When a person has on the skin of his body a swelling, a rash, or a discoloration, and it develops into a scaly affection on the skin of his body, it shall be reported to Aaron the priest or to one of his sons, the priests.

The idea that others would examine and report on intimate details of our bodies—that such things would be of communal concern, and subject us to institutional regulation—may seem archaic. But as transgender people know, when it comes to gender, this kind of surveillance is alive and well.

Every trans person has experienced gender surveillance—the ongoing scrutiny of bodies, clothing, voices, and gestures to determine if we are male or female. Gender surveillance happens in stores, on the street, in the work place; it is conducted by strangers and friends, bosses and employees, police and people who are homeless, doctors and accountants. Wherever we go, whomever we encounter, others, consciously or unconsciously, are looking at us to determine whether we are male or female—which is why the therapist who helped me through gender transition instructed me to always carry a letter, addressed “To whom it may concern,” in which she assured whoever was reading it that I was not presenting myself as a woman in order to defraud or otherwise harm others.

I am not only an object of gender surveillance; I participate in the communal monitoring of gender. When I see someone, I immediately try to determine if they are male or female, because so many of my habits of understanding and relating to others are premised on determining who they are in terms of binary gender. I have lived my entire life engaging in gender surveillance, subjecting everyone—myself included—to that binary-enforcing gaze.

The spate of “bathroom bill” legislation in North Carolina, Texas, and elsewhere—laws designed to force trans people to use the restrooms that correspond to the sex on our birth certificates—has drawn national attention to gender surveillance. “Bathroom bills” require people whose bodies visibly vary from the norm to undergo intensive, intrusive examination and, if our differences are officially found to be defiling, to be expelled from communal spaces and publicly stigmatized.

 commands similar responses to bodies whose differences are officially deemed “leprous”:

As for the person with a leprous affection, his clothes shall be rent, his head shall be left bare, and he shall cover over his upper lip; and he shall call out, “Impure! Impure!” He shall be impure as long as the disease is on him. Being impure, he shall dwell apart; his dwelling shall be outside the camp ().

In , the Torah expands the range of bodies that are to be expelled because they are considered defiling:

The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Instruct the Israelites to remove from camp anyone with an eruption or a discharge… Remove male and female alike; put them outside the camp so they do not defile the camp of those in whose midst I dwell. The Israelites did so, putting them outside the camp (vv. 1-4).

The image of organized searches for those whose bodies may “defile” their society may seem like an outgrown relic of Iron Age notions of ritual purity. But as Jews found out during the Holocaust, and, as Latino communities in the U.S. targeted for immigration “sweeps” can attest to today, human beings have never left such practices behind.

To my knowledge, trans people have never been subjected to this sort of formal “removal” process. Until recently, most of us have lived in hiding or “below the radar”: too few and too scattered to inspire formal searches and “removals.” But many trans people know what it’s like to be seen as defiling our families, homes, workplaces, and communities, and forcibly removed as a consequence—expelled, sometimes violently, because the “eruptions” of our transgender identities are seen as a threat to communal health, harmony, religious life, or social order.

The removals of defiling bodies commanded by the Torah are in many ways less harsh than the removals many transgender people endure. The Torah’s commandments target temporary physical conditions that may affect anyone, rather than singling out a specific minority for discrimination. Unlike today’s gender-based removals, the Torah’s laws don’t stigmatize those who are removed from the camp, or suggest that they are guilty of moral failing, sin, or crime. (While leprosy was later interpreted and stigmatized as divine punishment, “eruptions and discharges” are common events.) And while the Torah allows those who have been removed to rejoin the community after completing rituals of purification, such as those detailed in , many transgender people are exiled for years, decades—sometimes for the rest of our lives.

The Torah is often cited as the basis for religious communities to exclude, exile, and stigmatize transgender people—and even to deny us urgent medical care—but the Torah never commands, approves, or encourages such things. Even when Moses declares that those who cross-dress are “abhorrent” to God, he does not claim that God demands that they be “removed from camp.” Though there have always been people who do not fit into the categories of male and female, the Torah says nothing about us. It does not portray us as a threat or an abomination; it doesn’t declare us unclean or unfit to participate in communal worship or activities; it doesn’t demonize us, curse us, punish us, relegate us to the margins or the shadows, order gender surveillance to guard against our entry into the community or the Tabernacle, or organize searches to locate and expel us.

The Torah’s silence opened the door for the rabbis of the Talmud to adapt halakhah to enable intersex Jews to participate in Jewish communal life, and, more recently and locally, for Yeshiva University to tolerate my presence as an openly transgender professor. But because the Torah does not acknowledge that there are human beings who are not simply male or female, it shrouds us in silence and incomprehensibility.

