Saturday

[cellio]

Hebrew notes:
lameid: to learn
talmid: student ("learner")
melameid: teacher
talmud: teaching (noun)
Let's see if I can generalize the pattern yet. If "rodef" means "to pursue", does that mean that a pursuer is a "tardif", the one being pursued is a "merodef", and "pursuit" is "tarduf"? That feels wrong. (This isn't a great example, but it was the first verb that came to mind.) I wish I could develop the intuitive grasp for the grammar that Dani has but cannot explain.

The Torah-study group has gotten to the beginning of Tazria, the part of Leviticus about various impurities caused by various emissions. I really pity kids who get Tazria for a bar-mitzvah portion.

Our assistant rabbi has a commentary he's fond of (the editor's name is Milgram; I don't have more), but I disagree with some of the stuff he was reading from that on Saturday. I ended up being more challenging than usual, and essentially sent him off with questions for further study. That's not how that's supposed to work. :-) (My rabbi had already had to leave by then. I'd be interested in hearing his take on some of this. Perhaps next week.)

For instance, according to the Torah one is made tamei (ritually "impure") if one exports semen, menses, or lochial blood. The rabbi was making the argument that these are all the same type of situation. The commentary was making the argument that the reason for the impurity is contact with pseudo-death -- that is, these emissions represent the loss of a potential life, and, like a corpse, this makes one impure temporarily. At least one of these assertions is clearly wrong, because lochial blood has nothing to do with loss of (potential) life. Quite the opposite.

At one point the rabbi said something like "of course, you do all realize this is all academic now anyway, right?". He asserted that because we don't have the temple, there is no way for people to become tahor (ritually purified), so we're all impure, and we're stuck. I disagree, at least until he shows a source. Isn't that what the mikvah is for? Isn't that why women visit the mikvah monthly, and some men visit at least weekly, before Shabbat?

If we are all tamei anyway, then why does anyone worry about becoming tamei? There are not greater and lesser degrees of impurity; you are or you aren't. It's a toggle, not a matter of degree. Yet I see people in the traditional movements who are quite clearly concerned with these matters, which means they at least think it's not a lost cause.

(In contrast, sinning is not not a toggle. For example, if you violate Shabbat by lighting a fire, and then later by harvesting your grain, and then later by baking bread, you have sinned three times (or more), not once. The manifestation of this is that, when the temple stood, you were liable for an offering (a "chatat", or sin-offering) for each offense. But there is not a corresponding idea with ritual impurity; you don't have to go to the mikvah once for each thing that made you impure.)

Odd trivia of the week: after a woman gives birth, she is required (well, when the temple stood) to bring a chatat, a sin-offering. Why a sin-offering? What sin is involved in childbirth? The answer, according to unnamed sages (that is, I'm sure they're named, but they weren't cited to me) is that sometime during labor she may well have said some inappropriate things due to the pain, and this is "just in case".

Comments

[eub.livejournal.com]

"lochial" is my new word for today. thanks!

[goljerp]

Our assistant rabbi has a commentary he's fond of (the editor's name is Milgram; I don't have more

That's got to be Jacob Milgrom. He was the editor of one of the 5 volume JPS Torah Commentary. Much of that commentary (and some additional stuff) is in the one-volume Etz Chayim. Although looking at the introduction of that, they say he did Numbers in the JPS, so he must have done another commentary on Levitics. (Checks Amazon) Ah, here we go: it must be the Anchor Bible commentary on Leviticus (in two volumes; ISBN for the first is 0385114346... a bit pricey, though...). He's also a nice man in person; I had lunch at his home in Jerusalem once. (I was there with some friends to spend time with his wife, Jo Milgrom, who is a gifted artist.)

Tamei/Tahor

[goljerp]

First of all, I'm going to use "tamei" and "tahor", with all sorts of ungrammatical englishisms, instead of saying "impure" and "pure" because saying 'impure/pure' has too many connotations in english.

At one point the rabbi said something like "of course, you do all realize this is all academic now anyway, right?". He asserted that because we don't have the temple, there is no way for people to become tahor (ritually purified), so we're all impure, and we're stuck. I disagree, at least until he shows a source. Isn't that what the mikvah is for? Isn't that why women visit the mikvah monthly, and some men visit at least weekly, before Shabbat?

Hm... Well, it's sure that we don't have the ashes of the Red Heifer, which is a pretty powerful tahorizer (and also tameizer, too). But I agree with you that the Mikveh is a way of becoming tahor. (Maybe it only works for certain things, and not for becoming tamei from a dead body?)

But regardless, I would argue something different: since we don't have the temple, it doesn't matter if we're tahor or tamei. Ok, so if you're tamei, then you can't offer a sacrifice. Big deal - even if you're tahor, you can't do that now. In the torah, the implication is that if there's too much tameiness around the tent of meeting/temple, then God will get upset and leave it. Well, it already happened...

One common myth is that someone who is tamei cannot touch the Torah. Not true. So in practical life, it's not a big deal if one is tamei.

If we are all tamei anyway, then why does anyone worry about becoming tamei?

Good question. The analogue that I would ask would be "If it doesn't matter if we're tamei, why does anyone worry about it?". My answer: because we (the Jewish people) are neurotic. Or, more seriously, this is an old custom where some parts have fallen out of practice, but other parts have remained. You can also become tamei by being in contact with a dead person; I've never heard of women doctors or nurses who touch dead people as part of their work going to the mikveh afterwards. Theoretically, men become tamei after each nocturnal emission. Now, I can't speak for other men, but I think that they should be going much more than once a week... and the practice of men going to the mikveh is much less common (even in the Orthodox world) than women going.

Now, don't take this as my thinking that the practice of Mikveh should be abolished. I think that there are some things that ought to be tweaked (e.g. 7 days from the beginning of menses turned into 7 days from the end somewhere along the way, which can cause problems for some women), but it's a custom that I've found very meaningful in my life... it's just that it doesn't have so much to do with the original reasons anymore. (An interesting thing to look at is the literature in America exhorting women to go to the Mikveh. But that's another topic altogether...)

[goljerp]

There are not greater and lesser degrees of impurity; you are or you aren't. It's a toggle, not a matter of degree.

Yes. Which means that we have a binary system. So you could build a computer which uses tamei/tahor as the two states. The Red Heifer can be used to make impure pure (and also pure impure); dead things make thing impure... so we've got ways of switching states. It is left as an exercise for the reader to construct a NAND gate in this system. :-)

[figmo.livejournal.com]

Hmph. I was looking for the "squick" part and didn't notice anything particularly "squicky."

Re: Hebrew, my favorite mnemonic was always "me is who and hu is he and he is she."

--Lynn