food, teruma, or tithe in a defiled state. Regarding non-consecrated food, however, there is no prohibition whatsoever, but rather one is permitted to eat ritually impure food and drink ritually impure beverages. Surely, the Torah states: "And the flesh that touches any unclean thing shall not be eaten" (Vayikra 7:19) – implying that regarding non-consecrated food this is permitted, for it talks there about the flesh of sacrifices. (Rambam, Hilkhot Tum'at Okhelin 16:8)

 

This accords with the plain sense of the talmudic passages: the prohibitions regarding ritual impurity are relevant only with respect to the holy. There is no prohibition to become ritually impure, nor is there a prohibition to eat non-consecrated food that is ritually impure. All that is forbidden is to eat consecrated food or enter the Temple in a defiled state.

 

The Gemara, however, mentions another obligation regarding ritual impurity:

 

And Rabbi Yitzchak said: A person is obligated to purify himself on a festival, as it is stated: "And their carcass you shall not touch" (Vayikra 11:8). (Rosh ha-Shana 16b)

 

The Gemara's working assumption throughout the passage is that a person is under no obligation to be ritually pure with respect to non-consecrated foods. The Baraita, however, states that a person is obligated to purify himself on a festival. Rambam understands that this obligation stems from the fact that a person enters the Temple on festivals (Tum'at Okhelim 16:10). It might be suggested, however, that the Baraita is saying that similar to the sanctity of place that is expressed in the Temple, so too the sanctity of time that is expressed in the Festivals requires purity. Rabbenu Sa'adya Ga'on rules that even today one must immerse in a mikve in preparation for the High Holy Days and recite a blessing prior to immersion (Otzar ha-Ge'onim, Rosh ha-Shana 16b). This is certainly entirely unconnected to the Temple. Expression is given here to a fundamental Jewish concept: not all places and not all times are equal. Judaism believes in graduated sanctity: this being an imperfect world, ideal conduct is restricted to specific times and specific places.

 

     The question may be raised whether or not we should aspire to widen the bounds of sanctity. Should we imitate the way we behave in holy places and at holy times in all places and at all times? A distinction should, perhaps, be made between different modes of conduct. For example, it is clear that Yom Kippur was never meant to serve as an ideal for normal conduct throughout the year. The unique force of Yom Kippur stems from the fact that it is only one day a year that we are asked to separate ourselves from our human elements. As for the prohibition to work on Shabbat and the Festivals, the Sages have already stated: "Just as Israel was commanded about Shabbat, so were they commanded about work." That is to say, the prohibition against working on holy days is meaningful only when viewed against the backdrop of creative activity the rest of the year. What about purity? Is it desirable to extend it? We know that in the days of Chazal there were people who ate non-consecrated food in purity, a practice that was encouraged by the Rabbis. Why? Let us consider what Rambam says in this context:

 

Even though it is permissible to eat ritually impure food and drink ritually impure beverages, the early Pietists would eat non-consecrated foods in purity, and guard themselves against all forms of ritual impurity all their days. They were called Perushim (=those who separate themselves). This is extra holiness and the path of piety, that a person should distinguish and separate himself from the rest of the people, and not come into physical contact with them, and not eat or drink with them. For separation leads to purity of the body from evil deeds, and purity of the body leads to holiness of the soul from evil traits, and holiness of the soul brings about resemblance to the Shekhina, as the verse states: "You shall therefore sanctify yourselves, and you shall be holy, for I am holy (Vayikra 11:44). (Rambam, Hilkhot Tum'at Okhelim 16:12)

 

It is not entirely clear, according to Rambam, why distancing oneself from ritual impurity is so praiseworthy. Is the focus on distancing oneself from the common masses, a side effect of meticulous observance of the laws of purity (as was indeed the result of the barriers erected between chaverim and amei ha-aretz in the time of Chazal)? Or perhaps the most important point is the separation from the ritual impurity itself. It is interesting to note how in typical fashion Rambam views separation from evil actions as a mere preparation for the separation from evil traits, which is the ultimate goal.

 

Rashi, in contrast, speaks of a much more practical objective of separating from ritual impurity:

 

A person who ordinarily eats consecrated foods accepts upon himself to eat his unconsecrated foods in the purity required for the holy. [This he does] in order that the members of his household should be careful and knowledgeable about the purity required for the holy. (Rashi, Chagiga 19b, s.v. shena'asu)

 

According to Rashi, we are not dealing here with a matter of principle, but with a training exercise for the eating of consecrated foods.

