Q&A: Impurity
Impurity
Question
Hello Honorable Rabbi, Maimonides writes:
“Just as it is permitted to eat and drink ordinary food that is impure, so too it is permitted to cause impurity to ordinary food in the Land of Israel, and one may even intentionally render tithed ordinary produce impure from the outset. Likewise, a person is permitted to come into contact with all forms of impurity and become impure through them, for Scripture warned only the sons of Aaron and the Nazirite against becoming impure through a corpse — implying that all other people are permitted, and that even priests and Nazirites are permitted to contract other forms of impurity besides corpse-impurity.”
And I wanted to ask: how does this fit with the priestly gifts?
That is, pilgrimage to Jerusalem, sacrifices, and so on are specific occasions during the year, so a person can say: right now I was impure and that’s fine, and now I will purify myself before I go — and that fits with what Maimonides wrote.
But the priestly gifts, from what I understand, are everyday things like the first shearing, challah, the foreleg, cheeks, and stomach, and more. And since these things are so routine, you would have to remain in a constant state of purity.
And maintaining constant ritual purity sounds like an impossible task…
Answer
What is the question? So it’s difficult. If they can’t, then they won’t remain pure, even though ideally they should.
Discussion on Answer
Also, with your permission, Rabbi, I’ll bring a question I saw online that in my opinion is phrased very well and really captures the difficulty. I’d be glad if you would address it:
“The day after the war” — a Sabbath in Jerusalem with Rabbi Haggai Lundin 055-2901011
Yeshiva
That’s what the internet is for
“The laws of impurity and purity seem very hard to apply (for example, taking a bed or sofa to a mikveh),
burdensome (the need to think every moment about what one is touching),
and bound up with a great deal of discomfort (a situation in which impurities emitted from the body of a man or woman are not their private matter).
For example — a situation that by its nature could be very common — the Passover Seder when the woman is a menstruant: she must be careful not to touch the food (and therefore also cannot cook for the holiday), and if someone accidentally touches her or the chair she is sitting on, he will not be able to continue eating the Passover sacrifice (even if he immerses).
The question is twofold:
A. Is this ‘her ways are ways of pleasantness’?
B. How can one long for the rebuilding of the Temple, and with it the return of all the laws of impurity and purity?”
A. There are many things in Jewish law that are not “ways of pleasantness.” Is a mamzer “ways of pleasantness”? Or stoning someone who desecrates the Sabbath?
B. Then don’t long for it. I assume/hope that when we live in that reality we will understand how difficult it is, how to manage with it, and also why all this is important.
The foreleg, cheeks, and stomach, and the first shearing do not need to be kept in purity.
Tithes and priestly portions were either given once at the end of the agricultural season, or they were given when the fruits had not yet been made susceptible to impurity.
Separating challah is more problematic because it is more routine, but there too one can in practice separate challah in a state of impurity (and burn it instead of giving it to a priest), or divide the dough into small portions. See Mishnah Challah 2:3.
I’m trying to understand this whole issue of impurity and purity a bit better. From what I’ve managed to read in several articles, impurity is not something inherently bad, and we have no interest or need to purify ourselves unless we’re going to something sacred.
But all the articles I read seem to contradict Jewish law when they talk about the priestly gifts, because there, as I said, there seems to be a need to remain pure all the time.
And then people talk about the difficulty — but difficulty, so what? It sounds truly impossible. If today we struggle with Jewish law, what can be said about the laws of impurity and purity? It sounds impossible to observe. That’s really why I’m asking: maybe I don’t properly understand the laws of the priestly gifts, and perhaps there is also a way there in which there is no constant need to maintain purity?