Chukat (5764)

From the book Mida Tova: Articles on the Hermeneutical Principles by Rabbi Michael Avraham. Translated from Hebrew using gpt-5.4 (reasoning_effort=high, batch API).

---

With God’s help.

Midah Tovah — Eve of the holy Sabbath, Parashat Chukat, 5765

Questions

1. What is the “sanctity of life”?
2. On teleological and deontological morality.
3. What is the difference between a “slain one” and a “corpse”?
4. What is similar, and what is different, between analogy by juxtaposition and the principle of “a matter that was included in a general category and then singled out in order to teach”?
5. On doubts, the public, life, impurity, and the connection among them.

The Hermeneutical Principles

A matter that was included in a general category and singled out to teach about itself. Singled out to teach about the general category. Analogy by juxtaposition.

“Whoever touches, in the open field, one slain by the sword, or a corpse, or a human bone, or a grave, shall be impure seven days.”

Numbers 19:16

“‘One slain by the sword or a corpse’—even a corpse is included within ‘slain,’ yet Scripture singled it out from its general category in order to make what separates from it like itself; these are the words of Rabbi Yoshiya. Rabbi Yonatan says: A corpse is not included within ‘slain,’ for we find that Scripture taught about the corpse on its own and about the slain one on its own. From where do we know that what separates from it is likewise like it? You must say: it follows by an a fortiori inference. If in the lighter case of an animal carcass, what separates from it is treated like it, then in the more stringent case of a corpse, surely what separates from it should be treated like it. [One may object:] Do not say that of an animal carcass, whose impurity until evening is more extensive, with respect to a corpse, whose seven-day impurity is less extensive. [But the response is:] And where, exactly, is the greater extent found? Is it not in the corpse, since a corpse imparts seven-day impurity, whereas an animal carcass imparts impurity only until evening…'”

Sifrei to Numbers, section 127, under the heading “One Slain by the Sword”

A. What Is the Difference Between a “Corpse” and a “Slain One”?

The Sword Is Like the Slain Person

Our parashah deals with the impurity of a corpse, which is the ultimate source of ritual impurity. One who contracts impurity from it becomes a primary source of impurity and remains impure for seven days—that is, he must wait seven days and immerse in order to become pure again. In the verse cited above we find a unique halakha (Jewish law), known in rabbinic language as “the sword is like the slain person.” According to this rule, the sword by which the dead person was killed is itself considered an ultimate source of impurity, and not merely a primary source, and one who touches it becomes a primary source of impurity. The laws governing the impurity of the sword are complex, and there are many disputes about them; we will not discuss them here in detail.

The sages explain in a midrash (rabbinic exposition) that this rule is learned from the fact that, with respect to corpse impurity, we do not distinguish between one who died from a sword-blow and one who died from an arrow or in any other manner. All have the status of an ultimate source of impurity. If so, it is not clear why the Torah chose specifically the phrase “one slain by the sword.” From here the sages learn in the midrash that this was written in order to teach us that the sword is like the slain person. According to this, we must read the verse as follows: anyone who touches the sword that has made someone into a slain body—that is, killed him—or the corpse itself, or a bone, or a grave, shall be impure for seven days.¹

Other midrashim on this verse deal with the ordinary laws of corpse impurity and treat the term “slain” as though it referred to an ordinary corpse. According to these midrashim, the corpse appears twice in the verse: once in the word “slain” and once again in the word “corpse.” It seems that the Sifrei passage cited above proceeds from the same starting point.

The Opening of the Midrash: What Is a “Slain One”?

At first glance, it seems that the midrash is troubled by the fact that the list in the verse contains the corpse twice. But the expositor’s claim that “corpse” is included within “slain” shows that these are not identical expressions, but rather that one is contained within the other. This points to a different understanding of the problem. The starting point is indeed that “slain” does not mean “sword,” but something connected to the dead. Yet the difficulty is not simply redundancy. Since the concept “slain” includes the concept “corpse,” the “corpse” is treated as a particular case that has been singled out from a general category, namely “slain.” The midrash asks why the Torah specified this particular separately.

