Rabbi Michael Leo Samuel

Since the time of Maimonides (cf. Guide 3:46), most modern people associate the biblical term טֻמְאָה (tuma = “uncleanliness”) as something dirty, or filthy. Among farm animals, the pig has the worst reputation. Many societies used to clean their sewers with pigs, which delight in eating human excrement (Maimonides refers to the Franks as a case in point). There is also a common tendency to reduce the idea of tuma to a purely physical phenomena.

Biblical translations by and large also reinforce this popular misunderstanding. Oftentimes the biblical translation renders טֻמְאָה as “filth” or “contamination.” As proof for this notion, examples are frequently cited from the list of “unclean” animals which were considered too “detestable” and revolting to eat. In contrast, people often think animals that are considered tahor are because they are perceived as being clean and bereft of filthy habits.

If impurity were just a purely “physical” phenomena, then a ritual bathing would certainly suffice for reentry into the temple or shrine. However, in order for a person to be ritually purified, there are many ritual steps that must be undertaken. To mention a few, one may also have to bring an offering in addition, wait for the sun to set, and lastly, undergo ritual immersion.

To really appreciate what purity and impurity is, we must examine these terms according to the symbology of ancient Israel. To begin with, both of these terms are relative only in relationship to faith community’s relationship to the Sacred.

Anthropological studies show that cultic boundaries serve to keep the integrity of sacred space intact; it also serves to protect the secular realm from invading its space. To gain entry into a sacred space, the worshiper must first be in a “pure” state; being “impure” does not allow entry into the sacred at all.

Commoner and High Priest alike cannot enter or participate at the sacred precinct without undergoing the necessary cultic purification. To willfully do so, was believed by the ancients to imperil one’s soul. By the same token, to partake of holy foods, one must be in a state of ritual purity (Lev. 7:20-21; Deut. 26:14).

From a structural and mythic perspective, all the substances mentioned in the Torah which induce ritual impurity are all-in one way or another-associated with the reality of death. Whether it be a human corpse, or the carcass of a permitted or an unclean animal, touching these items, or being even within an enclosure with a man who has just died, renders all the persons who were in it or might enter it, and all the open vessels that were there (Num. 19:11, 14-16).

Not only does this pertain to the loss of actual life, it applies even to the unfulfilled potential for life. The Torah has said on many occasions that blood is the carrier of the life principle commonly referred to as the soul. Saadia Gaon was probably the first medieval Jewish thinker to observe that once any organ or for that matter, any part of the body which becomes detached from life, has the power to convey ritual impurity.^[1]

Saadia’s theory would also explain at least in general comprehensive terms^[2] why all body fluids, e.g, menstrual blood, semen and other discharges (Lev. 15) all symbolized the flow of life, and on some level, represented, a kind of death^[3] or at the very least, reminded a person of the bodily decomposition which occurs after the time of death, when the bodily secretions run amok inside and outside the body. The rabbis went so far as to say that two-thirds of a pint of blood (a.k.a. a “log”) ritually defiles as well.^[4]

The same idea would also explain, why leprosy (or more precisely,) “fungal” or “scaling disease” fall into this category (cf. Num. 12:12). Images of a decomposed hand, or the withering the human skin, would certainly make the infected person feel as if s/he was a character from the “Night of the Living Dead.”

While death is certainty for all flesh, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and the Oriental faiths view the heavenly realm as the true home of the soul. For these reasons and more, the concept of ceremonial purity is always bound up with that which is holy and eternal.

On the deepest ontological level, the laws governing purity and impurity remind us of our duo nature, both as finite creatures who occupy the continum of time and space, and as beings who are endowed with an eternal identity which is rooted in God. On the one hand, physically, man is an epiphenomenon in this world, as the Psalmist said, “As for man, his days are like grass; he flourishes like a flower of the field . . .” (Psa. 103:15).

Despite his earthbound destination, man is paradoxically, the bio-centric object of God’s ceaseless love, Who set apart and designed him in the Divine image. The Creator of the universe endowed human beings with a unique and trans-personal identity that links the soul to the world of eternity. For these reasons and more, whenever a person attempts to bring purity and holiness to one’s earthly existence, man breaks free from the shackles of the physical and temporal world and with God’s help and grace, he will hopefully evolve into something much more.

^[1] Saadia Gaon, Emunah V’Deot 6:4.

^[2] While Saadia’s insight is significant it is not all encompassing in its details. Nowhere does the Torah or the Mishnaic texts suggest that fingernails, dead skin, or hair that is cut conveys ritual impurity unless it comes from a corpse (cf. Temurah 7:4).

^[3] Out of this attitude, emerged the theological notion of ethical purity a popular prophetic theme - which aims to cultivate and bring the worshiper to a refined inner state of mind, conscience and behavior which is consistent with ritual purity. Among modern anthropologists, Levi-Bruhl has long held that among primal peoples, the rituals of purification are affected by the emotional makeup of the worshiper. Feelings of anxiety can effect the ultimate outcome of a rite and refers to this notion as the “bewitching effects of ill-will” (Primitives and the Supernatural, [trans. Clare] London, 1936, 186).

^[4] Cf. T.B. Bava Kama 101b; T.B. Sanhedrin 4b.