This document discusses the concept of purity and holiness in the Bible. It begins by explaining that purity does not mean cleanliness, but rather refers to a state of being oriented toward sacred experiences. Certain experiences, like death, sex, and childbirth, are seen as distracting from sacred encounters. The document examines biblical passages regarding these experiences and the rituals used to transition back to a state of purity, like sprinkling ashes. The overall message is that these rituals are not about rules, but helping people fully engage with the sacred by separating major life dramas and experiences.

1. The Importance of Purity to Holiness - a Discussionof Tahor and Tamei
General Introduction
We have spent a good bit of time exploring the general topic of sacred
space - what it has been in our tradition, what it might be for us in our own
time, the important purposes it serves as part of our relationship with God,
and how and by whom or what it is administered.
Today we begin a chapter on Divine guidance that initially speaks to ways
we are to be and ways we are not to be when we encounter God in sacred
space. We’ve looked at these issues when we took our journey through
Torah last year. Now we’ll focus on them more directly and in greater detail.
Now, many - whether Christian or liberal Jew or any other kind of person
who does not feel bound by the text – do not follow these mitzvot literally.
Others feel bound to the text in certain ways with respect to those of the
mitzvot they deem applicable. As usual, we will not get into the differences
between these and other groups. Our work will be to dive to deeperlevels
to find meaning in God’s word that helps guide our lives, whatever
differences we may have as to how exactly we read the text, or whether or
how we live by its literal requirements.
The Idea of Purity in the Bible

2. Before I get into the idea of purity in the Bible, let us get a baseline of our
thinking on this matter.
What does purity mean to you? In the context of religion, especially in the
context of holiness, what does it mean? What does it consist of? Is it
achievable in any way, and, to the extent it’s achieved, what does it do for
us in our relationship with God and others, and in the world?
(Discussion- I do not like the word, purity, as a way of beginning this
discussion, and regret that I’ve put it in your mind. But, if we know we’ll
need to refine our understanding as we proceed, the word does suggest
certain things of value. We’ve talked extensively about ways, influences,
ideas, temptations - often bad, but not always - that lead us away from the
way of God. One could say that they distract, debase, contaminate, or
dilute our being true to God. It was in our discussionof idolatry, you’ll recall,
when we covered this mostextensively. In a word, one could say that much
of that inappropriate behavior leads us to be impure.
But the Bible, as we’ll come to understand in our new study, isn’t just
concerned about action that leads us to idolatry. It’s also concerned about
action that, while perfectlylegitimate, distracts or confuses or improperly
mixes with experience of the sacred, and thus does not fit with sacred
encounter.

3. Let me make one other comment before we get into a more specific
introduction of this chapter. I know you may have in your mind certain
verses from the New Testament - especiallyfrom Matthew and Mark - that
appear to differfrom some of the ideas we will discuss in this chapter. I
want you to know and be confident of two things: 1) There also is text in the
Prophets that poses challenges to these ideas, or at least to the way they
are applied, and 2) We’ll devote some time to both the Jewish and the
Christian challenge when we get to the kosher rules, in an upcoming lesson
in this chapter.
Relationship of Purity to Holiness
To sum it up at the start: God gives us these mitzvot of purity not merely to
have more rules to follow, more mere rituals to practice. As we know and
will discuss more fully, when these mitzvot are followed merely ritually or
hypocritically, it actually angers the Divine. God guides us with these
mitzvot because they help us, if we understand them and followthem in
their true spirit, in our seeking to be holy, by infusing holiness in both the
encounters we have in sacred space as well as when we move out into the
ordinary moments of our everyday lives.

4. At the deepest level, they teach of holiness per se. In being mindful of them
and doing them, we practice holiness. And in the self-control they engender
and in the discipline of following them, we prepare ourselves to become the
holy nation God calls us to be.
A. We will talk first about ways of being that are appropriate and ways that
are not as we experience sacred encounter. Our Bibles have made the
horrible mistake of translating the Hebrew words that describe the way we
are to be and not be in sacred encounter, tahor and tamei, as clean and
unclean. What a travesty! This conveys the idea, as we discussedin our
journey through Torah last year, that activities that lead one to be tamei are
bad and wrong, since they make one “unclean.” We’llget into this more in a
moment. But, for now, think instead of this guidance as relating to a
concern about coming into scared space diverted or distracted, in some
ways lacking in wholeness, or without an appropriate level of purity of spirit.
The simple idea here is that the first step we must take to becoming a light
unto the nations is to understand the difference betweensacred and
secular. As we have already discussed in so many ways, we need to
experience the sacred as distinct from the everyday, the mundane. For it is
from the sacred principally that we learn of holiness, get inspired to it,
become committed to it, and carry it forward into the world.

