Peaks and Valleys

The goal of reaching the peak requires that we know that we are now in a valley. Each peak becomes the next valley, so that we continue to grow. METZORA METZORA

Misunderstood

One of the most misunderstood concepts of Torah is the idea of Tumah, which is usually translated as “impurity” or “uncleanness,” implying that somehow the person who “carries” this spirit of impurity is spiritually inferior.

This week’s Parsha categorically dispels this erroneous understanding of the idea of Tumah. It begins with a description of the state of Tumah that applies to a woman who had given birth. For a week or two— depending on whether the offspring is a boy or a girl—the mother is designated as tamei, which translators render impure or unclean.

How can one explain how childbirth—the most phenomenal, glorious and divine lifeexperience—renders one unclean? And if one METZORA would stubbornly argue that, indeed, the Torah does consider this woman spiritually inferior, it would lead to the ludicrous conclusion that it is undesirable to have children, since it is certainly undesirable to do something to render oneself spiritually degenerate. This absurd conclusion is easily dismissed when one realizes that the very first Biblical commandment is to be fruitful and multiply.

Now that we have concluded that tumah does not render an individual morally or spiritually repugnant or deficient, why then does the Torah use a term—tumah or tamei—for a woman after childbirth, a word that is also used pejoratively to describe people whose behavior is morally wanting.

The Uniqueness of the Holy Tongue

The answer lies in a better understanding of the Hebrew language, or more precisely, the Holy Tongue.. One word can even be used for concepts that are poles apart. But because they share some characteristics they can be identified by the same term.

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For example: The word for bread “lechem” shares the same root as waging war “lochem.” Would anyone suggest that baking or eating bread is an act of war?

One explanation for the connection between bread and war is that the process of producing bread involves a struggle that is metaphorically likened to a war. One must contend with the earth, till it, remove the thorns, etc. After the earth is “subdued” and is receptive to the sowing process, one must plant the grain, add the necessary nutrients and all the other processes that are involved in the production of bread—the symbol for all material goods. This is all regarded as a war in one very limited sense of the word.

Positive and Negative

Similarly, the word tamei is shared by someone who is physically unclean, morally deficient and by a person who goes through certain life experiences that are positive, as well.

Let me explain.

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Life is a process that has its peaks and valleys. When a person reaches a high point, it is difficult to imagine that one can go even higher. Yet, life demands precisely that—that we never stay in one place. We must constantly strive for greater spiritual heights. To facilitate that, G-d designed His world with opportunities to grow by “compelling” us to backtrack.

In the physical realm, sleep is a prime example of this process. By forcing us to rest and desist from all of our accomplishments during the past day, we are able to not only maintain our previous high, but to grow beyond the achievements of the day before.

And yes, when a person awakens they are considered tamei. We therefore have a practice to wash our hands every morning as a way of recognizing that we went through a period where our energies were curtailed. Being mindful of the “valley” we were in, alerts us to the new challenge that we have today that compels us to rise to a higher peak than yesterday.

Likewise, when a woman has a child— METZORA because it is the most heightened spiritual state a human being can experience naturally, the mother must experience a certain period of withdrawal, which enables her to meet the challenge of growing even beyond the peak of childbirth in future weeks and months.

We can now understand how the same word—tamei—can be used for a person who is morally depraved and a woman who has just given birth. In both cases—although for opposite reasons—the person who is so designated, experiences a lull, a pause, a sense that they have just descended into a valley. The salient difference, obviously, is that when a person commits a moral offense he has fallen to a low of his own volition, whereas the woman who gives birth was provided with this “low” by the Divine process of childbirth.

Exile: Divinely Ordained Low

All of our experience in exile is also a Divinely ordained low. Its purpose is not to keep us low, but to challenge us to reach even greater heights than we could have ever reached METZORA when we had the Temple.

Conversely, we must remember that the purpose of the state of tumah, the lull that we have been experiencing for two thousand years, is for us to finally wake up and start a new dawn and a new day— the coming of Moshiach and the future Redemption.

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From the book Light from the Future: Parshas Tazria-Metzora by Rabbi Heschel Greenberg, published by the Jewish Discovery Center.