Beit Midrash
- Torah Portion and Tanach
- Vayikra
- Tazria - Metzora
How do we do it? I suggest our Sedra, & the Sefira we are now counting, offer us a valuable insight.
Tazria opens by discussing the state of impurity known as Nida. A woman must (Biblically) count 7 days from the end of menstruation in order to again reach a state of Tahara, purity. Menstruation indicates the inability to bear new life (thus the status of Tuma), while its conclusion represents the chance to give birth once more (Tahara).
The counting of 7 rings a bell to us. For we are all now counting another 7; 7 weeks from Pesach to Shavuot. What is the connection between these two sevens?
I suggest that the Torah is telling us that life is a progression from tragedy to triumph, from Tuma to Tahara, from despair to deliverance. Only by enduring the blood do we ultimately achieve the birth; that is the history of Am Yisrael; the pattern that G-d imposed upon the universe.
And so, we could not climb the mountain of Sinai had we not first gone through the bitter Egyptian experience & all the travail it engendered. We emerged as a new creation, but we had to traverse a harsh birth canal to get there.
What seems difficult to understand is that the Torah also prescribes a state of Nida for a woman who has just given birth! This seems strange; should not this moment be one of pure joy, a celebration of absolute purity? The answer lies in the origin of childbirth. The Zohar tells us that in Gan Eden Chava conceived & delivered a child in the same day, with no pain at all! But then sin entered the world, Adam & Chava became mere mortals, & the trauma of labor & delivery became the norm. And so, even having a child is tempered by the knowledge that this same pattern of pain & pleasure will continue.
The good news is that it won’t always be that way. In the end of days we’ll restore the pristine perfection of Gan Eden, & then childbirth, as well as Life itself, will come with no suffering attached. For all those who have paid the supreme price for Israel - & so, for them, the celebration of Yom Ha’atzmaut cannot be fully realized – we anxiously await the coming of Moshiach & Techiyat HaMetim, when all the souls will be reunited, the tears will finally disappear & complete joy will reign. May it happen soon, b’sha’a tova.
Medical Procedures on a Parent
Rabbi Yirmiyohu Kaganoff | 3 Nissan 5784
The kiddush of hashem: drink l'chaim!
Rabbi Stewart Weiss | 2 Nissan 5784