 

THe meaning of ritual purity and impurity

 

     Many Jewish authorities have noted that the laws of ritual impurity symbolize the obligation to distance oneself from death. Let us consider the various forms of ritual impurity:
 

…The divisions of ritual impurity as they are formulated in the Torah are eleven: the impurity of a creeping creature, the impurity of a carcass, the impurity of a corpse, the impurity of semen, the impurity of the water of a purifying offering, the impurity of a purifying offering, the impurity of a man suffering from gonorrhea, the impurity of a woman who experiences a flow of menstrual-type blood at a time when she does not expect to experience menstrual bleeding, the impurity of a woman experiencing menstrual bleeding, the impurity of a woman following childbirth, the impurity of leprosy. (Rambam, introduction to Seder Taharot)

 

The most severe source of ritual impurity is a human corpse, which imparts impurity one level higher than any other original source of impurity. Here we find the first hint at a connection between ritual impurity and death. A creeping creature and a carcass cause defilement only when they are dead, and not while they are still alive. The impurity of semen (as well as the impurity of a man suffering from gonorrhea) symbolizes the unrealized potential for procreation. (This is notwithstanding the fact that a woman contracts the impurity of semen through ordinary intercourse, even if she becomes pregnant as a result; she becomes defiled because there is an emission of procreative material from the man's body). A similar explanation applies to the impurity of a woman who experiences menstrual bleeding or the flow of menstrual-type blood – the impurity represents the child that was not born. The impurity of a woman following childbirth paradoxically represents the impurity of a woman who has lost the potential for bringing forth life (it is the mother who is impure, and not the child!). The impurity of leprosy stems from the fact that a leper is regarded as if he were dead. As Moshe said about Miryam when she was suffering from leprosy: "Let her not be as one dead, of whom the flesh is half consumed when he comes out of his mother's womb" (Bamidbar 12:12).

 

Ritual impurity signifies death – severance from nature. This explains why things belonging to the world of nature do not contract ritual impurity. For example, anything that is attached to the ground does not contract ritual impurity; live animals do not contract ritual impurity; and the like. Only man and his world contract ritual impurity. Purity represents perfect nature and life. The classic way of purification involves immersion in a mikve – immersion in the waters of creation, uniting with nature.[2]

 

Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik explains that the laws of ritual impurity symbolize the rejection of death and the confirmation of this world. Judaism does not view death as a positive transition to a world that is entirely good, but as a cessation of life in this world. Man was created in order to live in this world, and it is in this world that he finds the reason for his existence:

 

Judaism has a negative attitude toward death: a corpse defiles, a grave defiles … He whose holiness is of a higher order than the holiness of his fellow is subject o a more sever prohibition against defilement. An ordinary priest may defile himself for his seven relatives, the high priest (and similarly the Nazirite) many not defile himself even for them.

Many religions view the phenomenon of death as a positive spectacle, inasmuch as it highlights and sensitizes the religious consciousness and "sensibility." They, therefore, sanctify death and the grave because it is here that we find ourselves at the threshold of transcendence, at the portal of the world to come… Judaism, however, proclaims that coming into contact with the dead precipitates defilement. Judaism abhors death, organic decay, and dissolution. It bids one to choose life and sanctify it. Authentic Judaism as reflected in halakhic thought sees in death a terrifying contradiction to the whole of religious life. (Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Halakhic Man, p. 31)

 

     Other Jewish thinkers see the focus of Judaism's struggle with death differently. Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch also understands that the laws of ritual purity and impurity represent Judaism's war against death. This is what he writes:

 

For in fact there lies before us actual evidence that man must willy-nilly submit to the power of physical forces … All these are truths which, in face of human frailty and the powers of the forces of Nature which the appearance of Death preaches, are to be brought again and again to the minds of living people, so that they remain conscious of their unique position of freedom in the midst of the physical world and remain for ever armed in proud consciousness of their freedom. (Rabbi Samson R. Hirsch, commentary to Vayikra 11:47)

 

Rabbi Hirsch explains the war against death in a direction precisely the opposite of that of Rabbi Soloveitchik. The war against death is a war against nature. According to Rabbi Hirsch, a corpse symbolizes man's submission to nature, his loss of free choice. The rejection of death means choosing to transcend nature. Rabbi Soloveitchik interprets death as symbolizing the emancipation of the soul, and the struggle with death as a symbol of the confirmation of the body. Rabbi Hirsch explains death as symbolizing the body that is left bereft of its soul, it becoming part of naked nature, and the struggle with death as a symbol of the vitality of the soul.

 

     Nobody has described the connection between death and raw instinct better than the German author Thomas Mann in his marvelous allegorical work, "The Magic Mountain." Mann tells the story of a German youth, Hans Castorp, who goes to visit a sanitarium in the Swiss Alps for a short period of time and is captivated by the cult of illness and instinct that fills the place. Hans ends up staying on the mountain for seven years until the outbreak of World War I forces him to leave. Hans is aware of the unique atmosphere of the place, and describes it to himself and to others:

 

The body, love, and death – these three ideas are all one and the same. For the body – i.e., illness - and desire lead to death. Yes, they are both physical, love and death, this is their dread and their great magic! (Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain)

 

One of Hans' teachers explains to him over and over again the nature of this awesome and mysterious connection between raw instinct and death:

 

Death unties the chains of morality and virtue, it redeems from all righteous conduct, it emancipates for the sake of desire. (ibid.)

