Parashat Metzora
"When
she becomes clean of her discharge, she shall count off seven days and after
that she shall be clean" (Leviticus 15:28)
The
portion of Metzora is 90 verses long, of which 57
deal with the metzora and an infected house,
15 verses deal with a person giving off a discharge, 3 verses deal with seminal
emissions, and 14 verses with the niddah and her discharge. All the
verses speak of laws of impurity and purity which are not relevant when the
Holy Temple has been destroyed and lays desolate, and they have no application
nor fulfillment in our days (aside from the ritual bath of the niddah,
about which see below). It seems that the holy one, blessed be He, who
"had the Torah in his lap thousands of years before the creation of the
world" knew and expected that the first and second temples would exist
only a few hundred years out of all the thousands of years of the world, yet He
still went on at length on details which were relevant only for a short while.
Not only that, but He wrote the section about afflictions which, according to
several Tanaim, never actually had a practical application, as they say in
Tractate Sanhedrin 71a: "As the Bereita says:
'The afflicted house never was and never will be. Why was it written? So you
should learn it and receive the reward." In their opinion G-d knew from
the start that there never would be an afflicted house, and even so wrote in
His book: "When you enter the land of Canaan that I give you as a
possession, and I inflict an eruptive plague upon a house in the land you
possess…" though He knew it would never actually happen! So a man writes
and means something by it; He, may He be blessed, writes and does not mean
anything by it. And why did He write it? So that the people of Israel would
read it (this thing that never was and never will be) and earn reward for the
reading.
Not
only about the afflicted house did the holy one, blessed be He, want to give us
reward for learning, as it has no connection to reality, but also in the
section of the wayward son: "The wayward son never was and never will be.
Why was it written? So you should learn it and receive the reward." The
same is true of the town that went astray: "The town that went astray
never was and never will be. Why was it written? So you should learn it and
receive the reward."
Again
we see that G-d expands on things which never were and never will be, and is
brief in those matters which are relevant at all times and everywhere. Where
did he speak briefly? In the laws of a niddah's purity for her
husband.
Look
and see that the Torah does not write at all that a niddah must immerse
herself to be purified. It would have been enough to add a few words: "and
wash in water," to make it: "When she becomes clean of her discharge,
she shall count off seven days [and wash in water] and after that she shall be
clean." Then we would not reach the confusing stage of our rabbis the
Rishonim. The Tosfot write, on Tractate Yoma 78a, "They asked R' Yehuda Gaon where in the Torah it obligates a niddah
to immerse herself. He answered that it was learned from a minor premise to a
major one; from the one touching her. Rabbeynu Tam learns it from what is
written, 'in the waters of lustration' ('b'mey
niddah'--Numbers 31:23), and explained it with what is written in Tractate
Avoda Zara (75a), 'the waters in which a niddah immerses herself'.' Rabbi
Yitzchak learned it from 'And she who is in her state of niddah' and
explained it from the sixth chapter of Tractate Shabbat (64b): she will be in
her state of niddah until she's been in the water."
We
look at the learning of the Rishonim and ask where they learned that a niddah
needs immersion to be allowed to her husband--it seems quite clear that they
did not receive this from Sinai but concluded it based on their own learning
and deduction. And from this we can draw conclusions about the learning of
Chazal themselves; they quite simply did not get this from Sinai, either.
R' Yehuda Gaon learned this from a minor premise to a major
one (and a man may learn this way on his own). This is his line of thought: If
the niddah touches a vessel, it is written in the Torah that one who
touches the vessel needs immersion: "and he should wash himself in
water." How much more so the woman herself should need immersion to be
permitted to her husband. Aside from the simple refutation that we do not learn
as a minor premise to a major one from the issue of impurity to the quite
different issue of a niddah being forbidden to her husband, the Tosfot
had already rejected this line of thought in Tractate Hagigah
11a, third reference. For if we may learn this from a minor premise to a major
one, then all laws of immersion for purification should be relevant to the
immersion of a woman forbidden to her husband. This is not so, for one's
immersion performed to purify himself requires intent, while a woman may just
fall by chance into a ritual bath, and it is considered valid. This is an
example of our rabbis learning from a minor premise to a major one on their
own, even if there is no such way to learn that issue.
The
second explanation, by Rabbeynu Tam, he learned from "from the water of
lustration." Come see something odd: Where do we learn about a woman's
immersion? From the vessels which the Jews took as booty from their gentile
enemies, as written in Numbers 31:23, "Any article that can withstand
fire, these you shall pass through fire and they shall be clean, except that
they must be cleansed with water of lustration; and anything that can not
withstand fire you must pass through water." Not only is the plain meaning
of "waters of lustration" as the Rashbam puts it: "the waters of
lustration from the red heifer, to purify them from death impurity" (and
what is the connection between the red heifer and a ritual bath?), but Chazal's
explanation has changed the waters of
lustration into the waters of the ritual bath in Tractate Avodah Zara 75b:
"Waters of lustration: that water in which a niddah immerses."
This explanation, according to several Rishonim, is nothing more than mere
allegory, for the immersion of vessels taken from gentiles is not a matter of
Torah. As Nachmanides wrote on Numbers 31:23, "My heart's feeling is that
this immersion [of vessels] comes from their own words, and they found in the
Scriptures an allegory for that." This is also the opinion of Maimonides
in The Laws of Forbidden Foods, chapter 17, law 5: "This immersion, in
which they immerse table utensils taken from the gentiles and then they are
permitted for use in eating and drinking, comes not from matters of purity and
impurity, but is the words of soferim." Therefore one cannot learn
from the immersion of vessels taken from gentiles (which is not stated
explicitly in the Torah) that the immersion of a niddah comes from the
Torah. (It might be said that if there is no issue of vessels taken from
gentiles, then this verse relates to niddah; but this idea would make
any reasonable person laugh.)
