Shalom Friends;
This week, our Parshat HaShevua — Parshat Tazria is being sponsored by Reuven and Succota Shefi-gal of Moshav Aderet dedicated Lilui Nishmas Reuven’s Father Avraham Moshe ben Elchanan Yochanan and in honor of Succota’s birthday on the 26 Adar. To Mishpochat Shefi-gal, many thanks for your sponsorship, and your continued kindnesses.
You can celebrate a Simcha — a birth, a Bar/Bat Mitzvah, a Chassuna or other Simcha event in your life, or commemorate a Yahrtzeit of a loved one, or for whatever other reason by sponsoring a Parshat HaShevua.
Please forward to your relatives and friends and encourage them to sponsor a Parshat HaShevua. And please be in contact with me with any questions, or for further details.
Best Regards,
Moshe Burt
olehchadash@yahoo.com
skype: mark.burt3
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Normally, our Parshat Tazria is leyned as part of a doubleheader Parsha with Parshat Metzora. But, in years of Adar Rishon and Adar Sheini, each of them is read as a single Parsha.
Parshat Tazria opens as Torah records:
“Hashem spoke to Moshe, saying: ‘Speak to the B’nei Yisrael, saying: When a woman conceives and gives birth to a male, then she shall be in a state of tumah for seven days.” (Rendered to English by Rabbi Zelig Pliskin in his sefer, “Growth Through Torah,” page 252)
The Artscroll Stone Chumash describes Tumah this way (page 608):
…New life begins with tumah, spiritual impurity, to show… that the mere fact of life is not enough. Life must be a tool for the service of Hashem; otherwise it is nothing.
Rabbi Shmuel Goldin writes in his sefer “Unlocking the Torah Text”, Sefer Vayikra (pages 83-84):
With the opening of [both] Parshiyot Tazria and Metzora, we are thrust… into an alien world, the world of tumah and taharah, ritual impurity and purity.
The world laid out within these Parshiyot is populated with some of the most baffling phenomena within the Torah, including tumat yoledet, impurity from childbirth… (Rabbi Goldin citing Sefer Vayikra, Perek 12, posukim 1-8)
We are dealing with chukim, laws for which no reason is given in the Torah…. Such laws are meant to be observed even if their reasons are not understood. The fundamental purpose of these laws may, in fact, be the training of loyalty to Hashem in the face of mystery.
The Sochaczever Rebbe, Rabbi Shmuel Bornstein, z”l describes “three distinct phases of taharah (purification) of the woman after childbirth,” in his sefer “Shem Mishmuel” on our Parshat Tazria, including a citing from Arizal (pages 244-246):
For seven days, if she bore a boy, or fourteen days if she bore a girl, she cannot have marital relations with her husband or eat ma’aser sheini (the second tithe of produce eaten by its owner in Jerusalem).
Forty days after the birth or a boy, or eighty days after the birth of a girl, she may resume eating terumah (the primary tithe given to Kohanim and eaten by them and their families). [MB Note: there are other Kodashim — Holy foods for which the forty or eighty days post-birth applies to all women].
Finally, after this time has elapsed, she brings the appropriate offering and can then enter the Beit Hamikdash and eat Kodashim (holy foods, usually parts of offerings).
The great Arizal states that the going up from Egypt [Yetziyot Mitzrayim] can be likened to childbirth. For just as the labor pangs of a woman in childbirth worsen as the actual birth approaches, so did the plagues intensify until Yisrael were expelled from there as a distinct nation. We can extend this concept of the going up from Egypt to the three stages of purification which is mentioned above. Just as a new mother had to undergo these three steps to entirely cleanse herself of the effects of childbirth, so too, Klal Yisrael experienced three similar steps to divorce themselves from the defilement of Egypt.
Shem Mishmuel continues (ibid):
My father [Rabbi Avraham Bornstein, the Rebbe of Sochaczev] pointed out that … Klal Yisrael were not [yet] free of their Egyptian oppressors. Although they were no longer physically under their control, Klal Yisrael had not yet shaken off centuries of connection with Egyptian culture and mores…. The Egyptians pursued them as far as the Yam Suf [Sea of Reeds], and only after the great revelation at the sea were Klal Yisrael finally rid of them and their impurity. But this was only the first stage in the process.
Until Rosh Chodesh Sivan, they prepared themselves for the coming revelation at Sinai. (Shem Mishmuel citing Yoma 4a) This is analogous to a woman waiting out her forty days until she is permitted to eat terumah [or other Kodashim]. This propelled them to another spiritual realm, one of great closeness to Hashem. This is comparable to the woman after her forty days had elapsed, when she could eat terumah [or other Kodashim], for both she and Klal Yisrael were one further stage removed from their original impurity.
But there was one stage remaining before the nation could reach their ideal state. On the fifth of Sivan, the people brought offerings on the altar, and a covenant was made with Hashem in which some of the animal’s blood was sprinkled upon them and the rest on the altar. (Shem Mishmuel citing an essay on Parshat Mishpatim, “Half of the Blood.”) This was similar to the offering brought by the woman to conclude her purification process. Just as she could partake of the holiest foods once her offering had been brought, so too were Klal Yisrael ready and fit for the greatest communion with Hashem in the history of mankind — Matan Torah.
The Artscroll Stone Chumash explains custom in our times (page 608):
Nowadays, it is customary that as soon as a new mother feels well enough to leave home, she goes to a shul and hears Kedusha, or a similar part of the service. It is also customary that after forty or eighty days when she would bring her offering [in times of the Beit Hamikdash], her husband is called to the Torah, as a symbolic representation of the offerings… [brought as conclusion to her purification process].
May we, the B’nei Yisrael be zocha that our brethren — the refugee families from Gush Katif be permanently settled and be made totally whole — be totally restituted for all that was stolen from them and that the thrice expelled families of Amona be restored to their rebuilt homes, and the oft-destroyed Yeshiva buildings in Yishuv Chomesh be rebuilt at government expense; all due to alt-leftist-agendized, supreme court legalized Yassamnik gunpoint. Baruch Hashem that our dear brother Jonathan Pollard is now free of his parole and restrictions and that he is now in his second year at home in Eretz Yisrael. May Esther Yocheved bat Yechiel Avraham have an aliyah in Shemayim and may her memory and spirit continue to lift Jonathan to at least 120 years. May the MIAs be liberated alive and returned to us in ways befitting Al Kiddush Hashem — as with the return in April, 2019, via Russia, of the remains of Zachariah Baumel, as should the remains of the two chayalim from the Gaza War of five and a half years ago. May we have the courage and strength to stand up and physically prevent the possibility of Chas V’Challila any future eviction of Jews from their homes and prevent Chas V’Challila the handing of Jewish land over to anyone, let alone to enemies sworn to Israel’s and Judaism’s destruction and eradication. And may we soon and finally see the total end to the Communist Chinese corona virus pandemic and all like viruses. May we fulfill Hashem’s blueprint of B’nei Yisrael as a Unique people — an Am Segula, not to be reckoned with as with “the nations” and may we be zocha to see the Moshiach, the Ge’ula Shlaima, as Dov Shurin sings; “Ki Karov Yom Hashem Al’Kol HaGoyim”, the Ultimate Redemption, bimhayrah b’yamainu — speedily, in our time”, — Achshav, Chik Chuk, Miyad, Etmol!!!
Good Shabbos and Chodesh Tov!!
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Moshe Burt, an Oleh, is a commentator on news and events in Israel and Founder and Director of The Sefer Torah Recycling Network. He lives in Ramat Beit Shemesh.
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