Parshas Tazria - Metzoro 5769

Parshas Tazria

“And Hashem spoke to Moshe to say; Speak to Bnei Yisroel to say; “A woman when she conceives and gives birth to a male and it will make her impure for seven days like the days of her nidas dosoh she will be impure. And thirty day and three days she shall sit in her bloods of purity, all kodesh she shall not touch and to the Mikdosh she shall not come until the filling of her days of purity”. Shemos 12:

Rashi: like in the days of her nidas dosoh she will be impure, like the order of all impurities which are said regarding nidah, it makes her impure with the impurity of child birth, and even if the womb opens without blood.

Rashi: Dosa, a term of seeping from her body. An alternative meaning, a term of infirmity and illness, that a woman doesn’t see blood without feeling ill and her head and limbs feeling heavy upon her.

When a woman menstruates she becomes ritually impure. The posuk here tells us that this is the case regarding a woman who’s given birth as well, (yoledes).

Is this impurity caused by the blood flow as in nidah? Or is the cause of this impurity the birth itself? The first Rashi quoted above tells us that the birth itself causes the impurity, irrelevant of blood flow.

In the case of regular nidah, the passing of blood from the womb is the cause of the impurity, this is the case whether she sees the blood or whether she feels the blood flow without it exiting her body. (Mareh Kohen – Hilchos Nidah).

In Asvan D’Oraytoh, Rabbi Yosef Engel quotes a Tosfos in Bava Kama, (11a), which explains that the issur of yoledes is issur and not tumah. This means that even though the status of yoledes creates an obligation of purification and makes the woman impure, the prohibition on relations with her is not because she is impure but because the Torah prohibits such relations separate to her status of impurity, were it not for this separate prohibition, relations would be permitted despite the status of impurity.

R’ Y Engel goes on to cite Rambam in Hilchos Isurei Bi’oh, perek 5, halocho 2, that all women become impure through the internal passage of blood, therefore this will apply to a yoledes and a nidah.

Now then: Rashi seems to hold that the impurity of yoledes comes from the birth itself, the Rambam according to R’ Y Engel with the backing of his application of Tosfos to the Rambam says that the impurity comes from the passage of blood. (It could be that without R’ Yosef, Tosfos could agree with Rashi regarding birth and disagree with Rambam that the din is the same whether nidah or yoledes).

The Gur Aryeh and Mizrachi explain Rashi’s explanation of no blood required for the yoledes to become impure; because if there is blood, she will be impure as a nidah, not a yoledes. Therefore if the Torah has a separate parsha for yoledes, it must be that there are different requirements.

Perhaps the Rambam could argue with this and say that a separate parsha is needed for yoledes because the halachos are different. Even though passage of blood is required, the situation of birth converts the status from nidah to yoledes. (The blood is required to get into the parsha of impurity, the status of birth or otherwise will determine whether the impurity caused is nidah or yoledes)




Parshas Metzoro


“And Hashem spoke to Moshe to say: “This will be the law of the metzoro on the day of his purification, and he will be brought to the kohen”. Shemos 14:1-2

“This will be,” “Zos tihiye” is a very unusual way of saying that we are dealing with the law of something, (the Midrash in Toras Kohanim says that this whole sentence is superfluous). If the Torah wanted to introduce the laws of metzoro it could have skipped out “will be/tihiye” completely.

The Midrash in Toras Kohanim makes the drasha, “Tihiye – in this time”, that is, even without a Beis Hamikdosh, a metzoro still performs the purification process but without the offerings.

The phrase “and he will become pure” is used three times in the context of Moetzoro in the parsha:
“And the one being purified will shave all his hair and wash in water and afterwards enter the camp and sit outside his tent for seven days”. 14:8
“And it will be on the seventh day he will shave all of his hair, his head, his beard, and his eyebrows and he will wash his clothes and wash his clothes in water and he will become pure”. 14:9
“And the kohen will offer up the oleh and minchah offerings on the altar and the kohen will atone him and he will become pure”. 14:21

These three repetitions correspond to three levels of impurity/purification:

Before the first shaving the metzoro may not enter the camp. Afterwards he may enter, he will not cause something which he carries or sits on to become impure.
After seven days and the second shaving, he will not longe make someone he touches impure and after immersion and nightfall he can eat ma’aser and trumoh, (tithes – if he’s a kohen or Levy or has ma’aser sheni in Yerushaliyim).
After the korban he may eat from kodshim. (Rambam in Hilchos Metzoro)

In order for the metzoro to become sufficiently pure to eat kodshim – sacrifices, the respective sacrifice is required. In our times, where (due to our sins) there is no Temple and thus no sacrifices, there is no necessity to attain this level of purity. Therefore, the metzoro can perform the other stages of purification to remove themselves from the most intense levels of impurity.

Now that we have seen this, why do we need a Midrash to tell us that from the word “tihiye” in the verse the process of purification of a metzoro up until the bringing of the korban can be performed even without a Beis HaMikdosh? If everything else can still be performed, why should our inability to offer the relevant sacrifice to attain a level of purity that doesn’t have any practical consequences prevent the rest?

Perhaps the presentation of the three stages would lead us to think that this is one long process, if one part is unable to be performed, the whole process is nullified. The verses read:
“And the one being purified will shave all his hair and wash in water and afterwards enter the camp and sit outside his tent for seven days”. 14:8
“And it will be on the seventh day he will shave all of his hair, his head, his beard, and his eyebrows and he will wash his clothes and wash his clothes in water and he will become pure”. 14:9
“And on the eighth day he will take two male lambs, unblemished and one female year old ewe, unblemished……….etc.”

The sacrifice is brought on the eighth day, if the posuk had read, “after the seventh day” or something similar, then it would be clear that the last stage could be separated from the previous two and that even without the offerings, the first two stages of purity could be attained in accordance with the ruling of the Rambam above. However, written as it is, it appears to me that the simple understanding, (especially after the Rashi dealing with the opening posuk of Shmini – see last week’s post), is that the Torah presents us with a non-divisible eight day process. Therefore, an extra word of “tihye/will be” is necessary to tell us that even when it is impossible to bring the offerings, the rest of the process can be split off, to attain the lower levels of purity.

(It could be that the Torah presents the purification of the metzoro as one process to tell us that a stage can’t be skipped over).


Have a nice Shabbos – no loshon horo!