The Torah’s detailing of defiling physical differences ensured that these differences could be recognized, spoken of, and understood by communities as part of being human. In order to fully include transgender people, Jewish communities have to follow the Torah’s example—to speak frankly about transgender identities, to recognize and pragmatically address our differences, and to face up to, and change, the communal policies, practices, and habits that, intentionally or not, lead so many of us to be removed, or to remove ourselves, from the camp.

When this d’var Torah was first published in 2017, so-called bathroom bills—laws criminalizing trans people’s use of public restrooms that fit the gender with which we identify—were relatively new and, to me, surprisingly unpopular. Now, nine years later, this kind of anti-trans legislation has metastasized. Thousands of trans people and their families have become internal refugees, moving from state to state in search of health care, equality, and safety; others, including me, have either fled or are preparing to flee the country. All of us are waiting to find out if we will be subject to the invasive processes described in Leviticus 13 and Numbers 5: inspecting our bodies, officially designating us as “unclean,” and forcibly removing us, as lepers and other “unclean” Israelites were, from American society. 

The publication and distribution of the 91�첥 Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee (��”l) and Harold Hassenfeld (��”l).

Given the discomfort, discomfiture, and uncertainty that even mild skin eruptions can cause us nowadays, it should come as no surprise that they were a source of anxiety in ancient times. In this week’s parashah, that anxiety finds expression amidst an array of concerns about the human body and its functions. The purity laws in  through 15, which digress from the narrative flow of the book, are concerned with diet (chapter 11), reproduction (chapter 12), and bodily integrity (chapters 13 to 15, including property as an extension of the person).

In the context of the biblical cult, impurity arises out of perceived deviation from a “normal” state, skin eruptions and bodily emissions serving as obvious cases in point. Rituals of purification either signify or effectuate a return from “deviant” to “normal.” The destruction of the Temple and the concomitant end of Temple sacrifice eliminated both the need to remain in a state of ritual purity and the means of attaining that state. The biblical conceptions of normalcy and deviance, moreover, became increasingly obscure or alien to post-biblical sensibilities. As a result, alternative interpretations of the purity laws arose early in the history of interpretation.

At a glance, the opening chapters of Parashat Metzora seem like a biblical antecedent of WebMD.  describes the disfiguring symptoms of צרעת/tzara`at, starting with “a swelling, a rash, or a discoloration” that “develops into a scaly affection” (). The text then goes into specific manifestations, instructing the priest as to the proper diagnosis in each case.

Whatever condition is designated by the term tzara`at, it is not “leprosy” or Hansen’s disease—a misunderstanding that may be traced to the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Torah). In any case, the priest’s responsibility is not to identify the condition per se, but to determine whether or not it imparts impurity. In contrast to WebMD,  prescribes a course of ritual action rather than medical treatment. The diagnostician is not a physician, after all, but a priest, and the rituals are to be undertaken only after the sores of the afflicted individual have healed (14:3). The purpose of the rituals is cultic purification (14:2), not medical treatment.

Isaac Caro (1458–1535) addresses this point in his Toledot Yitzhaq on , where he writes that interest in the medical aspect of tzara`at “is inappropriate for our Holy Torah, which is concerned with spiritual ailments and not physical ones. Skin eruptions are the province of medicine, which is concerned with bodily health (beri’ut ha-guf), whereas the Torah’s concern is with spiritual benefit (to`elet ha-nefesh).” After an aside on the physical causes of skin diseases, Caro reiterates that they are not the Torah’s subject matter: “The Torah addresses tzara`at to teach that human ailments have two causes, one material (mi-tzad ha-homer) and the other spiritual (mi-tzad ha-nefesh),” and the Torah speaks only to the latter. A person of sound constitution whose affliction is spiritual “does not have to go to a medical doctor, but to a healer of the spirit.”

Today’s physicians are attentive to possible nonphysical causes of disease such as stress, anxiety, and depression, and many dermatological disorders have a psychosomatic component. According to the , “Studies link factors that affect our emotional well-being . . . to an increase in skin, hair or nail problems.” Or, as a practitioner puts it, “A dermatologist’s work would be incomplete if he/she did not consider and examine the whole patient, not only the physical body . . . but also the individual’s mind (the psyche or the psychologic aspects, ‘the soul’).” Lacking the resources and terminology of modern psychiatry to pinpoint the cause and potential cure of the “spiritual” malaise, Caro relies on the longstanding rabbinic notion that “it is brought on by evil speech.” He subdivides “evil speech” into three categories: statements that are malicious even if true (lashon ha-ra); second-hand gossip (rekhilut); and outright slander (dibbah). Then he argues with considerable ingenuity that three of the items designated for the rituals of purification in  are intended to provide reparation for the three forms of evil speech: the slaughtered bird for lashon ha-ra; the live bird for dibbah; and the crimson stuff for rekhilut.

