Tazria 5774: Holiness of Childbirth

“When a woman conceives (tazria) and gives birth to a son, she shall be tamei (ritually impure) for seven days…And if she bears a female, she shall be tamei for two weeks.” (Vayikra/Leviticus 12:2, 5)

Rav Yissocher Frand in Rabbi Frand on the Parsha writes that a pregnant woman comes “as close to being like the Creator as a human being can possibly come. [In creating new life] she gained a touch of the Divine and became sanctified.” He explains that a woman’s kedushah (sanctity/holiness) increases during pregnancy, climaxes at childbirth, and then disappears.

According to the Kuzari, when kedushah departs, it leaves a void. It follows that the greater the void left by the withdrawal of kedushah, the more tumah rushes in to fill it.

Rav Frand suggests that when a woman is pregnant with a girl, she rises to a much higher level of kedushah because her unborn daughter is a potential creator. Therefore, when she delivers a girl, a woman loses more kedushah than if the baby had been male. As a result, the mother’s tumah is proportionately greater than if she had borne a boy.

Rabbi A.L. Scheinbaum in Peninim on the Torah puts forth that the increased period of tumah accomplishes for the female child what the bris milah (ritual circumcision) does for a male child. He writes: “The striking characteristic of a Jewish woman, the emblem of Jewish womanhood which distinguishes her as a daughter of Sarah Imeinu (our foremother), is her ability to sublimate herself to the level of morality and modesty to which man has a constant reminder in the form of the bris milah on his body.”

“The double period of y’mei tumah (days of ritual impurity) infuses the mother with her two-fold mission. First, she must raise her daughter to represent the character of the Jewish woman. Second, she must do so by personally being a role model of this noble virtue…With each female birth, the mother must doubly prepare herself to lead the child along the lofty path of virtue and purity.”   

Balak 5773: Guardians of the Goodly Tents

In this week’s Torah portion, the Moabite king Balak sends Bilam to curse the Israelites. Bilam finds he is unable to do so and he instead issues blessings, including the well known opening to the contemporary worship service: Mah tovu ohalecha Yaakov, mishkenotecha Yisrael – How goodly are your tents, Yaakov (Jacob); your dwelling places, Israel.

Rashi explains that Bilam sees that in the Israelite encampment the tent openings do not face one another, affording each tent privacy from the prying eyes of others. Writes Chana Bracha Siegelbaum in Women at the Crossroads (p. 148), “The woman personifies the tent, which served as the home for the Jewish people during their wandering in the wilderness. Likewise, the name Yaakov refers to the Jewish women (see Rashi on Shemot/Exodus 19:3).”

The Rebbetzin continues: “[The tent] protects the Jewish people from every negative influence. As long as the Jewish men were under the faithful shield of their Jewish women – the guardians of the goodly tents of Yaakov – no evil could befall them. However, as soon as they left their tents, to go astray after strange [Moabite and Midianite] women, they made themselves vulnerable to every sin conceivable, including idol worship.”

The shrewd Bilam understands that the holiness of privacy and modesty ensures Jewish survival. Talmud (Sanhedrin 106a) relates that Bilam advises Balak: “Hashem hates harlotry and the men of Israel love linen garments. Make curtains, have elderly harlots selling linens outside and young ones selling inside…Israel ate, drank and were merry. The old harlots offered the curtains for their true value; the young ones sold them for less.”  The men enter the tents to consort with the young harlots and the women refuse to have relations with them until the Jewish men engage in idolatry.

Normally, the Moabite women would not venture outside their tents. Talmud (Yevamot 77a) notes that the Moabite women do not come out to offer food and drink to the Israelites when the Israelites leave Egypt since “it is not the way of women to go out towards wayfarers.” The Moabite men, however, are faulted for not offering refreshments. Torah therefore prohibits Moabite men from converting to Judaism (Devarim/Deuteronomy 23:4-5), while it allows Moabite women to convert “because of their notion of modesty.” (Siegelbaum)

The Haftorah for Balak (Michah 5:6-6:8) ends with instructions for serving G-d: “He has told you, O man, what is good (mah tov) and what the L-rd requires of you: only to do justice, love kindness and walk modestly with your G-d.” Concludes the Rebbetzin: “If we Jewish women learn to excel in tzniut (modesty) and model exemplary modest behavior, in spite of the immodest spirit prevailing in our current western society, we will b’ezrat Hashem (With G-d’s help), walk with Hashem on the path of our final redemption.” 

Published in honor of the opening of the Mei Tova Mikvah in Dix Hills, New York. May its holy waters bring down many blessings.

http://www.breslev.co.il/articles/torah_portion/chanas_blessing/the_tents_of_jacob.aspx?id=12271&language=english

http://www.berotbatayin.org/Torah/Parsha/Haftorah%20Balak.pdf

http://dafyomi.co.il/sanhedrin/points/sn-ps-106.htm  

Terumah 5773: Akeret HaBayit

“And they shall make Me a mikdash (sanctuary) and I will dwell within them.”

In this week’s Torah portion, G-d commands His people to build a sanctuary so He can dwell b’tocham, which is often translated as “in their midst” but literally means “within them”. Writes Marina Goodman on torah.org: “The purpose of a sanctuary is to help each of us build our own inner sanctuary where G-d can dwell.”

The purpose of a home, writes Goodman, is to be a mikdash me’at, a miniature sanctuary. “Women were given the privilege of being the makers of Jewish homes. The Hebrew word for homemaker is akeret habayit. Akeret is the feminine version of ikar, which is the central aspect, or the essence of something. Bayit usually means house or home.”

“The Temple that stood in Jerusalem was called Beit HaMikdash, where beit means ‘house of’ and mikdash [related to kadosh, kodesh and kiddush] literally means holiness. Often it is referred to simply as Habayit, the House. Thus, in Hebrew the same word is used for both a home and the Holy Temple. An akeret habayit is that central figure which transforms home into a sanctuary where each member of her family can become a dwelling place for G-d’s presence. “

Writes Rebbetzin Chana Bracha Siegelbaum in her book, Women at the Crossroads: “Being the chief of her home, the woman is compared to the Kohen Gadol (High Priest) and the work in her home to Divine service. Just as the Kohen Gadol kindles the menorah in the Beit HaMikdash, the woman lights the Shabbat candles in her home. The bread she bakes is like the showbread in the Temple. The food she cooks is like a sacrifice, and the table she sets is an altar. Her goal is to imbue her home with spirituality and fear of G-d. In the same manner that the Kohen Gadol causes the Shechinah [G-d’s presence] to dwell in the world, the woman invites the Shechinah to enter her home.”

http://www.torah.org/features/wperspective/housewife.html

http://rebbetzinchanabracha.blogspot.com/2010/02/parshah-terumah-exodus-251-2719.html