Returning to Sanctity D’var Torah for Parashat Tazria By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman The third book of the Torah, Leviticus, is first and foremost a priestly manual. It contains detailed instructions concerning the many kinds of sacrifices that were offered at the Temple in Jerusalem, including the exact location in the Temple compound where specific sacrifices would be offered and even the precise time of day at which these rites were performed.
Rules and regulations for the priests’ behavior and duties extend beyond the Temple grounds. According to Leviticus, the priests were also expected to keep a wary eye on health problems that might arise with people as well as with material objects such as clothing and houses.
But unlike other priestly manuals, which were kept secret so as to protect the mysteries associated with the rituals and belief systems of other peoples, Leviticus is an open book. In fact, many of its instructions are addressed not to the Levites, but to the general population. The magnificent message of this exceptional book is that holiness is an equal opportunity blessing. It isn’t only the property of God and God’s ministering priests. The very act of bringing a sacrifice to God and presenting it to the priest makes a person holy, no less so than the priest whose duty it is to slaughter the animal and put it upon the altar.
As with the priests, the people’s holiness isn’t confined to the Temple grounds. It extends to our dwellings, to our daily interaction with one another, to the way we treat one another, and even to the way we treat ourselves.
Last week’s Torah portion, Shemini, offers a discussion of kosher and unkosher foods. Following the same theme—tohora and tum’ah—ritual purity and impurity are the chief concerns of this week’s Torah portion, Tazria (Leviticus 12:1—13:59). These terms refer to a physical and spiritual state of being which determines whether we are prepared to sense holiness and to enter into a relationship with our God. A person who is declared healed after a period of illness, quarantine and examination must go through a ritual of purification which enables him or her to re-enter the camp and participate once again in all its social, cultural and religious features. Likewise, menstruation and childbearing were seen as conditions which necessitated a woman to be secluded from the rest of society for a prescribed length of time; after this set time, the woman is free to return to her normal life—but only after performing the special rituals described in this portion.
I remember when my wife, Sally, was in labor with our first-born child, Hannah. It was late at night when I drove up to the hospital and parked the car. Naturally, only the emergency entrance was open at that time, but Sally refused to go in that way. “This isn’t an emergency!” she exclaimed. “I’m just having a baby!” We finally did find some entrance by which we came in, where we were met by kind people who could not understand how we bypassed all the usual procedures and who led us to where we needed to go….
Yet until not too long ago, childbearing was a life-endangering situation, as often enough it still is even today. And in any case human sexuality and reproduction were seen as a mysterious realm, subject to laws that no one understood and that were totally out of our control. Like other such circumstances, the woman giving birth was seen as being in a state of tum’ah, ritual impurity, one that necessitated a sacrificial offering.
Today, prayers are offered instead of sacrifice. A special blessing called Birkat ha-Gomel traditionally is said by a woman after delivering a child, by person who comes back to health after a dangerous illness, or by a traveler who returns home from a dangerous voyage. The purpose of this blessing is not merely to thank God for deliverance, but—in light of the rituals of parashat Tazria—to enable us to return to our state of tohora, the condition of purity. Our life-long, all-too-human journeys across oceans and deserts, our excursions into the mysterious and dangerous realms of illness and childbirth, take us to regions far removed from the safety and comfort of home and community. On such occasions, we question not only our own existence, but often also the existence of God. Upon returning home again, only after performing these special rituals of purification can we think of ourselves as being once again tahor, “primed,” once again able to sense God’s holiness within us, once again permitted to participate in normal, everyday communal activities.
One of my favorite parts of the “re-entry” sacrifice as described in parashat Tazria involves the release of a live bird. A gesture that is still practiced on special occasions, the symbolism of a bird released from its cage and allowed to fly free is not hard to understand. The ancient rituals described in Tazria may be antiquated, but their purpose and function are still valid today. Like the bird spreading its wings and flying up to the heavens, so are we once again able to come and go, free to commune with God and our loved ones. It is an occasion that calls for blessing and celebration.
It is, after all, our homecoming.
©2011 by Boaz D. Heilman
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