Speak to the Israelite people thus: When a woman at childbirth bears a male, she shall be impure seven days; she shall be impure as at the time of her condition of menstrual separation.
Vayikra 12:2
Giving birth to a child creates a paradox. On the one hand, it is the greatest joy we can imagine. The first commandment given to humankind is to be fruitful and multiply (Bereshit 1:28). Procreation is an expression of the highest form of creativity; just as God is the Creator of the Universe, so the human being is the creator of all humankind.
On the other hand, we are told that a woman who gives birth becomes teme’ah, ritually “impure,” and she is required to bring a hattat offering to the Temple.[1]
This seems to make no sense. Why should the highest form of creativity lead to impurity? Ritual impurity is usually related to death, and the closer we come to a dead body, the more impure we become. Although the majority of the applications of the laws of impurity no longer apply in the absence of the Temple, the question remains: Why does the Torah deem a mother impure after giving birth? This seems to be the very opposite to death!
However, on deeper reflection, we realize that the birth of a child also brings the potential for death. As the child ages, he or she will ultimately die; there is no escape. And the more children born, the more the actuality of death becomes part of this world.
Thus, birth confronts us with a paradox. We are happy with the birth of the child, but it always introduces ultimate tragedy. The passing away of a human being that gave us so much joy at the time of birth eventually becomes a terrible misfortune.
Not only that, but the chances that the child will get ill, will suffer pain, or may be confronted with great calamities such as war, are nearly the automatic consequence of any birth.
Hence, we must ask: What is the point of having a child? We might even ask whether we should be permitted to have children at all, when the results are all too often tragedies and ultimately death? Why does God command human beings to procreate when He will eventually cause their death?
From a completely secular point of view, it might be argued that procreation should be morally forbidden. It makes much more sense to avoid bearing children, as this would avoid much pain. Perhaps the only justification for having a child is that it is a Divine commandment. But when non-religious people long for a child, it is because an inner voice tells them to do so, although it goes against all logic. This voice can only be explained as a Divine voice. There is something about life that overrides all logic. In the words of Samuel Butler, “To live is like to love, all reason is against it, and all healthy instinct for it.”[2]
Birth and death
Some believe that God’s original plan was for human beings to be immortal, and that only after eating from the forbidden Tree of Knowledge in Paradise did mortality enter the picture. This would imply that in the Garden of Eden, few children would be born, since nobody would die, and without death there would be very little need to have many children, as the commandment “to multiply and fill the world” (Bereshit 1:28) would very quickly be fulfilled. The world would be overcrowded within a relatively short period of time.
As long as human beings lived in the Garden of Eden, they experienced joy without any tragedy. After all, this was the original plan — eternal joy.[3] The reason we encounter death today is because human beings were exiled from the Garden of Eden and thus became mortal. While Judaism does not believe in the theology of the “original sin” as in Christianity, many commentators note that eating from the Tree of Knowledge introduced the concept of death.
Thus, mortality is connected with sin. Adam and Chava should not have eaten from the tree! The ensuing reality should not have been. This also means that birth is connected with sin. After all, the original commandment to be “fruitful and multiply” was not meant to cause the birth of billions of people, but only a few, since everybody who would be born would be immortal. (Unless the commandment to “be fruitful and multiply” was given after the first human beings were exiled from the Garden of Eden, which is entirely possible based on the concept of “ein mukdam ve-meuchar baTorah, “there is no [chronological significance to] earlier or later [textual content]” in the Torah.) The fact that millions of human beings are born every year is the result of mortality. Therefore, when a woman gives birth to a child, this, too is due to human mortality.
Clearly, it is not the fault of any specific mother that her ritual status becomes one of tum’ah (ritual impurity) for she has done nothing wrong. However, this tum’ah is a reminder of the very source of childbirth — it is rooted in the world where death was introduced for the first time.
Tum’ah and childbirth
At the same time, childbirth reminds us of the greatest Divine tragedy ever to take place: the very need for Creation — for the moment the world was created, tragedy was introduced.
The ultimate question to ask is why God “desired” a creation. Everything would have been much better had God not created anything at all. No evil, no death, no pain, no illness, no war, no earthquakes . . . Creation is indeed a paradox.
This too is part of why birth creates tum’ah. Just as determinism and free will are a paradox, and the nature of light is caught up in a paradox, so is birth — it is the greatest of all joys and at the same time, it introduces death, the greatest of all agony.
The fact that the mother becomes ritually impure reminds us of the paradox of all Creation. And the sin offering she is required to bring recalls the first time when humans sinned and became mortal.
This birth-impurity paradox reminds us that we are not God, neither do we know His reason for the Creation. In fact, according to some opinions, even God “sinned” by creating the world.[4]
In the eloquent words of Friedrich Durrenmatt, “He who confronts the paradoxical exposes himself to reality.”[5]
Questions to Ponder
- Rabbi Cardozo posits that creation itself introduces tragedy, as symbolized by the fact that birth leads to ritual impurity. Is it possible to envision a concept of creation that does not inherently involve tragedy and suffering? How might different philosophical or religious perspectives interpret the necessity or inevitability of suffering in the act of creation?
- How do you personally interpret the notions of ritual purity and impurity? Do you agree with the idea that childbirth leads to ritual impurity as a reminder of mortality? What other interpretations can you think of?
- Rabbi Cardozo writes: “Adam and Chava should not have eaten from the tree! The ensuing reality should not have been.” Do you think this is what the story of the Garden of Eden is trying to teach us? What other interpretations come to mind?
- Rabbi Cardozo raises the question of whether procreation should be morally forbidden due to the suffering it entails. How can we balance the ethical considerations of bringing new life into the world with the understanding that life inevitably involves suffering and death? Do you find that the acknowledgment of mortality leads to a deeper appreciation of life, and if so, how?
- Why do you think that God would desire a creation that introduces tragedy and suffering? How do you personally address the purpose and meaning behind Divine creation?
[1] This is often translated as “sin-offering” but is more properly translated as “cleansing offering” See Vayikra 12:1-8.
[2] Samuel Butler, “Higgledy-Piggledy”, Notebook (1912).
[3] Obviously, this is also a paradox How can there be constant joy when there is no sadness This is one of the mysteries of the Garden of Eden story.
[4] See Chullin 60b and Shevu’ot 9a, where the Talmud states that God brought a sin offering on His Own behalf!
[5] Friedrich Durrenmatt, 22 Points, The Physicists, 1962.