Other texts offer broader and more general etiologies oftzara`at.��Leviticus Rabba17:3enumerates 10, possibly corresponding to the number of afflictions (nega`im) described in the parashah. The 10 causes are idolatry, illicit sex, bloodshed, profanation, blasphemy, embezzlement, theft of personal property, arrogance, evil speech, and casting the evil eye—each one of which the midrash exemplifies with a biblical story. The author of Midrash Tadshe (chapter 16) boils them down to three: envy (referring to Miriam in), greed (Gehazi in), and arrogance (Uzziah in).

Modern medicine is attentive to the relationship of mind and body: our psychological state unquestionably affects our physical condition. As the  admonishes us, “Pay attention to what your body is telling you about the state of your mind.” This week’s parashah offers a similar lesson with respect to spiritual well-being: we must be attentive to what our bodies are telling us about the condition of our souls. The author of Midrash Tadshe (chapter 17) asks why the priest is commanded to take two birds for the ritual of purification, slaughtering one and setting the other free (). He asserts that the slaughtered bird, dead and buried in the ground, symbolizes an infirmity that is gone for good. The live bird, on the other hand, serves as a reminder that reverting to the behavior that brought on the ailment in the first place could engender a relapse: just as the bird might return from the open country, so the affliction might recur. It therefore makes good sense to avoid thoughts, words, and actions that can trigger ill effects—sound advice that is conveyed in an odd and intriguing way in Parashat Metzora as refracted through the lens of traditional commentary.

The publication and distribution of the 91�첥 Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee and Harold (��”l) Hassenfeld.

The narrative resumes in , harking back to chapter 10.

[ii]Quotation from See also 

[iii]For an excellent introduction to the concept of “evil speech” (lashon ha-ra) and its consequences, see 

[iv]Midrash Tadshe, also known as Midrash Pinhas ben Yair, is a fascinating and unusual work, probably composed in Southern France sometime before 1000 CE. A copy of the Hebrew text may be downloaded .

A Light exists in Spring
Not present on the Year
At any other period—
When March is scarcely here

A Color stands abroad
On Solitary Fields
That Science cannot overtake
But Human Nature feels.

It waits upon the Lawn,
It shows the furthest Tree
Upon the furthest Slope you know
It almost speaks to thee.

Then as Horizons step
Or Noons report away
Without the Formula of sound
It passes and we stay—

A quality of loss
Affecting our Content
As Trade had suddenly encroached
Upon a Sacrament.

Emily Dickinson

The double parashiyot of Tazria and Metzora are devoted in their entireties to the Biblical notion of tumah, usually translated as “impurity.” In them, we learn three of the major sources of tumah: childbirth (); a condition known as �ٳ�������’a��, which can manifest on skin, clothing, or the walls of one’s house (); and bodily secretions (). The two other primary sources of tumah are touching or carrying the carcasses of certain animals () and contact with a human corpse ().

But what is the essential nature of tumah, and what does it have to do with Emily Dickinson’s poem? The great Hasidic master Rabbi Menachem Mendl of Kotzk (1787–1859) offers an especially beautiful reading.

The Kotzker’s teaching is based on a Talmudic passage, from the beginning of masekhet , identifying three phenomena which God attends to “personally,” without resort to an intermediary:

Rabbi Yohanan said: Three keys remain in the Holy Blessed One’s own hand, and have not been entrusted to any messenger, namely, the key of rain, the key of childbirth, and the key of the revival of the dead . . .

Seizing upon this notion, the Kotzker says that at the moment when a woman is giving birth, God is present in an intensified, heightened way—in the Kotzker’s language, “higher holiness rests there.” He continues:

But afterwards, when the infant emerges into the atmosphere of the world, automatically the Shekhinah and incumbent holiness withdraw. And therefore, in this place, tumah “is born.” Because everywhere where there is a withdrawal of holiness, tumah is born in its place, as in the tumah associated with death, which arises for the same reason.

(Ohel Torah, Parashat Tazria)

Here, the forms of tumah associated with human birth and death are a spiritual condition arising in the aftermath of a particularly intense encounter with the Divine. Note that this is not a state of unusual distance from God (and certainly not a complete absence of God, as no place is devoid of the Divine); rather, it’s an experience of relative distance, a reduction to “normal” levels of holiness and Godliness. Tumah is the psycho-spiritual let-down after a heightened experience of holiness, which in turn creates a vulnerability— perhaps to negativity or sin, or disaffection or doubt.