A question of this sort naturally directs our attention to the hermeneutical principle of “a matter that was included in a general category and then singled out in order to teach.” Before we review the answers suggested by the midrash, we must clarify what “slain” means in the first place. Is “slain” not exactly the same as “corpse”?

The Malbim, following Babylonian Talmud, Nazir 53b, explains that “slain” means a limb from a corpse. He apparently means that “slain” is a type of thing, or some sort of “material.” A whole corpse is one thing made of this “material,” and so is each limb separately; therefore the corpse is considered included within the term “slain.”

The sword is what creates this “material” out of a whole living human being, by turning him into a slain body—that is, the dead person has been profaned; the sword profanes him.² Similarly, Scripture says of the stones of the altar:

“And if you make Me an altar of stones, do not build it of hewn stones; for if you wield your sword upon it, you will profane it.”

Exodus 20:21

If so, the corpse is made of that same “material,” and therefore it is a particular case of “slain.” For this reason the midrash treats the corpse as something singled out from a general category. We must now ask why the particular was in fact singled out from the category.

A Matter Singled Out from a General Category in Order to Teach About Itself

Rabbi Yoshiya’s proposal at the beginning of the midrash is that the singling out of the particular was meant to make what separates from it like it. At first glance, this seems to be the conclusion of applying the principle of “a matter that was included in a general category,” which ordinarily is singled out in order to teach about the whole category. From the properties of the particular, we learn some requirement concerning the category as a whole. Yet the wording of the midrash is not exactly the standard formulation of that principle. The principle itself is not mentioned here. Moreover, it is not at all clear what we have learned from here about the general category. Seemingly, we have learned that the singled-out case is like the general category—that is, the lesson concerns the singled-out case, not the category.

At this point it is worth recalling the twenty-fourth principle in the baraita of the thirty-two hermeneutical principles of Rabbi Eliezer son of Rabbi Yose the Galilean. This principle is “a matter that was included in a general category and singled out from the category in order to teach about itself.” In this principle, the singling out is interpreted as meant to teach about the singled-out case itself, not about the general category. For example, see Sefer Keritut, section Netivot Olam:

“‘Joshua sent [men] to inspect the land and Jericho’—but was not Jericho included within the land? Why then was it singled out? To teach about itself: that it was equal in importance to the whole land for conquest.”

This structure is very similar to what we find here. The particular was singled out from the general category to teach that it is equivalent to the whole category.³ Rabbi Samson of Chinon, however, notes there that this principle characterizes only homiletical exposition, and it may not be accepted at all by Rabbi Yishmael. For according to his view, a matter singled out from a general category is singled out to teach about the whole category and not about itself. If so, it is unlikely that this is the principle at work in our midrash.

Rabbi Yoshiya’s View: Two Possibilities

To understand the midrash more fully, we should consider two possible meanings of the expression “that which separates.” It may refer to textual separation, that is, to the particular that has separated out—that is, been singled out—from the general category. But it may also refer to physical separation, namely a limb that separated from the corpse. It is important to note that these are opposite interpretations. According to the first, the thing that separates is the corpse, which has gone out from the general category of “slain”—that is, the limbs made of the “material” of a living human being who has been profaned, as explained above. According to the second, the thing that separates is the limb, since it is the limb that has physically separated from the whole corpse.

The difference between these two possibilities also bears on the hermeneutical principles involved. According to the first possibility, we are dealing with textual separation, and therefore it appears that this is an exposition based on the principle of “a matter that was included in a general category” and singled out in order to teach about the category. On this reading, we must ask what the corpse, which is the particular case, teaches about “slain,” which is the general category. The halakhic feature derived here should be one in regard to which, were it not for the exposition, we would have distinguished between a limb from the corpse and the corpse itself. In principle, the laws of these two are entirely equal, and perhaps that itself is what we learn from the textual singling out of the corpse.

