{"id":45067,"date":"2018-12-02T19:49:40","date_gmt":"2018-12-02T17:49:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=45067"},"modified":"2022-06-26T17:51:05","modified_gmt":"2022-06-26T14:51:05","slug":"blood-of-purification","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/blood-of-purification\/","title":{"rendered":"Blood Of Purification"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"entry-content\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":50634,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[740,365,742],"acf":{"old_id":"45067","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":44687,"related_cahpter":"102","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"A feminist reading of the woman\u2019s rituals surrounding childbirth","content":"<p style=\"direction: ltr;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Leviticus 12 addresses the ritual impurities that follow childbirth. Although it is the shortest chapter in Leviticus, it raises a variety of questions that have stumped scholars for years. As a feminist reader, I notice a few aspects of the text that are often overlooked.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"direction: ltr;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For example, the text tells us that when a woman is in her postpartum ritual impurity, she may not enter the Sanctuary or come in contact with sacred items. This implies that at any other time, she may enter the Sanctuary and handle sacred items. I may be stating the obvious, but there is often the assumption that the world of the Sanctuary was restricted to men. This is not true. In fact, post-menopausal women may have had the easiest and most routine access to the Divine space!<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"direction: ltr;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Leviticus 12 also introduces a phrase that never appears elsewhere in the Bible: <em>d\u2019mai tohorah<\/em>, usually translated as \u201cblood of purification.\u201d After women give birth, they enter into two different stages of ritual impurity. The first stage is compared to the impurity of a menstruant while the second stage is called the period of <em>d\u2019mai tohorah<\/em>. When she completes the waiting time for each stage, she is no longer ritually impure. But, she is not required to launder her clothes or to bathe, as is the prescription for just about every other ritual impurity. Why doesn\u2019t she bathe (what we have come to know as immersing in a mikveh)? <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"direction: ltr;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I suggest that there is something unique about a woman\u2019s discharge after birth. A woman begins with bleeding for a few days, and then over the course of several weeks her discharge begins to lighten in color until it is almost clear with no trace of red. No other discharge shifts from blood red to clear. Perhaps there was a belief that a woman\u2019s own body ritually purifies itself, that the female body transforms the blood into a clear discharge. This would explain why the blood of purification is never used in any other setting and it would explain why the parturient was not required to bathe!<\/span><\/p>\n<p>image by Aggie11 \/ shutterstock<\/p>\n","image":{"ID":41227,"id":41227,"title":"shutterstock_521912170","filename":"shutterstock_521912170.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/shutterstock_521912170.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/milimilim-the-hebrew-corner-exodus-7\/shutterstock_521912170\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"shutterstock_521912170","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":41225,"date":"2018-09-30 13:52:06","modified":"2018-12-02 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