Project Genesis




The Land of Israel

The Temple

Understanding Tum’ah (Spiritual Uncleanliness)

Question: My son is studying for his Bar Mitzvah and his Torah portion is Leviticus 14:1-15:33. He is having trouble understanding the meaning of being unclean as it relates to the men’s and women’s discharges and other bodily functions. How can I help to understand this as it relates to his world. I am also having issues understanding the passages.

Answer: The section your son is studying is certainly one of the difficult sections for us to relate to. The “unclean” laws refer to a spiritual mark that mostly prohibits one from entering or using items that are set aside to be used strictly for service of God, such as the temple in Jerusalem and certain priestly gifts. Since we do not have a temple and do not give these gifts at this time, the laws of “unclean” are not applicable.

However, there are certainly lessons that even your son can appreciate. You will note that the common item that defines all the ways that make a person “unclean” is that the person came into close contact with something whose life force was diminished. This is most clear with the “unclean” that comes through contact with a corpse or dead carcass. However, it can also be seen in the portions your son is studying. The Metzora (wrongly translated as “leper”) has blotches of dead looking skin, which the Torah in another place says is a message to a person that he has spoken badly about someone. (Embarrassing a person is considered a form of verbal murder.) The bodily secretions that make a person unclean are all from the reproductive systems. Their leaving the body is a diminishing of the life potential that existed before the fluids were secreted.

Although death is a creation of God, it is a part of the creation that God tolerates for a greater purpose, to have choice in the world. Death is considered to be the result of poor choices. Life is the result of good choices. Those things that are purely for the service of God represent the choice of life. Choosing life and good repels death and evil. Therefore, those who come in contact with death (or the diminishing of life) may not come into contact with the intense life of the temple etc.

The message that your son can take from this portion is that there are clear choices in the world, some good and some not. We must strive for life.

Mazel Tov!—Rabbi David Shenker

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