According to the second possibility—that “separation” here is physical—this is not an instance of the principle of “a matter that was included in a general category,” but rather a comparison between the separated limb and the corpse from which it separated. Both are considered ultimate sources of impurity. We should note that according to this possibility their laws are not necessarily identical in every respect, since they may have been equated only with respect to their status as ultimate sources of impurity.

According to this second possibility, it is certainly not an exposition based on the principle of “a matter that was included in a general category.” After all, the separated limb is what teaches about the corpse, not the corpse about the limbs. It is therefore highly plausible that we are dealing here with analogy by juxtaposition. We have already seen a number of times that the principle of juxtaposition usually deals with a list of items appearing in one verse, and its conclusion is that those items are equated to one another. Here the list in the verse contains a limb from a corpse and the corpse itself, and therefore they are juxtaposed and equated.⁴ Still, this brings us back to the homiletical hermeneutical principle mentioned above, namely principle 24 in Rabbi Eliezer son of Rabbi Yose the Galilean’s list.

Combining the Two Proposals

There are various considerations in favor of each of these possibilities, and we will mention several of them here:⁵

1. At first glance, possibility 2 is difficult, because we would have expected the Torah to teach us that the limb is like the corpse, not that the corpse is like the limb. If so, the verse should have opened with the corpse and only afterward added the limbs of the corpse as equivalent to it.
2. The language of the midrash is that Scripture singled the corpse out from its general category, and that language strongly suggests the principle of “a matter that was included in a general category.” According to the second possibility, there is no place at all to interpret these verses by means of that principle.
3. In standard rabbinic terminology, “impurities that separate from the corpse” are parts detached from it. If so, Rabbi Yoshiya’s expression apparently indicates that the thing that separates is the limb, that is, the “slain.”⁵
4. The continuation of the midrash as well—regarding separation from an animal carcass and from a corpse—also implies that the separation is physical.
5. To this we should add what we have already mentioned: the exposition here does not use the standard wording associated with the principle of “a matter that was included in a general category.”

It may be possible to combine these two proposals into a single integrated interpretation. The midrash is indeed using the principle of “a matter that was included in a general category,” and not juxtaposition; yet the separation discussed in the midrash is still physical, and it does not describe the singling out of the particular from the general category. According to this suggestion, the fact that the corpse is singled out from the general category tells us to expound the verse by the principle of “a matter singled out from a general category in order to teach,” and from that we conclude that the particular, the corpse, and the general category, the “slain,” are equal to one another. On this reading, the singling out from the general category is described in the first sentence, while the conclusion of the exposition based on that principle is that the separated limb is like the corpse from which it separated.

In practice, juxtaposition and the principle of “a matter that was included in a general category” are very close to one another. In both cases we compare the particular to the general category, whether that comparison is produced through juxtaposition or through the singling out of the particular from the category in order to teach about the category. Usually, however, singling out from a general category takes place in a different passage from the one in which the general category appears, whereas juxtaposition is made between two items that appear in a list within the same verse. Our case is exceptional: both the particular and the general category appear in the list within the same verse, and therefore they can be compared either by the principle of “a matter that was included in a general category” or by juxtaposition.⁶

There are, however, several differences between these two principles, even when we are dealing with a biblical case in which the particular and the general category appear in the same verse. The two main differences are these:

1. A matter singled out from a general category teaches about the category by transferring its unique properties to it. The characteristics of the particular define the characteristics of the members of the general category to which the law applies. This concerns the definition of the situation to which the law applies, not the law itself. By contrast, juxtaposition equates the items themselves—in this case, the particular and the general category. It binds them under the same law.
2. “A matter that was included in a general category” teaches us about a certain feature of the category. By contrast, juxtaposition is not interpreted piecemeal. This rule has two meanings, at least according to some of the medieval authorities:
3. Juxtaposition has no special direction—for example, from the particular to the general category, as in the principle of “a matter that was included in a general category.” It is bidirectional.
4. In juxtaposition, the two items are to be compared fully, that is, with respect to all their relevant properties. By contrast, in the principle of “a matter that was included in a general category,” we derive particular laws, and there is not necessarily a total equivalence.