This magnificent reading points well beyond literal birth and death and the biblical category of tumah. Liminal moments of many kinds are often accompanied by an intensified experience of God’s presence, or a heightened sense of vitality and meaning. This is true whether the moment is predominantly joyful or sad (as births and deaths often are), or—like most profound, transformative changes—a combination of joy, sadness, excitement, anxiety, and gratitude. The intensity of such moments inevitably fades, creating a kind of grief that leaves us vulnerable.

We may be vulnerable to disillusionment, demoralization, or cynicism. Perhaps we’ll never experience that closeness to God again; perhaps it wasn’t even real. We may feel a loss of vitality, even a collapse of meaning. We may feel foolish for having believed. Or our vague sense of disappointment might manifest as retrenchment or fear. What if the transformative moment I felt was only momentary, and proves unsustainable? Perhaps nothing really changes at all. Things may feel too alien, or not different enough, or not different in the ways we’d hoped. Or the return of (or increase in) our quotidian responsibilities may feel like an affront to the holy: a moment ago I witnessed someone’s first or last breath, I witnessed the sacredness and preciousness of life, how can I now just go back to work?

A quality of loss
Affecting our Content
As Trade had suddenly encroached
Upon a Sacrament.

The narrative of the Exodus from Egypt is a prime example. The Hasidic masters understood the exile in Egypt to be an experience of tumah —not necessarily sin per se, but lifelessness, hopelessness, a culture of death and sameness. Our redemption from Egypt was an act of tehiyat hemetim, the raising of the dead, one of the three “keys” that the Talmud said God reserves for God’s self. “Then Adonai took us out of Mitzrayim. Not by an angel. Nor by a seraph. Nor by a messenger. Rather, the Holy Blessed One, God’s self, in God’s glory,” our Haggadah reads. But the sense of the immediacy of God’s presence fades. Immediately after they cross the sea, they grumble and complain—resentful, anxious, unsure—“Is Adonai among us or not” (). Tumah manifests again.

What are the consequences of this loss, this tumah? Among other things, when the Tabernacle or Temple stood, one who was tamei (impure) could not enter the holy precincts, until he or she was again purified. Perhaps this debarment was an external manifestation of the internal state: the exclusion from the Temple representing the loss of prior closeness with the Divine. Or perhaps there was a risk that in the wake of the immediacy of God’s presence at a moment such as childbirth, even the holiness of the Temple service would pale in comparison.

Today, tumah has no practical consequence, but the Kotzker’s insight serves as both warning and comfort for the life of the spirit.

The warning: the Kotzker’s understanding of “impurity”doesn’t entail immorality, but it does involve a vulnerability to error and sin. So in the let-down after intense moments, we would do well to be extra careful. We might be inclined to be self-indulgent, to shake off religious constraints, to succumb to laziness or carelessness. Alternatively, we might seek to recapture the lost “thrill” through behavior that is morally or physically dangerous.

The comfort: this kind of tumah isn’t something to be avoided at all costs, and it’s not a sign that something is wrong. On the contrary, the particular contexts the Kotzker singles out—giving birth and contact with a corpse—are instances of tumah arising inevitably from a life of mitzvot. So too, vague disappointment or malaise are a natural part of the life of the spirit—hard to bear, but normal. May we be blessed from time to time with the immediacy of God’s presence—with that light that “exists in Spring.” And when “it passes and we stay,” may we bear the resultant “quality of loss” with renewed commitment.

This commentary was originally published in 2018.

The publication and distribution of the 91�첥 Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee (��”l) and Harold Hassenfeld (��”l).

And then the pandemic changed our lives, and transformed our relationship to these previously enigmatic Torah readings. What captured my attention as I turned to Parashat Metzora this year was the idea of the affliction of home. The idea of home, which many of us consider to be a place of refuge and sanctity, is turned on its head as Torah presents us with a case of domestic disease.

Leviticus 14:34–35 teaches, “When you enter the land of Canaan that I give you as a possession, and I inflict an eruptive plague upon a house in the land you possess, the owner of the house will come and tell the priest . . .” This triggers a series of directives in which the priest examines the plague; if the plague is determined to be serious, the house is quarantined for seven days; another examination takes place; and then a process of remediation occurs. What are we to make of this curious phenomenon and ritual?

Basing his commentary on Leviticus Rabbah 17:6, Rashi, the prolific medieval commentator, writes, “This was because the Amorites concealed treasures of gold in the walls of their homes during the whole forty years that the Israelites were wandering in the desert; and in consequence, the plague was sent so the Israelites would pull down their walls and discover the hidden treasure.” Far from being a punishment then, this domestic leprosy is, at its heart, a blessing. It strikes homes with the aim of helping their inhabitants discover treasure that the Canaanites tried to conceal.

The Sefat Emet, Rabbi Yehudah Leib Alter of Ger, has a visceral reaction to Rashi’s commentary. He responds,

Now really! Did the Creator of the universe need to resort to such contortions? Why would God have given the Canaanites the idea of hiding [things in the walls] so that Israel would have to knock down these houses!

