Original Torah: Ancient Words in a Modern Light

This quote from the end of Metsora sums up a section on sexual impurity. The Torah recognizes five source of sexual impurity: abnormal and normal sexual flows of men and women as well as intercourse. But why the dire warning “lest they die through their uncleanliness”? The table below summarizes theses states.
15:32-33 Torat ha Zav

There are five basic contacts that transmit impurity. The portion doesn’t seem to mention directly touching the person. You may become impure by sitting or lying on something he or she lied on, but touching the bedding or article sat or lied on, or contacting their fluids.

The first thing to notice is that both men and women need to bring two birds to sacrifice 7 days after the stopping of their sexual flow. However, for men, this is only true if his flow is unusual. For ejaculation with or without a woman, he may wash and be clean that evening. The exception to this is if he has sex with an impure woman. In that case, he acquires her state of impurity.

Now, a little word on language. The word here for sexual flow is zav. Zav is one of the words used to describe the bounty of the Promised Land. It is a land oozing (zav) with (goat) milk and (date) honey. It’s not a flow like a waterfall or a brook, but rather it is a kind of seeping presence.

For a man, a state of zav is always a sickness. A normal seminal emission for a man is called “shikhvat zera / the seed of laying “. A woman’s flow is described as “zov dam” either at the time of her “niddah” or not. Zov dam means something like “blood ooze”. It doesn’t sound nice, but unfortunately there’s really not a word for it besides “flow”, which isn’t accurate.

By the time of the Mishnah, a woman who had not yet immersed in a mikveh mayim to cleanse herself of her menstrual impurity was called a Niddah. However, in the time of the Torah, niddah was a state of infirmity, not a name for the woman herself. There have been various attempts to explain what Niddah means. A common understanding as advanced by Prof. Moshe Greenberg is that Niddah is from NDH meaning to exile or exclude. Hence, a Niddah would be a woman excluded from relations with her husband.

I opened this dvar with the verse “You shall put the Israelites on guard against their uncleanliness” (15:31). The Hebrew from this verse is ambiguous. The word vehizartem was translated by NJPS as from the room ZHR, means to warn, put on guard. But doing so assumes the Torah is speaking in a kind of slang, by dropping the H in ZHR, which it does occasionally do. However, there is no need to add the H to the word, as it may be understood with the root NZR meaning to separate or remove. (The Targum translates it accordingly as veTaFriShuN).

This understanding gets at the heart of the Biblical view of sexual impurity. The Torah not only sees menstruation as an infirmity, but it sees any discharge as putting you in a kind of diminished state. Later in Leviticus we read that the priests could have no disabilities or flaws when serving God (21:16-21) and that even the animal offerings has to be pure and flawless (22:20-26). Verse 15:31 continues “that they not die in their impurity, and that they impurify My Sanctuary which is among them”. In other words, having a sexual discharge is just as serious an imperfection before God as a priest with too long legs or an animal with boils. It diminishes you.

It makes me uncomfortable that the Torah views anything sexual as dirty. I see it as natural and good. Moreover, the implications of this worldview on having egalitarian congregations today is clear: The impurity of women is more severe and longer lasting than that of men. If the priest can’t be sexually impure, how can we have a sexually impure woman lead the services?

The obvious response is that we’re all impure today. Without a Temple to bring our offerings to, we cannot complete the expiation process. Even if, theoretically, women spend more of their lives Toraitically (deoraita) impure than men, it is of no matter. We cannot accept the Torah’s system of rendering normal processes impure. In addition, what other diseases are there that make you impure? I can only think of Tsaraat which we don’t have today. Why focus on sexual discharges exclusive of other diseases?

Normally, I try to find a value in even outdated Torah values. Perhaps there is something to only being permitted to have sex with your wife for half the month. Perhaps it can rejuvenate your lust. But, in my opinion, sexual taboos can only lead to harm.

Just think of all the Orthodox men and women out there who don’t even touch each other just because they might end up having intercourse during the woman’s period! It must be at least half of women out there who don’t even want to have sex when menstruating. And because of this, these people won’t dance at weddings or even have mixed seating so that families can sit together. Do we need to be so afraid of sex?

In the more liberal communities, these laws have even less relevance. We understand that sexual discharges don’t make you a bad person. We understand that it is more important to emphasize that people have sex as couples in loving relationships, than that we try to enforce abstinence. If the relationship is respectful and mature, that is enough.

I don’t believe that I am off topic here. If we are to take the values in this portion of the Torah to heart, then we are engage in a paradigm that views sex as especially dirty. And given that a healthy sexuality is a part of a healthy lifestyle, I have to say to the Torah: Let us celebrate life and not death. The ritual of mikveh mayim to celebrate rebirth is wonderful. We shouldn’t see the menstruation itself as an infirmity. Let us celebrate the body in its normal routine. And let us celebrate love as we are fortunate to find in our lives.