Let us recall that on the page for Parashat Shelach we also encountered a midrash whose wording hints at the principle of “a matter that was included in a general category,” and yet it is really only a kind of juxtaposition—that is, a comparison, though not between two items in a list within a single verse.

The Exposition in the Nazir Sugya

The Talmud in tractate Nazir interprets our verse differently. According to its view, the verse contains a list of impurities that separate from the corpse: “slain”—this is a limb that separated, that is, was “profaned,” from a living person. “Sword”—the sword is like the slain person, in the sense that the sword separates from the corpse it touched by becoming like it. “Or a corpse”—this is a limb that separated, that is, was “profaned,” from a corpse. Thus, the two items in the list that are derived from “slain” and “corpse” are limbs, one from the living and one from the dead.

This exposition is not parallel to ours, since a limb from a corpse is in no way included within a limb from the living, and therefore there is no reason to see here a particular singled out from a general category. The Talmudic midrash also contains no language that hints at singling out from a general category. Moreover, none of these limbs has physically separated from the other, so there is no logic in comparing them by way of the relation between something that separates and that from which it separated. To be sure, their basic similarity is entirely plausible: both are limbs that are themselves dead, or “slain.”

The Talmudic exposition in Nazir is therefore probably just a midrashic unpacking of the list in the verse, all of whose items are ultimate sources of impurity.⁷ The Talmud does not construct any juxtaposition among them at all. Most likely, that juxtaposition amounts only to the fact that all of them are ultimate sources of impurity, a conclusion that emerges from the verse itself. The exposition merely comes to say to what the law stated in the verse applies: a limb that separates from the corpse is like the corpse itself, and a limb that separates from the living is also like a corpse, and both are ultimate sources of impurity.

Rabbi Yonatan’s View

Rabbi Yonatan’s words in the midrash are not clear. He clearly assumes that “corpse” is not included within the term “slain.” The rule that a limb separating from a corpse is considered like the corpse itself he derives by an a fortiori inference from an animal carcass, and not from our verse. In Rabbi Yonatan’s words it is clear that “that which separates” refers to physical separation, since there is no textual separation here, that is, no singling out from a general category.⁸ But it is not clear what “slain” means according to Rabbi Yonatan. Moreover, his words lack an exposition teaching that what separates from the slain one is like the slain one itself; there is only an exposition regarding what separates from a corpse.

It is clear that according to Rabbi Yonatan, “slain” cannot mean limbs from a corpse, because that is the meaning of “corpse” itself. On the other hand, it is clear that there is something that separates from the slain one, since Rabbi Yonatan says that Scripture teaches about the corpse on its own and about the slain one on its own what we learned about the corpse—namely, that what separates from it is like it. It would seem that in his view this is where we learn the rule “the sword is like the slain person.” This is a different type of impurity that separates from the slain one: the sword that touched it.⁹

If so, Rabbi Yonatan maintains that there are two things that separate from the dead: a limb and a sword. The a fortiori inference from the animal carcass apparently teaches with respect to both of these that they are like the corpse itself. The word “slain” is like “corpse,” but one who died by the sword is called “slain,” since the sword profaned the living person.

We must now examine why Rabbi Yonatan says that we learn separately about what separates from the corpse and what separates from the slain one. After all, both are learned together from the a fortiori inference from the animal carcass.

It seems that according to Rabbi Yonatan the word “corpse” in the verse means an actual corpse. The word “slain” means one killed by a sword—a person who has been profaned, like the hewn stones of the altar that were profaned by a sword. Therefore, according to Rabbi Yonatan, “corpse” is not included within “slain”; if anything, the reverse would be true. The a fortiori inference from the animal carcass teaches with respect to each of them separately that what separates from it is like it. The same inference teaches about both, and therefore the teaching about what separates from the slain one is not actually missing from Rabbi Yonatan’s words.