 

Death is liable to uproot man's spiritual awareness. When a person sees a corpse lying lifeless before him, totally subject to the laws of nature, lacking spirit and awareness, he is liable to forget his spiritual destiny and view physical nature as reflecting all of reality.

 

     Is there a contradiction here? Do Rabbi Hirsch and Rabbi Soloveitchik disagree about Judaism's approach to the issue? It appears that there is no contradiction. Death separates man's two components – his body and his soul. Focusing on death will, therefore, lead to emphasis being placed on one of these two components in isolation: the naked body or the unclothed soul. Judaism rejects focusing on either one of them by itself, and maintains that the perfect man is one who joins together body – which is directed by the soul – and soul – which acts via the body. This seems to be Rabbi Yishma'el's message in his famous parable:

 

This may be likened to a king who had an orchard in which there were fine early figs. He set two guards to watch over [the orchard], one lame and one blind. He said to them: "Be especially cautious with regard to the early figs." He let them be and went off. The lame man said to the blind one: "I see fine early figs." He said to him: "Let us eat them." He said to him: "Am I able to walk?" The blind man answered: "Can I see?" What did they do? The lame man mounted the blind one, and they picked the figs and ate them.  They went back and sat down, each one in his own place. One day the king came. He said to them: "Where are the early figs?" The blind man said: "Can I see?" The lame man said: "Am I able to walk?" The clever king, what did he do? He mounted the lame man on the blind one and judged them as one. He said to them: "This is what you did in order to eat them."

So too in the future the Holy One, blessed be He, will say to the soul: "Why did you sin before me?" It will say to Him: "Master of the Universe, have I sinned before you? The body sinned. From the day that I departed from it, have I sinned?" [God] will say to the body: "Why did you sin?" It will say before Him: "Master of the Universe, it is the soul that has sinned! From the day that it left, am I not cast before you like a shard on top of a dung heap?" What will the Holy One, blessed be He, do? He will return the soul to the body, and judge them together. (Vayikra Rabba 4, 5)

 

This parable relates to the body and soul as a single entity, which bears responsibility for their joint actions in this world. Relating to man as a two-faceted creature, neither one of which may be overlooked, does not exhaust itself in the rabbinic teachings with the question of responsibility which expresses itself on Judgment Day. Chazal maintain that the mutual co-existence of body and soul is the ideal state for the two of them. This is how the Sages depict the dialogue between a soul that is about to be sent to a body and God:

 

The spirit opened its mouth and said before Him: "Master of the Universe, the world in which I had lived from the day You created me sufficed for me. Why do You wish to put me into this putrid drop, when I am holy and pure, and cut from Your glory?" Immediately, the Holy One, blessed be He, said to the soul: "The world into which I will be placing you is better for you than the one in which you [now] dwell; and when I fashioned you, I fashioned you only for this drop." (Tanchuma, Pekudei)

 

A single principle stands behind Judaism's recoiling from death: death separates between the two components that during man's lifetime adhere together – the body and the soul. Those who draw their inspiration from death will lead material lives that lack direction or unattached spiritual lives. As we have stated, Judaism rejects both approaches. In the future, all men will live eternal lives – soul within body. Death does not separate man from this world for eternity; he will return to it in the future, to live his physical life as God's servant in this world. It is this form of existence that is most fitting in God's eyes.

 

FOOTNOTES

 

[1] The impurity of a purifying offering and the impurity of the water of a purifying offering – he who involves himself in the offering of the red heifer and or with the water into which its ashes are mixed – are indeed exceptional. Here the impurity relates to the process and not to the material with which the person came into contact. It must still be explained why this purification process defiles. As for the red heifer, Chazal have already applied to it the verse: "I said, I will be wise, but it was far from me" (Kohelet 7:23).

 

[2] How different is Judaism's concept of immersion from Christianity's understanding of "baptism"! We shall bring here a representative sample of Luther's words in this context: "Baptism symbolizes two things – death and resurrection, that is, perfect and total justification, for when the child is immersed in the water, it symbolizes death, and when he is taken out it symbolizes life… When we begin to believe, we begin to die in this world, and to live in God in the future life … The sinner, more than he must be immersed in water, must die, so that he will be totally renewed and become a new creature… For everything that we do in this life that serves to kill the flesh and breathe life into the spirit pertains to baptism, and the earlier we free ourselves from life, the more speedily will we fulfill our baptism" (Martin Luther, Four Theological Treatises, Tel Aviv, 2001, pp. 141-142).

 

(Translated by Rav David Strauss)