Parshat Tazria: Grappling With The Tradition

BY: ILANA HOSTYK

As students at Stern College, and thus extremely conscious of our label as both women and as Jews, my friends and I consistently grapple with the struggle presented by misogynistic texts. Sitting in our seats during Stern’s shabbes davening, many of us squirm during certain parts of Torah reading, listening to hurtful sections being proclaimed by men in lyrical sound to the community. How one reacts during those different sections is very much up to one’s personal discretion. This dvar Torah offers a few suggestions for a smoother listening experience of this week's parsha, which my friends and I bounced around in preparation for this week’s reading of the Torah portion, for every person must take the words of her heritage and turn it into their own Torah.

Parshat Tazria, a parsha about impurity, begins with a woman giving birth and details the necessary actions during the impurity that follows. This bizarre result, that the essentially female natural process of childbirth thrusts women into impurity, creates the necessity to reexamine the essence of this law. The following are two suggestions for ways one may look at it:

The first is a more metaphysical notion. Since all of life is a journey through impurity, through the ups and downs, the trials and the errors, it is a humbling yet reassuring thing to be able to start off one’s life confronting the notion of impurity. The metaphysical impurity surrounding childbirth is a reassuring way to begin one's life, showing her/him that just because something goes through it's times of impurity, doesn't necessarily mean life is doomed. It is a way to embrace the vitality of the human experience, human frailty cast in a new light. Impurity is that much a part of the human experience, an essential part along the road. R` Avraham Ibn Ezra echoes a similar theme in his commentary on the parsha.

Although the metaphysical answer still requires a loss of dignity for the mother, this second answer reframes the biblical law in an entirely positive way. One can very easily view this law as a protection of the woman.  In the law, the woman is deemed impure for a week if she gives birth  to a male, and two weeks if  she gives birth to a female. Having a resting period after giving birth was, and still is, an important and ethical thing, but probably many times not granted. A man would have been able to control the woman, and might not have allowed her that healing period before forcing her back into routine. This week break serves as a strong sexual protection for the healing woman.

No matter how one comes to grip with the different biblical texts that serve as the foundation of our tradition, one should keep in mind that there is a vastness of ethical potential hidden within.