At first glance, Rabbi Yonatan does not explain the repetition in the verse; he merely derives from the animal carcass that what separates from the corpse and from the slain one is impure like them, that is, it too is an ultimate source of impurity. But it is entirely possible that this exposition also gives us an explanation of the repetition. The verse specifies separately one slain by the sword and an ordinary corpse, because there is a difference regarding what kind of thing separates from them and imparts impurity like them: a limb or a sword. From each, we learn about a different type of separated thing. That itself can also become the explanation for the repetition in the verse.

If so, Rabbi Yonatan’s exposition in fact fully parallels the Talmudic exposition in Nazir cited above. He learns from the verse that what separates from the corpse or from the slain one is an ultimate source of impurity, and along the way also the rule that “the sword is like the slain person.” The a fortiori inference teaches regarding both that what separates from them is like them.

Summary of the Difference Between the Tannaim

We thus find that the difference between Rabbi Yoshiya and Rabbi Yonatan does not begin with verse interpretation, but rather with a difference in their understanding of the concept of “slain,” a difference rooted in their understanding of what it means for a human being to be profaned. According to Rabbi Yoshiya, “corpse” is included within “slain,” because in his view “slain” is a kind of material. Every dead person is “slain,” and so is every limb from the living or from the dead. Thus, according to Rabbi Yoshiya, every person who lacks life is a profaned person, and profanation is simply the absence of life. By contrast, according to Rabbi Yonatan, “slain” means only one killed by a sword, and not every dead person. In other words, what constitutes profanation is not the absence of life, but murder by sword. This is also what we found with respect to the altar: the brandishing of the sword profanes the stones. According to his view, a corpse is not included in “slain,” and therefore a separate source is required for each.¹⁰

B. The Sanctity of Life

On Teleological and Deontological Morality

As we have seen, the root of the dispute between Rabbi Yonatan and Rabbi Yoshiya lies in the question whether the absence of life as such is the profanation of a human being, or whether only murder is his profanation. From a moral and evaluative standpoint there is one common denominator here: taking a person’s life is a profanation of him. According to Rabbi Yoshiya, even the absence of life when it does not result from murder is still a kind of profanation. According to Rabbi Yonatan, only a human act can be regarded as the profanation of something, and not an objective state as such. More than that: according to him, “the sword is like the slain person”—that is, the instrument through which the act was performed is considered impure exactly like the result of the act. Such a law emphasizes the sanctity of life and extends it further.

It is possible that the difference between the tannaim lies in moral conceptions rather than in conceptions about life itself. The question is whether taking life is problematic because of its result, or whether the act itself—and perhaps its effect on the doer—is the central problem. Put differently: is murder prohibited as an act, or prohibited because of its result? One possible consequence concerns attempted murder. From the standpoint of the act, attempted murder would be regarded exactly like murder, even if in the end the result was not achieved. Perhaps what we have here is a more general disagreement between a morality of outcomes, teleological morality, and a morality of acts and intentions, deontological morality.

In this section we will not deal with the dispute between the tannaim, but rather with what they share: the sanctity of life.

Absence of Life and Impurity

We know that a corpse is an ultimate source of ritual impurity. It is impurity in its purest form. But if we pay attention, we will see that almost all forms of impurity are connected in one way or another to the absence of life. For example, a person afflicted with the biblical skin disease is considered by the sages to be like a dead person, and that disease is one of the primary sources of impurity. A woman after childbirth is impure because life has gone out from her—there remains in her something like a vacuum of absent life—and so on.

From this it appears that life is a form of holiness. If its absence is impurity, then its presence is holiness. This also explains why taking life is its profanation: it removes holiness into the sphere of the ordinary.¹¹ We will now see two consequences of this connection, both relating to laws of the community: the law of doubtful impurity in the public domain and the law of impurity with respect to the community.

