Tumah, Taharah, and Torah as Fire - Parashat Tazria
The concepts of tumah and taharah , ritual impurity and purity, can sound uncomfortable to our modern ears. They sound to many of us like ‘bad’ and ‘good’. It is bad to be impure; it is good to be pure. However, there’s something a little more complex than that in the Torah’s concepts of tumah and taharah . I will remind you, for example, that contact with a dead body brings a person into a state of tumah , of ritual impurity - and it is a mitzvah, a religious obligation, to care for the deceased. Therefore, it cannot be the case that tumah (ritual impurity) is bad and taharah (ritual purity) is good. So what are these categories for, if not distinguishing the good from the bad? This week’s parashah has been concerned with two experiences that bring an individual from a state of taharah (ritual purity) into a state of tumah (ritual impurity): tzara’at, the mysterious skin affliction, and childbirth. The Torah does not tell us what these people have in common, but it becomes clear
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