The real meaning of these afflictions of houses is in fact quite wondrous; a demonstration that Israel’s holiness is so great that they can also draw sanctity and purity into their dwelling places. Scripture tells us, “A stone will cry out from the wall and a wooden beam will answer it” (Hab. 2:11), regarding a person’s sin, to which the walls of the house bear witness (Arthur Green, The Language of Truth, 173–174).

According to the commentary of the Sefat Emet, our moral and ethical behavior affects our surroundings, and, more intimately, shapes the physical structure of our home. The walls of our sacred dwelling places potentially absorb the consequences of unethical and immoral behavior.

The Sefat Emet teases out a beautiful message: Torah demonstrates a higher level of holiness that is accessible to the Israelite people upon entering the Land of Israel. I would call it the “sensitivity of sanctity.” We are called to live up to our greatest morals and principles. It is through this virtue that we acquire and maintain possession of the Land of Israel. As inhabitants of Israel we must be attentive, vigilant, and caring.

And apropos Yom HaShoah, Arthur Green goes even further, writing,

. . . [A] Jew living after 1945 cannot hear this RaSHI comment quoted without recalling the tales of Jews in Poland and elsewhere being asked by their gentile neighbors, as they were led out to the slaughter: “Where did you hide the gold?” In the face of this horrible memory, the aggadic tradition underlying RaSHI here serves to protect us from any moral superiority that our status as victims might give us. Under different circumstances, we are reminded, we might have been the ones to go searching for other people’s treasures (ibid.).

Indeed, it is a poetic commentary on the idea of home. In Judaism, we consider home to be a mikdash me’at, a sanctuary in miniature. And if so, it should be a place where we try harder—where we have aspirational visions of being the best we can be. Home is not just built of construction materials such as wood, stones, and steel; a home is also built with compassion, love, and an ethical compass. Without soulful work, our home will indeed be plagued with argument, corruption, and isolation. This holds true for both our personal, private home as well as our national home.

As we celebrate Yom Ha’atzma’ut, Israeli Independence Day, and Israel engages in the hard work of putting together a stable government in the coming weeks and months, may the moral, aspirational vision of Torah guide our blueprint.

The publication and distribution of the 91�첥 Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee (��”l) and Harold Hassenfeld (��”l).

The biblical process of purification of skin diseases can be divided into three stages: 1) examination, 2) quarantine, and 3) purification. The priest is called upon to examine the severity of the �ٳ�������’a�� affliction. If the affliction is not severe, the person is permitted to return to the camp after a waiting period. If, however, the affliction is pronounced impure, the sufferer is banished from the settlement. They remain in banishment until the disease heals itself so as not to present a danger to others. Upon healing, the priest reexamines the afflicted individual and begins the two-step purification process. First, while still outside the camp, the priest slaughters one bird and lets a second bird fly free into the open country. The person is then let back into the camp but required to remain outside the home for an additional seven days. At the end of the seven days the person again purifies themself and brings three animals as an offering to the Tabernacle.  Only at the conclusion of this process are they declared pure and allowed to reenter civilization.

The Torah’s description of the priest’s examination of the afflicted person reveals a fascinating insight into the way many of us think about disease. The Torah explains that after examination, “the priest shall isolate the affliction for seven days” (Lev. 13:4). Note, the object of the verb is no longer the person but the disease itself. As Baruch Levine explains in the JPS Torah commentary on Leviticus, this is most certainly a case of metonymy, a literary device whereby the disease is meant to represent its victim. For us, however, it serves as a poignant reminder not to lose sight of the individual. Behind the increasing numbers of Coronavirus victims reported hourly on the news are individuals with family, friends, and loved ones. We should not lose perspective on how this global pandemic is impacting individuals. Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:5 illustrates this point when it equates every life to an entire world. As we struggle to adhere to the demands of social distancing we cannot lose sight of the stakes. We are working together to save millions of lives and the worlds attached to each of those lives.

In a pithy verse summarizing the process of declaring the individual impure, the Torah states: “He shall be unclean as long as the disease is on him. Being unclean, he shall dwell alone; his dwelling shall be outside the camp” (13:46). The metzora must live outside the camp to protect others from infection and remain alone indefinitely until the disease heals. This feeling of loneliness is shared by many of us as we are distanced from our loved ones. Yet despite this isolation, I believe we can take comfort in the description of Miriam’s quarantine when she was afflicted with �ٳ�������’a��. The Torah notes: “Miriam was shut out of camp seven days; and the people did not march on until Miriam was readmitted” (Num. 12:15). A midrash (Mekhilta de-Rabbi Yishmael, Beshallah) adds that not only did the people of Israel wait for Miriam, but that God too waited with the nation for Miriam to reenter the camp. God would not allow the Clouds of Glory to continue on their path while one of the leaders of the nation remained behind. While we cannot simply ignore the gravity of our circumstances, we can and must assure each other that we are not alone. We, too, are waiting for the time when we can emerge from our distancing and once again share our camp together.    