Impurity Is Waived for the Community

The laws of impurity do not apply to the community in the usual way. For example, when the majority of the people are impure at Passover, the Passover offering may be brought in impurity. The same is true of other communal offerings.¹² The sages in the Talmud dispute whether impurity is “permitted” or “deferred” in the case of the community. In other words: if impurity is permitted, then in a case where most of the community is impure it is as though the impurity does not exist at all, and the one who offers the sacrifice has not in fact offered it in impurity. If impurity is deferred, then it still exists, but the offerer is allowed to proceed and offer the sacrifice in impurity, as though he were under compulsion.¹³

Now if impurity is only deferred for the community, one might understand this law as stemming from the honor and standing of the community. In several contexts we find that halakha does not wish to burden the community with limitations imposed on individuals. But the halakhic position according to which impurity is actually permitted for the community cannot be understood in that way at all. Why should impurity simply not exist in communal contexts?

To understand this we must briefly return to the meaning of a community, or collective, as we discussed on the page for Parashat Miketz, part 2. We saw there that the community is an autonomous entity, beyond the sum of the individuals who compose it. What is that entity? The whole as such. What would happen if all the individuals who make up that whole were replaced? Would what exists now be another whole, or is it the same collective being itself?

From a number of halakhic examples, one can show that halakha relates to such a case as though the same collective exists continuously. In the language of the author of Tzafnat Paneah, such a condition is called: “the community does not die.”¹⁴ A community cannot die; only the individuals who compose it change over time. For a halakhic consequence of this, see, for example, Tosafot to Babylonian Talmud, Me’ilah 9b, under the heading “communal offerings.”

This now makes clear why there is an opinion that impurity is permitted for the community. Since a community never dies, impurity does not apply to it either. As we have seen, impurity is the absence of life, and the community is always alive.

Doubtful Impurity in the Public Domain

There is a well-known law that if a doubt regarding impurity arises in the public domain, we rule leniently, whereas if it arises in the private domain, we rule that it is impure—that is, we are stringent. This is true even when the doubt is remote. For example, even a double doubt in the public domain is pure, while in the private domain it is impure. This rule is learned from the case of the suspected adulteress who secluded herself in the private domain, whom we treat as impure on account of doubt.

It may be that this law too can be grounded in the same idea. The public domain belongs to the many. As we have seen, the community never dies, and therefore impurity in a domain that belongs to the community does not exist, for impurity exists only where there is an absence of life. By contrast, doubtful impurity in the private domain is like any other doubt concerning a biblical prohibition in halakha,¹⁵ and therefore one must rule stringently there.

There is room to ask why this rule applies only in cases of doubt. Seemingly, we ought to exempt the many from the laws of impurity altogether. It may be that the explanation is as follows: if there is certain impurity in the public domain, then every individual who passes there certainly becomes impure. In that case, the question concerns the individual who passed there and not the domain as a whole, and therefore we declare him impure. But in a situation of doubtful impurity in the public domain, we have no definite information about any individual, and the question really concerns the domain and not the person who passed through it.¹⁶ As explained above, in such a case we rule leniently, because the domain belongs to the many.

The Sugya of a Placenta That Partially Emerged

Let us conclude with one more point that will illustrate and sharpen the concept of impurity and its relation to holiness. We use the concept of impurity in different senses. But its most basic meaning is the opposite of holiness. We will now see an interesting halakhic consequence of this meaning of the concept of impurity.

The Talmud in Babylonian Talmud, Bava Kamma 11a, cites the opinion of Rabbi Eliezer, who holds that there is no partial placenta without a fetus. That is, if a woman or an animal is giving birth and part of the placenta emerges, then that part certainly contains something of the fetus. In such a case we must be stringent out of doubt and declare the woman impure. But if we hold that part of the placenta may emerge without containing any part of the fetus, then the woman will be pure because we have a double doubt: perhaps no fetus emerged, and even if one did emerge, perhaps most of it did not emerge.

Tosafot there object to this ruling: what exactly is the Talmud discussing? If the case occurred in the public domain, then certainly in the case of a double doubt we should rule leniently—indeed, even in the case of a single doubt. But if the doubt arose in the private domain, then we should be stringent even in the case of a double doubt. In other words, there is no domain in which there is a difference, with respect to impurity, between a single doubt and a double doubt. If so, how can the baraita make such a distinction with regard to the impurity of a woman after childbirth? In what sort of domain could the Talmud be speaking?