5. This is not to say we don’t or shouldn’t live in the everyday. We’re human!
Of course, we live in the everyday, as we must. But our covenant with God
calls upon us to learn of the holy and spread the holy throughout our lives
and our world. This requires a steady, regular, and whole experience of the
holy, without confusion, distraction, or mixing with the other major dramas
of life. And that, I think, is the purpose of these mitzvot.
B. In the second lesson, we’ll re-visit the mitzvot that relate to that odd
spreading condition, tzara’at. You’ll recall our discussionof this affliction as
a powerful metaphor for the consequencesof sin. How do we contract this
“disease”?How does it make us “impure?” How do we avoid it? And, more
important, what do we do when we contract it to overcome and get past it?
This discussion, I would suggest, has a great deal to do with holiness.
C. In the third lesson, we’ll explore what the guidance on forbidden
mixtures teaches us about holiness and how we becomeholy.
D. And, finally, in the fourth lesson, we’ll get to the rules of kashrut.
Whether we keep kosher or not, this guidance, we’ll learn, goes a lot
deeperthan it appears on the surface. The old line from the 60s - you are
what you eat - may here have even deepertruths than what food does or
doesn’tdo to our bodies physically.

6. We will look for ways that guide us to behaviors and actions that are both
physically and spiritually betterfor us.
We will look for ways that show greater respect forthe feelings and well-
being of other living creatures as well as the well-being of our environment.
We will look for ways that steer us away from people or animals whose
behavior would not be beneficial for us to emulate.
We will look for ways to better ourselves simply by controlling our appetites.
In essence, again, we are looking for ways we can learn and practice that
lead us to greater holiness.
The World of the “Clean” and the “Unclean,” Hereinafter Known as Tahor
and Tamei
So, let’s get started with today’s lesson. For reasons we have discussed,
we will no longer use the English words, clean and unclean. We must
remove from our minds the pejorative connotations that such words
convey. Rather, as we will see clearly, the mitzvot describe two states of
being: one that is oriented spiritually to sacred encounter (tahor) and

7. another (tamei) that, while wholly appropriate to many commonlife
experiences, is not suitable to the sacred experience.
Essentially, one becomes tamei by having recently touched the world
outside sacred space so closelyor so deeplythat it weakens or dilutes or
distracts from our capacity to experience the holy. It’s not that the touch is
wrong; indeed it might be unavoidable or even beautiful or necessary. It’s
rather that it doesn’tmix with the sacred. Put another way, the Divine
concern is that, while consumed with such stuff, we are not of a mind or
spirit to engage in sacred encounter. These mitzvot also address the time
and the process by which we can effect a transition from such ways of
being and return to sacred space.
I-V. Read Numbers 5:2-3; Leviticus 11:8, 24, 28; Numbers 19:11-19;
Numbers 19:2-9.
A. Here we encounter the first major experience in life that the Bible worries
distracts us from sacred experience. What is it, and what’s the basis for the
concern?
(It’s the touch of death. When we touch another’s death, especiallythat of a
close relative or friend, we are so caught up in that experience and the
mourning that follows that the drama of sacred encounter is, for a time,
incompatible with it. It’s not that God is absent from moments of death and
mourning. God is very much present. But while we live out the drama
around death, we are utterly incapable of all of the mind and spirit and joy
and offering that sacred encounter calls upon us to have in sacred space.

