This aliyah continues the laws of ritual impurity, focusing on three sensitive areas that require great care: seminal emission, niddah, and a woman’s abnormal discharge (zivah).
Impurity of Seminal Emission
A person who has had a seminal emission bathes his body in water and is impure until the evening. Any garment or leather that came into contact with the emission is also impure. Likewise, if a woman lies with a man and there is a seminal emission, both are impure until the evening.
Laws of Niddah
Every woman who has a regular menstrual flow is impure for seven days, even if the flow stopped after only one day. Anyone who touches her, or sits where she sits, becomes impure. This is a severe impurity, including impurity of the bed and of the seat.
A Woman’s Zivah
If the blood appears outside the time of menstruation or continues for too many days, this is considered zivah. Such a woman is called a zavah gedolah (greater zavah). She counts seven clean days, meaning seven consecutive days without any flow, and only then she becomes pure. Here too there is an obligation to bring an offering on the eighth day, as we learned regarding the zav.
A Spiritual Insight
These laws of impurity do not come for physical cleanliness alone. They express a spiritual and bodily imbalance. When the forces of life, such as seed or blood, leave their place or their proper time, that is a departure from the order of creation. And the rectification requires time, purification, and at times also atonement.
A Message for Our Generation
In a modern culture that tends to blur distinctions, the Torah demands of us awareness, boundaries, and care, even in what seems natural. This is the path to true purification, inner and outer.
More Questions on the Parsha
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