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These divrei Torah were adapted from the hashkafa portion of Rabbi Yissochar Frand's Commuter Chavrusah Torah Tapes on the weekly Torah portion: Tape# 7, Self-Defense. Good Shabbos!
The Laws of "Spiritual" Nature Explain Tum'as Leidah
Parshas Tazria contains the law of Tum'as Leidah [impurity after childbirth]. After giving birth to a male child, a new mother is Tameh [impure] for seven days. However, after giving birth to a female child, a new mother is Tameh for fourteen days.
This is difficult to understand. One would think that after such a blessed event, which the parents have been longing for, the Torah would not want the mother to become Tameh. On the contrary, Tumah [impurity] is usually associated with some type of negative experience -- death, tzara'as (leprosy), etc. What is this concept that at the time of this joyous event of birth, the mother becomes tameh?
Additionally, it is perhaps even more difficult to understand this halacha because it seems chauvinistic. When a woman gives birth to a male, she is tameh for only seven days, but when she gives birth to a female, she is more tameh -- she's impure for fourteen days.
All the expositors of the Chumash try to explain this matter of the Torah imposing a Tum'ah immediately after the birth.
The Netziv in his Ha'amek Davar suggests that the whole concept of the Laws of Niddah - which result in a woman being permitted to her husband, and then prohibited to him, and then permitted again - are in order that (as a result of enforced absence) the woman will become more dear to her husband. Having someone available always can perhaps breed contempt, so the Torah provides us a time of "Niddah".
The Netziv explains that when a woman is pregnant, she usually does not see blood and consequently is not Tameh. Therefore, a person's wife is available to him the whole time, and the concept of the parsha of Niddah has been defeated. Consequently, immediately after birth, the Torah imposes a law of Tumah, to reinstate the concept of separation, so that after the separation, she will be more dear to her husband.
There is a different interpretation that can be said based on a teaching of the Kotzker Rebbe, zt"l:
When Chava, the first mother had her son, Kayin, she gave him that name because she said "Kanisi ish, es Hashem" [Bereshis 4:1] which literally means "I have acquired a man with G-d". Some however say that the word "Kanisi", does not come from the word "kinyan" meaning acquisition; but rather it has the same interpretation as in the expression "Koneh Shamayim v'Aretz" (Creator of the Heaven and Earth), meaning "to create".
Therefore, by saying "Kanisi ish, es Hashem," Chava was saying that when I had this baby I created a human being. I have gone from the role of someone who was created to the role of someone who is herself a Creator. Therefore it is "es Hashem" -- I am a partner, as it were, with G-d.
Chazal say that a person has three partners in his creation -- his father, his mother, and G-d. Chava was affirming this statement by saying "I have created a person together with G-d". What we have here is a situation where a person comes as close to being a Creator as humanly possible. When a woman is pregnant for nine months and then gives birth to a human being, at that moment she is a facsimile of a Ribbono shel Olam.
Therefore, during pregnancy and child birth, a woman is on a very high level. And after child birth? She is no longer pregnant. She is no longer a Creator. She is just a regular human being.
The Kotzker says that we have a rule in the laws of Tumah and Tahara: Tumah comes when there is a removal of holiness. When there is a level of kedusha and that kedusha is removed, in its place -- to fill up the vacuum -- Tumah comes.
Just as there are laws of physics and laws of nature; so too there are laws that govern spirituality. One of the laws of spirituality is that Tumah comes to fill the void left by the removal of the presence of Kedusha.
While a person is alive and vital, the person has Kedusha -- the person has a Neshama [soul]. When the person dies and the Neshama leaves, the Kedusha leaves. The removal of the kedusha leaves a void and in its stead comes a concept called Tumas Mes.
Therefore, says the Kotzker, the reason a woman is Tameh after giving birth -- despite the fact that the birth itself is a blessed event -- is because a void of Kedusha was created. While she was pregnant and giving birth she was at the height of human spiritual potential -- she was a facsimile of a Creator of Worlds. Now that she is no longer on that level, the Kedusha has been removed. In its place must come Tumah.
The Or Hachayim HaKadosh says that we can now understand why there is more Tumah after the birth of a girl than after the birth of a boy. Not, as some would say, because the Torah is sexist. Not because, chas v'Shalom [Heaven forbid], the Ribbono shel Olam is a chauvinist. On the contrary -- the reason there is more Tumah when a woman is pregnant with a girl is because there was then more Kedusha present. Not only was the woman on the highest spiritual level, because she was being a Creator, but she was creating another potential Creator. She was creating, of all things, a woman who could eventually go on to Create further. In this respect, because a woman carries and nurtures the baby, she has a closer closeness to the Ribbono shel Olam than a man. The removal of a higher level of Kedusha necessitates the arrival of a higher form of Tumah in its stead.
Glossary
Kedusha -- holiness
Tahara -- purity
Tumah -- impurity
Tumas Mes -- impurity caused by contact with dead body
Niddah Laws -- laws requiring separation of husband and wife during
her menstrual period.
Ribbono shel Olam -- Master of the World
Personalities & Sources:
Netziv -- Rav Naftali Tzvi Yehudah Berlin (1817-1893), son-in-law of
Rav Chaim Volozhiner and head of the Volozhin Yeshiva for
some 40 years.
Kotzker Rebbe -- Rav. Menachem Mendel of Kotzk (1787-1859) One of
the leading Polish Chassidic Rebbes.
Or HaChayim HaKadosh -- Rav Chaim ben Attar (1696-1743); Rabbi and
Rosh Yeshiva in Livorno, Italy and later
Jerusalem. Kabbalist and Talmudic scholar.
This week's write-up is adapted from the hashkafa portion of Rabbi Yissochar Frand's Commuter Chavrusah Torah Tapes on the weekly Torah portion (#7). The corresponding halachic portion for this tape is: #7 is: Self-Defense. The other halachic portions for Parshas Tazria from the Commuter Chavrusah Series are:
Tapes or a complete catalogue can be ordered from:
Yad Yechiel Institute
PO Box 511
Owings Mills, MD 21117-0511
Call (410) 358-0416 for further information.
Also Available: Mesorah / Artscroll has published a collection of Rabbi Frand's essays. The book is entitled:
and is available through Project Genesis On-Line Bookstore: http://books.torah.org/
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