Tazria-Metzora: The Purity in Embodied Knowledge

by Sofia Freudenstein '25

In Bava Metzia 86a, there is a very unusual story about Rabba Bar Nachmani, on the run from Babylonian government authorities. He runs to a swamp and sits on the stump of a palm tree, studying Torah as his life is in danger. The scene then shifts, in an almost comic-book panel fashion, to a debate between God and the heavenly academy (“metivta d’rakia”). They are debating the issue of baheret im sei’ar lavan—the issue of a snow-white leprous sore with white hair—that appears first in our parsha this week, at the beginning of Leviticus 13. If the hair precedes the sore, the skin is deemed pure. But if the sore precedes the hair, it is deemed impure. However, what if it is unclear which precedes which? This is the debate in heaven, happening between God and a myriad of angels. Why is the obscure nature of bodily welts and infections the topic of divine debate?

Professor Chaim Saiman, in his book Halakhah: The Rabbinic Idea of Law, puts it more dramatically. He writes:

What is being argued about in this academy? The mysteries of the cosmos? The answers to life's true meaning? The secrets that emerge when theology meets physics? Is this where God's ultimate purpose is revealed from the divine throne itself? Not at all...Skin? Hair? Blotches!

What Saiman concludes is that this topic is intentionally being discussed, as it is microcosmic of what halakha—what is being debated in heaven—is supposed to be in our lives. It is emblematic of how every aspect of our lived existence—no matter how miniscule, mundane, or even gross—is encompassed by Jewish law. And not only that, but as indicated by God debating leprosy in heaven, our lived bodily experience is of utmost importance, even though such a place is both literally and figuratively above the earthly and the physical. By being the topic of focus in the highest spiritual realm, our physicality—even in its manifestation of blotchy hair and skin—is deemed worthy and important of God’s speculation and care.

Let us take this idea one step further. The specific debate is about the default assumption when there is doubt regarding certain aspects of the human body. The heavenly court suggests ruling cautiously and deems the skin impure, while God suggests that it be deemed pure. This is a striking disagreement, wherein God is the more lenient interlocutor. It is similar to the Oven of Akhnai debate in Bava Metzia 59b. There, Rabbi Eliezer disagrees with the rabbis about the purity of an oven. While the majority of rabbis promote caution, deeming the oven impure, Rabbi Eliezer argues for purity, getting the natural world to uproot itself and turn itself upside down in order to show how much his lenient ruling aligns with God’s will. Why, like Rabbi Eliezer, does God push for purity when possible?

It seems that God’s stance is teaching us that when it is possible to declare purity, we should. This is also a positive assertion of embodiment. Unless we have proof otherwise, we should assume that our bodies are pure. 

This is rather counterintuitive. When thinking about the gap between our physical selves and God’s incorporeality, between the sublime perfection of God and the messy physicality of this world, we might imagine that God’s rulings would be that we are impure. How could we seem pure from the perspective of God? But these gemarot are teaching us to reject such assumptions. God assumes the purity of our bodies. The end of the Rabba bar Nachmani story in Bava Metzia pushes this stance even more strongly. In order to resolve the debate between God and the heavenly court, Rabba bar Nachmani is needed, as he is “preeminent in [the halakhot of] leprosy [and the halakhot of ritual impurity imparted by] tents” (Bava Metzia 86a). He ascends to Heaven to determine how to adjudicate this case, even though God Godself is one of the participants! Rabba bar Nachmani is an expert due to his knowledge of such impurities, but also just by virtue of his being embodied. He can offer expert testimony on physicality to the disembodied heavenly court. 

The focus of the heavenly debate on the baheret im sei’ar lavan teaches us of the sacredness of our bodies, even when they are imperfect. Rabba bar Nachmani, the final decisor of the heavenly debate, teaches us of the important knowledge that comes from being embodied.