8. The old way of saying this was that we defile sacred space if we come into
it while in death’s touch. Perhaps our way of saying it is that we are not
right for sacred service when we are, rightly, full up in death and mourning.
We’re not right for it, those experiencing it, and the space of such
encounter; and it’s not right for us.
Another way of saying this is that when we experience death, our hands,
bodies, and souls are touched with death. When we worship, make
offerings, and consume of the sacred in sacred space, our hands, bodies,
and souls are full of spiritual life in its purest and mostdirectional form.
One drama has integrity. And so does the other. Acting as if they can be
mixed threatens and perhaps damages the integrity of each, especially the
holiness, which is the intended purpose of the sacred. We face life, and we
face death, but we make boundaries between the main experiences of our
lives. In so doing, we create meaning out of each and for both.)
B. Let’s focus now on the processof transition by which those who touch
death can come back into sacred encounter. What in the world might the
ritual of the ashes of the red heifer mean to us in our own time?
(Most sages say there is no clear rationale for this practice; rather there
may be a hidden purpose, hidden by God. It’s hard to argue with that
position. Why a red heifer? Where does one find it? What if one can’t find it,

9. or in the number needed? What is the meaning of the process of killing and
burning the cow, and then mixing its ashes with freshwater and sprinkling
the mixture on the personwho touched the dead? How could this process
have a purifying effect?
I have a hypothesis. In the destruction of the red heifer, we experience
ritually, vividly and dramatically the decompositionof our own bodies. All
that’s left physically is the residue. And, in the midst of the death of a loved
one, the mourner must acknowledge that lesson. We are sprinkled with the
awareness that, materially, the dead are as the ashes of the red heifer.
Spiritually, yes, the one who lived lives on with us and with God, but not
physically. Until we are connected and committed to this truth after the
powerful experience of touching death, we are not ready to re-enter sacred
space for the purpose of worship and all that happens there as part of the
sacred drama.)
VI-XI.Read Leviticus 15:18-30.There are several verses that precede
these that relate to certain ordinary and mysterious bodily discharges. And
there are several mitzvot that guide us as to what they mean. But I want to
focus on the one most important, basic life experience in these verses
we’ve just read. What is it, and why do you think the mitzvot call for a
separation between it and sacred drama? And does such a separation
make sense to you? Explain.
(We are guided to separate sexual experience from sacred experience in
both time and through transition. The premise is that we cannot fully and
wholeheartedly experience sacred encounter when we are too fresh from
the experience of sex. Again the mitzvot do not prohibit or discourage
loving and proper sex. Quite the contrary. They simply say that when we
experience moments of sexual drama, we must wait, permit that drama to

10. conclude and pass away, until we can properlyand fully proceed into
sacred drama.)
XII-XIII.Read Leviticus 12:2-6.Putting aside the different treatment of the
birth of a girl and a boy (unless you really want to examine that), what is the
drama here that is separated from sacred drama? Why? What’s the
rationale?
(Some might see these ideas as archaic, superstitious, and/or sexist. Some
say these mitzvot have considerable mystery to them. Others view these
mitzvot at their more literal level. I don’t want to argue with any of these
positions. But here’s another perspective I tend to have: while God is with
us in all experiencesincluding childbirth, childbirth is its own miraculous
drama whose integrity should be fully respected througha separation from
sacred encounter.
The mother is giving birth to another human being! Both mother and baby
have touched the edges of life and its transitions. They have lived in this
world and others. And until the new life is stable, and pain and joy and
normalcy come back into balance, mother and child are neither fully
through that journey nor ready for transition back into the other dramas of
life. While living out this vital drama, the new mother is excused by these
mitzvot from experiencing either the sexual or the sacred. Then, after
transition, she can return full of heart, soul, and attention to the encounter
of God in sacred space.

11. An offering is brought when she re-enters sacred space, I think, in gratitude
for the miracle that has occurred and the safe journey back from one world
and its drama and peril to the space of the drama of formal encounter with
God.)
XIV-XVI.There are several mitzvot relevant to the topic we will not now
address in Numbers 19:9-21.But let’s read Leviticus 15:16 to get a sense
of the typical process foreffecting the transition from tamei to tahor, that is,
from unreadiness to readiness for sacred encounter. Can you see what the
process involves, and explain what it is intended ritually to express?
(In a sense, both physically and spiritually, we take on “a new skin” after
experiencing the ritual waters, the flowing freshwaters. We get a freshstart
after this womb-like transition. We then can begin a new journey after our
touch with other major dramas, ready to return to sacred space, to resume
preparation for our missionof work in holiness.
While Camille and I don’t oftenenough experience the flowing waters or
the mikveh, I would say that the times we have done so were special, and
the effect suggestedin the text was very true to the specialexperience we
had.
If not through these waters, do you have thoughts about other ways to
achieve transitions between the major dramas of life, especiallythat of
sacred encounter and the others we discussedtoday?

12. Discussion.)
Conclusion