Tazria –Metsora

 

In order to ensure enough portions for the leap years when there is an extra month of Torah readings to find; in a regular year, some of the portions are doubled up. This is what is happening this week, where Orthodox synagogues will read the two portions Tazria and Metsora.  We however will focus just on the beginning of parashat Tazria.

 

We are told, that when a woman has a child, the blood that comes with the birth renders her unclean for seven days. In that time, she cannot have any physical contact with her husband, cook his food, or sit anywhere he is likely to sit.  On the eighth day, if it is a boy, he is circumcised.  She, however, remains in a ‘purifying state’ for another thirty three days during which time she cannot enter the sanctuary or offer sacrifice.  If however the child is a girl, the mother remains unclean for two weeks and in a purifying state for another sixty six days.

 

The portion arouses a lot of anger in women today.  What is it saying?  The act of childbirth is ‘impure’?  That women are ‘impure?’ That girls are more ‘impure’ than boys since they render the mother untouchable for longer?

 

The answer is both ‘yes’ and ‘no’.  Yes, in that these writings in Leviticus were produced by men thousands of years ago, when women were considered chattels and objects. They were ‘other’ and slightly disgusting.  The concern was that men may be ‘contaminated’ by the blood of the women, which would render them unable to offer up sacrifices.

 

But the answer is also ‘no.’ The Hebrew word for impurity is ‘Tumah’. It does not mean ‘dirty’, but rather a state of ‘otherness’ of separation.  It is used to describe various holy objects and hence the story of Uzzah in the Book of Samuel. On the journey of the Holy Ark to Jerusalem, Uzzah took hold of it to stop it falling and was killed on the spot for his pains.  Hence also the fact that women can touch a Torah scroll when menstruating– since it, like her - is in this state of otherness or tumah.  She can touch a Torah scroll, but she can’t touch her husband! It shows tumah  to be something awesome, something religious. It is nolo me tangere - touch me not - as a matter of power, not of weakness or illness.

 

This has meant that a number of feminists today have reclaimed this portion as a means of demonstrating women’s power and independence from men.  They celebrate the double dose of separation on the birth of a girl as a sign of her specialness. On a less feminist and more practical basis, I have heard Indian Jewish women say how much they enjoyed the enforced rest that the law gave them after birth. They used to have a special hut in the village to which they would retreat for those months.  No cooking, no lifting, no carrying. All they had to do was to focus on their newborn and leave the domestic arrangements to someone else.

 

But there is a fine line between ‘touch me not’ and ‘untouchables’.  Which is why some people think this the most empowering of passages for women in the Bible and others think it appalling.  It should help to realise that Jewish interpretation is not about what things meant in days of old, but really, what it can mean for us today in an age where women are just as capable of understanding the Bible as are men.

 

Sybil Sheridan