Dear Friends,
Among the most mysterious and powerful moments in all of living is that of birthing a child.
Surely, the woman experiences this moment far more powerfully, painfully and urgently than does the male, and it may even be presumptuous for a male who has never given birth to deign to write of its import. Yet, our Torah portion, this week, issues instructions for ritual purification for the woman who has given birth; the concern of childbirth is before us all.
And, it is fascinating that Torah commands that the new mother conduct rituals of purification following her birthing. Commentators over the millennia have asked why she must treat this magical and incomparable event as one which renders her impure. Shouldn’t she be elevated by this experience?
The simple answer is that childbirth includes the passage of blood and fluids, the opening of the birth canal, and the release of the placenta and umbilical cords. There is much physiologically which transpires, and it can appear frightening, unclean or impure, just as it could appear beautiful and wondrous. Yet, the Torah recognized the risks and the bodily flows, and just as it renders any other contract with blood or bodily fluids as requiring purification, ex post facto, so too at childbirth. The woman has undergone an ordeal, her body is changed, a new body has emerged, some fluid and flesh is discharged, and a process to readmit the woman into the regular functions of society was necessitated. Hence, purification.
However, there could be richer messages imbedded in the text.
The very mysterium of creating a new life from a woman’s body can be just too marvelous, inexplicable and Godly to be consigned to the merely biological. This is as close to magic as life can come. This is as close to the Divine as a life can come. Indeed, prior to humans procreating, the only other life-giving forced, in Jewish tradition, was God, God’s self, in the Genesis mythology.
Thus, the mystery of childbirth truly makes the woman – and the male – partners with God. Just as God assigned the first humans in the Garden the very first commandment, “Be fruitful and multiply,” it was more than a command only upon the humans. It was a charge to approach or to approximate the Holy. It was a partnership which only could be consummated by consummating.
Hence, upon bearing a child, the ritual purification process was not to make the woman clean from her uncleanness, but to make her human from her Godliness!
This week, may we celebrate the mystery!
Rabbi Douglas Kohn
Among the most mysterious and powerful moments in all of living is that of birthing a child.
Surely, the woman experiences this moment far more powerfully, painfully and urgently than does the male, and it may even be presumptuous for a male who has never given birth to deign to write of its import. Yet, our Torah portion, this week, issues instructions for ritual purification for the woman who has given birth; the concern of childbirth is before us all.
And, it is fascinating that Torah commands that the new mother conduct rituals of purification following her birthing. Commentators over the millennia have asked why she must treat this magical and incomparable event as one which renders her impure. Shouldn’t she be elevated by this experience?
The simple answer is that childbirth includes the passage of blood and fluids, the opening of the birth canal, and the release of the placenta and umbilical cords. There is much physiologically which transpires, and it can appear frightening, unclean or impure, just as it could appear beautiful and wondrous. Yet, the Torah recognized the risks and the bodily flows, and just as it renders any other contract with blood or bodily fluids as requiring purification, ex post facto, so too at childbirth. The woman has undergone an ordeal, her body is changed, a new body has emerged, some fluid and flesh is discharged, and a process to readmit the woman into the regular functions of society was necessitated. Hence, purification.
However, there could be richer messages imbedded in the text.
The very mysterium of creating a new life from a woman’s body can be just too marvelous, inexplicable and Godly to be consigned to the merely biological. This is as close to magic as life can come. This is as close to the Divine as a life can come. Indeed, prior to humans procreating, the only other life-giving forced, in Jewish tradition, was God, God’s self, in the Genesis mythology.
Thus, the mystery of childbirth truly makes the woman – and the male – partners with God. Just as God assigned the first humans in the Garden the very first commandment, “Be fruitful and multiply,” it was more than a command only upon the humans. It was a charge to approach or to approximate the Holy. It was a partnership which only could be consummated by consummating.
Hence, upon bearing a child, the ritual purification process was not to make the woman clean from her uncleanness, but to make her human from her Godliness!
This week, may we celebrate the mystery!
Rabbi Douglas Kohn