The
third interpretation, by Rabbi Yitzchak, is learned from Rabbi Akiva's interpretation in Tractate Shabbat 64b, "As
the Beraita teaches, 'And she who is in her state of niddah'
(Leviticus 15:36) the first elders taught that she should not wear make-up nor
rouge herself nor adorn herself with colorful garments, until Rabbi Akiva came and taught that if so, she will be repellent to
her husband and he will divorce her. What does the Torah mean by 'And she who
is in her state of niddah"? That she will be in a state of niddah
until she has immersed herself." See a great, wonderful thing. Rabbi Akiva came and disagreed with the first elders from his own
learning and deduction. He innovated a new way of learning based on everyday
reality ("she will be repellent to her husband") and hung that upon
the words ''And she who is in her state of niddah." Anyone who has
common sense will understand that on these words anything can be based:
"She will be in a state if niddah until her pains stop" or
"She will be in a state of niddah until she showers" or
anything like that. (After all, Rabbi Akiva didn't
get this new idea from his teacher, but the opposite; his teachers taught him
something else entirely.)
And
where did Maimonides learn that a woman requires immersion to be permitted to
her husband? He writes, in the Laws of Forbidden Sexual Relations, chapter
four, halacha 3: "But a niddah, a woman with a discharge, and a new
mother, none of whom have yet immersed in a ritual bath--one who lies with
them, even several years later, is punished by
having his days cut short. For the Torah mandates immersion, as is
written, 'they must pass through water' [Leviticus 15:18; that verse speaks of
one who has had a seminal emission]. This is a chief precept for all impure,
that he shall be impure until he has immersed himself." Chief precepts are
one of the 13 ways in which the Torah is elucidated, but on this issue it is
not mentioned at all in the Gemara (The Magid Mishneh
says it comes from the Sifra, but we have not found
it even there).
Come
see another thing which the author of the Torah caused us in going on at length
on the less important and speaking in brief about the main part. Our rabbis
disagreed about whether, for a ritual bath according to the Torah, 40 se'ah of water is enough, and whether it can be
straight from the tap. According to Maimonides, Laws of Ritual Baths, chapter
four, halacha two: "It is from the words of the soferim that tap
water invalidates for immersion." His opinion is that they are valid
according to the Torah. This is also the opinion of Rabbi Yitzchak in the
Tosfot on Bava Batra 66b: "And it seemed to Rabbi Yitzchak that even if it
all was from the tap, it is acceptable according to the rabbis." According
to the greatest Rishonim a woman whose house has a bath a half meter by a half
meter in size may immerse in it and fulfill her obligation from the Torah! (And
therefore all the high and mighty things that our rabbis said about a separate
ritual bath fall by the wayside.)
But
this is how the Torah ought to have been written to remove debate: "When
she becomes clean of her discharge, she shall count off seven days and wash
in 40 se'ah of water not drawn from a tap, and
after that she shall be clean."
What a
shame, to leave out a few words which would have settled problems, and to go on
at length about a metzora and an afflicted
house and to duplicate whole chapters of the building of the Tabernacle, to go
on at length about the foot washing of the servants and the negotiations for
the purchase of the Cave of the Patriarchs, and many other texts. Our rabbis
have already hinted about this puzzle in the Mishnah in Tractate Hagigah 10a: "Release from vows wafts in the air and
has nothing to rely upon; the laws of Sabbath…are as mountains hung by a hair,
for there is little in Scripture about them, and many halachot."
We
will conclude with the laws of a person with a discharge, who must bring two
sacrifices: one a sin-offering and one a burnt-offering. These things make no
sense to a twenty first century person : Why should a sick person have to bring
a sacrifice? For who is a person with a discharge? Rashi wrote on Leviticus
15:2: "The flux resembles the water of barley-dough and it is dissolved,
similar to the white of a defective egg [of which a chick cannot be born];
semen is thick like the white of a non-defective egg." See also the entry zivah in the Encyclopedia Hebraica and see that it
is an inflammatory, pus-producing disease known since ancient days, from the 16th
century BCE (mentioned in the Ebers papyrus);
Hippocrates described this illness.
Instead of sending the patient to a doctor for
treatment, we obligate him to bring sacrifices. Nachmanides wrote on 15:11,
"The reason for the impurity of a man with discharge is that this is one
of the most serious inflammatory diseases, and he must praise G-d for healing
him and purifying him, and he must bring a sin-offering to atone for his sins,
so that he may not fall ill again." Based on this reason of Nachmanides,
everyone who is seriously ill and recovered should bring two sacrifices, not
just the person with a discharge.
And if
you look carefully and honestly, you will see that the Torah attributes things
to the person with a discharge beyond illness, for it considers him impure and
requires him to immerse in a ritual bath and bring sacrifices and other
ritualistic acts. The origins of all this is in fear of disease and ancient
superstitions which held that illness is an unnatural and mysterious
phenomenon. We have found the same thing about menstruation; see what we wrote
on the matter in Pamphlet 7.
Words
of True Knowledge