Tosafot answer that here the baraita is not dealing with the laws of impurity, but with the woman’s prohibition to her husband—the woman after childbirth is forbidden to her husband during the days of her impurity. Later authorities explain that Tosafot understood that a woman’s prohibition to her husband does not stem from her ritual impurity in those days. It is an independent prohibition that exists alongside the impurity of the woman after childbirth. If so, with respect to impurity and purity we do indeed follow the type of domain in which the doubt arose, and therefore if the woman touches items that must remain pure, we will be stringent or lenient according to the domain in which the doubt arose. But as regards prohibiting her to her husband, this is not a matter of impurity but of prohibition, and therefore the ordinary rules apply: a doubt concerning a biblical prohibition is treated stringently, while a double doubt is treated leniently.

This distinction is a classic conceptual distinction, and Tosafot here anticipate a mode of thought that crystallized into a full-fledged method in later generations—the “two laws” method of Rabbi Hayyim Soloveitchik of Brisk. But here we will address another question that arises from Tosafot’s words.

The Avnei Nezer’s Objection and Resolution: Impurity and Prohibition

Several later authorities raise the following objection against Tosafot’s answer: the very law of doubtful impurity in the public and private domains is itself learned from the case of the suspected adulteress. But there the entire discussion concerns whether she is forbidden to her husband or not. It follows that a woman’s becoming forbidden to her husband is a law of impurity, not a law of prohibition. Indeed, it is from that very case that we learn the laws of doubtful impurity. If so, these later authorities ask, how can Tosafot explain the case of the placenta as a matter of prohibitions rather than impurity on the grounds that it concerns whether the woman is forbidden to her husband?

In the book Nefesh Yehonatan, which is a collection of dialectical studies by Rabbi Yehonatan Eybeschütz on the weekly Torah portions, an editor brings in a footnote to our parashah oral comments that he heard from his great-uncle, the Sochatchover Rebbe, explaining these Tosafot. He cites the Kuzari, part 3, chapter 49, who writes that impurity is relevant only where holiness is relevant—for example, sacrificial items, terumah, and tithes. In other contexts, where holiness is not relevant, impurity is likewise not relevant. In such places, what we have is prohibition, not impurity.

In light of these remarks, the Sochatchover explained that the prohibition of the suspected adulteress to her husband stems from the injury done to the bond of marriage between them. Marriage is a bond of holiness, and therefore injury to it creates impurity. Thus, the prohibition of a woman who has gone astray to her husband is due to the damage done to their marital bond—about this it is said, “if a man’s wife goes astray and betrays him.” See the well-known remarks of Rabbi Joseph Colon in his responsa.¹⁷ By contrast, the prohibition of a woman after childbirth to her husband has nothing at all to do with the marital bond between them. A woman after childbirth, like a menstruant, is equally forbidden to everyone, even if she is unmarried. This has nothing to do with marriage or with injury to marriage. If so, according to the Kuzari, this prohibition is an ordinary prohibition and not impurity. Tosafot add that this prohibition is unrelated to the fact that she is impure, which itself derives from the absence of life that went out from her, as we explained above.

Back to the Sanctity of Life

This is a fine and sharp halakhic demonstration of the close and necessary connection between impurity and holiness. Only where there is holiness is there impurity, and vice versa. The same is true of the ordinary: there is no ordinary except where there is holiness, and vice versa. From this it clearly follows that if taking life, or the absence of life, is profanation or impurity, then life itself is a form of holiness. This is the halakhic and Torah meaning of the value sometimes referred to in modern language as “the sanctity of life.”

We may add that the modern and false use of the concept of “holiness” in relation to life, in a world that generally has no connection to and no regard for concepts of holiness, is nothing but equivocation, and at times empty demagoguery. In such a world one can arrive at a situation in which even the sanctity of life becomes merely a tool used to achieve one goal or another. When it is inconvenient, the “sanctity of life” simply lapses, and then life is taken readily and willingly—as in the case of abortion.

Footnotes