Finally, the Torah provides us with its own path for emerging from outside the camp. We must recognize that experiences this profound change us, and we need an opportunity to reflect on the choices we have made in the past and those we will make in the future. At the conclusion of the purification process, the priest applies the blood of the sacrifice to the ear, thumb and toe of the purified (Lev 14:17). Ibn Ezra explains that this act of purification is meant to remind the now-cured person to listen to the word of God and be deliberate in their deeds now that they have been given a second chance. Now is the time to begin thinking about our past commitments to our religious and communal lives and the steps we can take to thrive during our time outside the camp so that we will emerge stronger and prepared when we are able to return to the camp. I hope that the purification process of the priest can also serve as a reminder to appreciate the voices we will be able to hear without the use of technology, the places we will be able to go, the hands that we will be able to shake, and the hugs we will be able to share once again.

It feels most appropriate to conclude with Moses’s blessing of mercy for Miriam as she was afflicted with �ٳ�������’a�� and sent from the camp. El na refah na lah, “O God, pray heal her!” Praying for a complete and speedy recovery for all those in need.

The publication and distribution of the 91�첥 Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee (��”l) and Harold Hassenfeld (��”l).

A Color stands abroad
On Solitary Fields
That Science cannot overtake
But Human Nature feels.

It waits upon the Lawn,
It shows the furthest Tree
Upon the furthest Slope you know
It almost speaks to you.

Then as Horizons step
Or Noons report away
Without the Formula of sound
It passes and we stay—

A quality of loss
Affecting our Content
As Trade had suddenly encroached
Upon a Sacrament.

—Emily Dickinson

The double parashiyot of Tazria and Metzora are devoted in their entireties to the Biblical notion of tumah, usually translated as “impurity.” In them, we learn three of the major sources of tumah: childbirth (Lev. 12); a condition known as �ٳ�������’a��, which can manifest on skin, clothing, or the walls of one’s house (Lev. 13–14); and bodily secretions (Lev. 15). The two other primary sources of tumah are touching or carrying the carcasses of certain animals (Lev. 11) and contact with a human corpse (Num. 19).

But what is the essential nature of tumah, and what does it have to do with Emily Dickinson’s poem? The great Hasidic master Rabbi Menachem Mendl of Kotzk (1787–1859) offers an especially beautiful reading.

The Kotzker’s teaching is based on a Talmudic passage, from the beginning of masekhet Ta’anit (2a), identifying three phenomena which God attends to “personally,” without resort to an intermediary:

Rabbi Yohanan said: Three keys remain in the Holy Blessed One’s own hand, and have not been entrusted to any messenger, namely, the key of rain, the key of childbirth, and the key of the revival of the dead . . .

Seizing upon this notion, the Kotzker says that at the moment when a woman is giving birth, God is present in an intensified, heightened way—in the Kotzker’s language, “higher holiness rests there.” He continues:

But afterwards, when the infant emerges into the atmosphere of the world, automatically the Shekhinah and incumbent holiness withdraw. And therefore, in this place, tumah “is born.” Because everywhere where there is a withdrawal of holiness, tumah is born in its place, as in the tumah associated with death, which arises for the same reason. (Ohel Torah, Parashat Tazria)

Here, the forms of tumah associated with human birth and death are a spiritual condition arising in the aftermath of a particularly intense encounter with the Divine. Note that this is not a state of unusual distance from God (and certainly not a complete absence of God, as no place is devoid of the Divine); rather, it’s an experience of relative distance, a reduction to “normal” levels of holiness and Godliness. Tumah is the psycho-spiritual let-down after a heightened experience of holiness, which in turn creates a vulnerability— perhaps to negativity or sin, or disaffection or doubt.

This magnificent reading points well beyond literal birth and death and the biblical category of tumah. Liminal moments of many kinds are often accompanied by an intensified experience of God’s presence, or a heightened sense of vitality and meaning. This is true whether the moment is predominantly joyful or sad (as births and deaths often are), or—like most profound, transformative changes—a combination of joy, sadness, excitement, anxiety, and gratitude. The intensity of such moments inevitably fades, creating a kind of grief that leaves us vulnerable.

