"Man
is formed in the image of the entire world – when he is dragged down by his
material side he is the lowest of the low, since his form is most holy of
all." - Sefat Emet
This week’s
parsha opens with the laws of separation for a woman after giving birth to a boy
or girl. Such laws, including the laws
of family purity/menstruation are certainly intriguing – I began to understand
the halachot (laws) and development of them throughout history by listening to
a series of classes on the topic by Rabbi Ethan Tucker while still in college. But while the development of the laws, social
context, and history were expounded upon I did not take away from the class the
underlying spiritual background of the mitzvoth associated
with birth/menstruation/other bodily emissions (although the class does touch
on this as well).
So what is
the reason for the need of such laws? To
briefly summarize Rabbi Mordecai Elon’s response: Impurity is not a
curse, it is a lack, a deficiency…. The
man or woman with a running issue of the flesh is unclean. This is a biological period of inability to
express life, to create life, to produce new life and bring it forth into the
world. The days of a woman’s separation
are also a time of inability to express new life. Impurity is something one lives with
constantly, and one must constantly purify oneself from it.
We are Adam. Not just “man” but the conception
of what man should be. Adam, the dust of the earth from which we came and with which we have the
ability to become the highest living creatures.
Every act we do is a way to elevate the dirt that we are composed of or
negate our purpose in this world by succumbing to the baseness with which we
are made. When we fail to follow the
Torah we “drag down our material side…we are the lowest of lows.” We are lower than the animals; we have used
our God-given free will to deny His existence and to show our lack of desire to
become close with Him. But when we do
just the opposite, when we decide that, yes, we are going to follow God’s laws
from kashrut to family purity, we are elevating the dust from which we came to the
most holy form of all.
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