A similar dynamic lifting up our bodily selves as well as bodily knowledge can be found in another realm of halakha that is also addressed in this week’s parshiyot: The laws of niddah (menstrual purity). In a mishnah we learned in Hilchot Niddah this year, a woman approaches Rabbi Akiva with a question regarding menstrual purity:

It happened that a woman came in front of Rabbi Akiva and said to him: I have seen a bloodstain. He said to her: Perhaps you had a wound? She said to him: Yes, but it has healed. He said to her: Perhaps it could have opened again and let out some blood. She said to him: Yes. And Rabbi Akiva declared her clean. He saw his disciples look at each other in astonishment. He said to them: Why do you find this difficult, for the sages did not say this rule in order to be stringent but rather to be lenient, for it is said, “And if a woman have issue, and her issue in her flesh be blood”—blood but not a bloodstain (Mishnah Niddah 8:3).

In this story, a woman appears before Rabbi Akiva in distress, assuming that if she saw blood she must be impure (as taught in Leviticus 15). Yet in a pastorally sensitive fashion, Rabbi Akiva asks thoughtful questions that ultimately lead to the conclusion of purity. His students are shocked by Rabbi Akiva’s approach, and he chastises them for their astonishment. Just like the debate between the heavenly court and God regarding the baheret im sei’ar lavan, in which God assumes purity when there is doubt, here Rabbi Akiva does the same. The body is pure unless there is clear proof otherwise. Not only that, but Rabbi Akiva does not question or reject the woman’s seeming concern of impurity in his assumption of purity. He instead asks her bodily intuitive questions to get closer to the answer. Rabbi Akiva’s questions guide the woman in assessing her bodily self to get closer to the answer of purity. Like Rabba bar Nachmani being needed for his embodied self to discern the status of leprosy, the woman is needed for her embodied self to discern the status of menstrual purity.

These parshiyot of Tazria-Metzora remind us to check in with our bodily selves. To notice the surface of our bodies, as well as our intricate insides. Verse after verse, we read about aspects of our lived experiences that I would have never assumed the Torah would want to shine light upon—and yet are holy enough to be the subject of heavenly debate and anchors of halakhic leniency. As the midrash in Vayikra Rabbah says:

Rabbi Shmuel bar Yitzḥak interprets: Even though they appear as though they are too 

ugly and black to recite them in public, e.g., the halakhot of discharges, leprosy, a 

menstruating woman, and a woman who has given birth, the Holy One blessed be He said: “They are pleasant to Me” (Vayikra Rabbah 19:3).  

God finds our bodily ways desirable. They even can be wellsprings of intuition and factors in the way we determine what is true in the world. By having divine ink spilled on bodily discharges and skin abnormalities, these parshiyot of Tazria-Metzora show us how we are meant to be in this world with our whole selves, and that our whole selves merit discussion and compassion, divine and human.

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1. It is an important caveat that this is done via the Angel of Death taking his life, so that he may ascend. However, even Saiman in his book describes this act as being “called up to the Academy to adjudicate."

2. I would also like to be intellectually and emotionally honest (especially after almost completing a year of studying Hilkhot Niddah) that there are many times throughout halakhic literature and history in which Niddah was not a realm that lifted up sacredness and innate bodily knowledge. However, I believe that there are texts that can show us different avenues and frameworks for some of these issues, and I feel blessed to live in a time in history in which learned women can help show different and even new lenses in which to approach these texts and their respective ramifications.

3. I would like to thank Rabbi Avigayil Halpern for guiding me to this midrash in her D’var Torah on Tazria-Meztora, found here: https://avigayil.substack.com/p/tazria-metzora-theology-without-underwear.

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Sofia Freudenstein graduated with an honors bachelor degree from the University of Toronto. Before university, Sofia competed in the International Chidon HaTanach, and participated in the Drisha High School Program, the Bronfman Youth Fellowship, and the Tikvah High School Program. She spent a gap year at Midreshet Lindenbaum, interned for the organization Ayeka, has been Co-Rosh Beit Midrash at Camp Stone for two summers, and was the Director of Experiential Education at the Drisha High School Program. While in the Core Semikha program, Sofia is also pursuing a masters degree in Jewish Philosophy at the Bernard Revel Graduate School of Yeshiva University, was the Maharat Intern for ASBI in Chicago, and spent the past year learning at Yeshivat Drisha.