We may be vulnerable to disillusionment, demoralization, or cynicism. Perhaps we’ll never experience that closeness to God again; perhaps it wasn’t even real. We may feel a loss of vitality, even a collapse of meaning. We may feel foolish for having believed. Or our vague sense of disappointment might manifest as retrenchment or fear. What if the transformative moment I felt was only momentary, and proves unsustainable? Perhaps nothing really changes at all. Things may feel too alien, or not different enough, or not different in the ways we’d hoped. Or the return of (or increase in) our quotidian responsibilities may feel like an affront to the holy: a moment ago I witnessed someone’s first or last breath, I witnessed the sacredness and preciousness of life, how can I now just go back to work?

A quality of loss
Affecting our Content
As Trade had suddenly encroached
Upon a Sacrament.

The narrative of the Exodus from Egypt is a prime example. The Hasidic masters understood the exile in Egypt to be an experience of tumah —not necessarily sin per se, but lifelessness, hopelessness, a culture of death and sameness. Our redemption from Egypt was an act of tehiyat hemetim, the raising of the dead, one of the three “keys” that the Talmud said God reserves for God’s self. “Then Adonai took us out of Mitzrayim. Not by an angel. Nor by a seraph. Nor by a messenger. Rather, the Holy Blessed One, God’s self, in God’s glory,” our Haggadah reads. But the sense of the immediacy of God’s presence fades. Immediately after they cross the sea, they grumble and complain—resentful, anxious, unsure—“Is Adonai among us or not” (Exod. 17:7). Tumah manifests again.

What are the consequences of this loss, this tumah? Among other things, when the Tabernacle or Temple stood, one who was tamei (impure) could not enter the holy precincts, until he or she was again purified. Perhaps this debarment was an external manifestation of the internal state: the exclusion from the Temple representing the loss of prior closeness with the Divine. Or perhaps there was a risk that in the wake of the immediacy of God’s presence at a moment such as childbirth, even the holiness of the Temple service would pale in comparison.

Today, tumah has no practical consequence, but the Kotzker’s insight serves as both warning and comfort for the life of the spirit.

The warning: the Kotzker’s understanding of “impurity” doesn’t entail immorality, but it does involve a vulnerability to error and sin. So in the let-down after intense moments, we would do well to be extra careful. We might be inclined to be self-indulgent, to shake off religious constraints, to succumb to laziness or carelessness. Alternatively, we might seek to recapture the lost “thrill” through behavior that is morally or physically dangerous.

The comfort: this kind of tumah isn’t something to be avoided at all costs, and it’s not a sign that something is wrong. On the contrary, the particular contexts the Kotzker singles out—giving birth and contact with a corpse—are instances of tumah arising inevitably from a life of mitzvot. So too, vague disappointment or malaise are a natural part of the life of the spirit—hard to bear, but normal. May we be blessed from time to time with the immediacy of God’s presence—with that light that “exists in Spring.” And when “it passes and we stay,” may we bear the resultant “quality of loss” with renewed commitment.

The publication and distribution of the 91�첥 Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee (��”l) and Harold Hassenfeld (��”l).

—Carol Dweck, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success

This week’s parashah discusses �ٳ�������’a��, a skin disease understood in rabbinic tradition as punishment for lashon hara, evil speech. The public castigation that the metzora suffers is a powerful warning for us to “guard our tongues.” It was with words that God created the world, and our words have potential to build, create, and sustain life and human dignity, or to be a source of pain and destruction.

The potential of language extends beyond the specific case of lashon hara. Even praise, it seems, can backfire. Psychologist Carol Dweck investigated what happened when one group of students were commended for their intelligence while another group of students were praised for their effort when completing the same series of learning tasks. Interestingly, when the focus was on the students’ intelligence, they stopped trying—they became risk-averse and their performance suffered. In contrast, students praised for their effort demonstrated greater resilience—they eagerly tackled new academic challenges and their performance improved. Intelligence (and a host of other traits), are not, in fact, fixed—with determination and hard work we can develop these characteristics. We have agency; we have remarkable potential.

Tazria-Metzora contains a cautionary tale—a reminder of the power of language. Dweck’s research arrives at a complementary conclusion: Even when we have good intentions, we need to be wary of our linguistic choices. Our words can be limiting and damaging; they can reinforce our beliefs in fixed abilities and hinder our creative, intellectual, and human potential. Or, instead, our words can affirm our capacity to change, improve, and meet life’s challenges with honesty, ingenuity, and strength.

When a person has on the skin of his body a swelling, a rash, or a discoloration, and it develops into a scaly affection on the skin of his body, it shall be reported to Aaron the priest or to one of his sons, the priests.

The idea that others would examine and report on intimate details of our bodies—that such things would be of communal concern, and subject us to institutional regulation—may seem archaic. But as transgender people know, when it comes to gender, this kind of surveillance is alive and well.

