Untangling the Myths on Tumah and Tahara

When a married woman menstruates, she gains the status of niddah and is tamei (ritually impure) to her husband, but what does that actually mean? Tumah often gets translated as “impurity” while Tahara, its opposite, takes the definition of “purity”. Yet these definitions hardly capture the true meanings of these spiritual concepts. The ritual purity and impurity of menstruation is in no way indicative of physical cleanliness or hygienics. Rather, they describe a state of connection versus disconnection. Here, we’ll explore the hidden dimensions of tumah and tahara and how they bridge the gap between biological and spiritual reality. 
Rabbi Shimshon Raphael Hirsch traces the source of the word tahara to tzahar (צהר), noon, the part of the day in which the clouds are most receptive to allowing the sun’s rays to penetrate light to the world. He connects the deeper meaning of the word tahara to the concept of receptivity in contrast to tu’umah, a non-receptive state. According to Rav Hirsch, a person in the state of tu’umah is “entombed”, blocked from reaching a deeper spiritual place. A person in the state of tahara is “receptive to the divine, whose spirit, mind and body are radiated through by the divine.”¹ This status of tahara, he says, has no relation to physicality itself but provides a profound spiritual connection between the divine and the corporeal: “So if the purity of man in relation to God consists in his being receptive to the divine, and this receptivity is conditioned by the fact that his body, his בשר “flesh”, is really מבשר, “messenger”, in the service of the spirit stand.”² It is this conduit between the body and the metaphysical reality that needs to be open to facilitate an ever-present connection to the Creator. 
Dr. Susan Handelman, professor of English and Judaic Studies at Bar-Ilan University, takes this connection a step further by exploring how the receptivity of tahara correlates to life and tu’umah to death in her article “On the Essence of Ritual Impurity”³. The kedushah that flows through the conduit between body and spirit is itself a form of vitality, connecting up to the Creator. Its absence is “in the realm where He is most concealed and least felt, where there is least holiness. In a place where G‑d is least felt, there is naturally more room for “opposition” to Him.”⁴ But she separates between two forms of tu’umah. There is “the tum’ah that we ourselves create when we intentionally push G‑d’s presence away and create a void; and there is the tum’ah that G‑d creates as part of nature.”⁵ Niddah and a women’s cycle is naturally part of the tu’umah of our world, a process with no sin or misdeed. 

The greatest tu’umah, the contact with a dead body, can become elevated into an amazing mitzvah that nevertheless requires the ritual washing of the hands. 
The disconnect of a woman’s physicality can lead to new Jewish life, the greatest gift. When faced with the void that we did not cause, we as the Jewish people seek to find our way back to kedusha.

When a woman becomes niddah through the natural processes of her body, she becomes tamei through no fault of her own. She is in no way considered “unclean” but rather she is classified within the privacy of her marriage as being in a state of disconnect from the Creator, as Tehilla Abramov explores. Likewise, when she ritually bathes in the mikvah to become tahara again, she does so fully cleansed of dirt and oils—this immersion has nothing to do with physical cleanliness⁶. Not only does this process reestablish the conduit between physical and spiritual, but it also establishes another connection—the connection between tahara, niddah, and life. 
The niddah cycle begins at the loss of potential life:  “Every month, this great potential for holiness, a woman’s potential to engage in the sublime power of creation, reaches a peak in her body (an “ascent”). When the potential is not fulfilled and the holiness departs, the now-lifeless remnants leave the body. And this “descent” is susceptible to tum’ah. It is precisely because of the high level of G‑dliness involved in the procreative process that tum’ah can occur at all.” This is a death of what could have been. This loss of potential results in a physical period as well as a period of spiritual disconnect. When the cycle comes around and that potential for life returns, the woman immerses herself and reestablishes this spiritual conduit, making herself a conduit for both spirituality and life. In this, the spiritual cycle mimics the physical cycle of a woman, ebbing and flowing through the course of a month. It makes clear the most important aspect of tahara—its connection to life.
And when a woman gives birth to that new life, once again she becomes niddah. Even though she has produced a new life, an incredibly holy act, her disconnection from it in the form of birth leads to a disconnect from kedusha. As Handleman says, “there is a very great level of holiness at birth: the birth of a child involves one of the most sublime powers of G‑d, the ability to create ex nihilo—something from nothing. After birth, this intense holiness, this powerful force of G‑d, “departs” and there is greater potential for tum’ah.”⁷ She herself is not considered morally or spiritually impure, yet within her is a spiritual separation from the Creator that must be healed and repaired, a void to be replenished. 
Though we as the Jewish people always aspire towards the passionate connection of kedusha, sometimes the natural world which we are plunged into leads us towards disconnection and even death. The greatest tu’umah, the contact with a dead body, can become elevated into an amazing mitzvah that nevertheless requires the ritual washing of the hands. 
The disconnect of a woman’s physicality can lead to new Jewish life, the greatest gift. When faced with the void that we did not cause, we as the Jewish people seek to find our way back to kedusha. Yet the body itself is not considered “unclean” or “morally wrong” when undergoing these natural processes, but simply under the ebbs and flows of the cyclical nature of tu’umah. In observing these cycles, we see what it means to be one with the Creator. 

1. Rabbi Shimshon Raphael Hirsch on Genesis 7:2 ↩︎
2. Rabbi Shimshon Raphael Hirsch on Genesis 7:2 ↩︎
3. Susan Handleman, “On the Essence of Ritual Impurity,” https://www.chabad.org/theJewishWoman/article_cdo/aid/1542/jewish/On-the-Essence-of-Ritual-Impurity.htm  ↩︎
4.  Susan Handleman, “On the Essence of Ritual Impurity,” https://www.chabad.org/theJewishWoman/article_cdo/aid/1542/jewish/On-the-Essence-of-Ritual-Impurity.htm  ↩︎
5. Susan Handleman, “On the Essence of Ritual Impurity,” https://www.chabad.org/theJewishWoman/article_cdo/aid/1542/jewish/On-the-Essence-of-Ritual-Impurity.htm  ↩︎
6. Tehilla Abramov, The Secret of Jewish Femininity, 39 ↩︎
7. Susan Handleman, “On the Essence of Ritual Impurity,” https://www.chabad.org/theJewishWoman/article_cdo/aid/1542/jewish/On-the-Essence-of-Ritual-Impurity.htm  ↩︎