Every trans person has experienced gender surveillance—the ongoing scrutiny of bodies, clothing, voices, and gestures to determine if we are male or female. Gender surveillance happens in stores, on the street, in the work place; it is conducted by strangers and friends, bosses and employees, police and people who are homeless, doctors and accountants. Wherever we go, whomever we encounter, others, consciously or unconsciously, are looking at us to determine whether we are male or female—which is why the therapist who helped me through gender transition instructed me to always carry a letter, addressed “To whom it may concern,” in which she assured whoever was reading it that I was not presenting myself as a woman in order to defraud or otherwise harm others.

I am not only an object of gender surveillance; I participate in the communal monitoring of gender. When I see someone, I immediately try to determine if they are male or female, because so many of my habits of understanding and relating to others are premised on determining who they are in terms of binary gender. I have lived my entire life engaging in gender surveillance, subjecting everyone—myself included—to that binary-enforcing gaze.

The recent spate of “bathroom bill” legislation in North Carolina, Texas, and elsewhere—laws designed to force trans people to use the restrooms that correspond to the sex on our birth certificates—has drawn national attention to gender surveillance. “Bathroom bills” require people whose bodies visibly vary from the norm to undergo intensive, intrusive examination and, if our differences are officially found to be defiling, to be expelled from communal spaces and publicly stigmatized.

Leviticus 13 commands similar responses to bodies whose differences are officially deemed “leprous”:

As for the person with a leprous affection, his clothes shall be rent, his head shall be left bare, and he shall cover over his upper lip; and he shall call out, “Impure! Impure!” He shall be impure as long as the disease is on him. Being impure, he shall dwell apart; his dwelling shall be outside the camp (vv. 45-46).

In Numbers 5, the Torah expands the range of bodies that are to be expelled because they are considered defiling:

The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Instruct the Israelites to remove from camp anyone with an eruption or a discharge… Remove male and female alike; put them outside the camp so they do not defile the camp of those in whose midst I dwell. The Israelites did so, putting them outside the camp (vv. 1-4).

The image of organized searches for those whose bodies may “defile” their society may seem like an outgrown relic of Iron Age notions of ritual purity. But as Jews found out during the Holocaust, and, as Latino communities in the U.S. targeted for immigration “sweeps” can attest to today, human beings have never left such practices behind.

To my knowledge, trans people have never been subjected to this sort of formal “removal” process. Until recently, most of us have lived in hiding or “below the radar”: too few and too scattered to inspire formal searches and “removals.” But many trans people know what it’s like to be seen as defiling our families, homes, workplaces, and communities, and forcibly removed as a consequence—expelled, sometimes violently, because the “eruptions” of our transgender identities are seen as a threat to communal health, harmony, religious life, or social order.

The removals of defiling bodies commanded by the Torah are in many ways less harsh than the removals many transgender people endure. The Torah’s commandments target temporary physical conditions that may affect anyone, rather than singling out a specific minority for discrimination. Unlike today’s gender-based removals, the Torah’s laws don’t stigmatize those who are removed from the camp, or suggest that they are guilty of moral failing, sin, or crime. (While leprosy was later interpreted and stigmatized as divine punishment, “eruptions and discharges” are common events.) And while the Torah allows those who have been removed to rejoin the community after completing rituals of purification, such as those detailed in Leviticus 15:13-31, many transgender people are exiled for years, decades—sometimes for the rest of our lives.

The Torah is often cited as the basis for religious communities to exclude, exile, and stigmatize transgender people—and even to deny us urgent medical care—but the Torah never commands, approves, or encourages such things. Even when Moses declares that those who cross-dress are “abhorrent” to God, he does not claim that God demands that they be “removed from camp.” Though there have always been people who do not fit into the categories of male and female, the Torah says nothing about us. It does not portray us as a threat or an abomination; it doesn’t declare us unclean or unfit to participate in communal worship or activities; it doesn’t demonize us, curse us, punish us, relegate us to the margins or the shadows, order gender surveillance to guard against our entry into the community or the Tabernacle, or organize searches to locate and expel us.

The Torah’s silence opened the door for the rabbis of the Talmud to adapt halakhah to enable intersex Jews to participate in Jewish communal life, and, more recently and locally, for Yeshiva University to tolerate my presence as an openly transgender professor. But because the Torah does not acknowledge that there are human beings who are not simply male or female, it shrouds us in silence and incomprehensibility.

The Torah’s detailing of defiling physical differences ensured that these differences could be recognized, spoken of, and understood by communities as part of being human. In order to fully include transgender people, Jewish communities have to follow the Torah’s example—to speak frankly about transgender identities, to recognize and pragmatically address our differences, and to face up to, and change, the communal policies, practices, and habits that, intentionally or not, lead so many of us to be removed, or to remove ourselves, from the camp.

The publication and distribution of the 91�첥 Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee (��”l) and Harold Hassenfeld (��”l).