Purity and Sanctity in One’s Physical Actions and Deeds
The Jewish point of view rejects abstinence and distance between husband and wife. On the contrary, the first and foremost commandment of the Torah is:1 “G‑d created them male and female ... He said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, populate the earth and conquer it.’”
However, it is specifically because of the immense spiritual significance of intimacy between husband and wife that the Torah requires appropriate spiritual preparation. It does so in order to eschew one’s physical and corporeal temptations and ensure that this intimacy will be conducted ina state of purity. In this way, this lofty mitzvah will be treated with the proper respect and dignity it deserves — as a Divine command and a hallowed and sanctified action; not merely a physical and animalistic act.
The Torah instructs us,2 “Do not draw close to your wife during her time of ritual impurity.” The specific laws of niddah are discussed at length by our Sages.3 The connotation of this command is that husband and wife are to be apart during her menstrual days, the time of ritual impurity. Only after she immerses in a proper mikveh4 may husband and wife resume intimate relations.
Our Sages speak at length about the importance of keeping these laws. Among their statements:5 “The calculation of the onset of menstruation is an essential of Torah law.” They also note that the failure to observe this mitzvah can lead to severe repercussions.6
Cycles of the Jewish Home
Our Sages explain that the reason for this mitzvah is to preserve and maintain the love between husband and wife. In the words of our Sages:7 “Why did the Torah say that a menstruant will be ritually impure for seven days? For the husband may get used to his wife and become disenamored of her. The Torah therefore declares that she be ritually impure for seven days so he will not become used to her, and he will love her as much as he did on their wedding day.”
The secret and charm of a Jewish family lies in the unique cycle of the Jewish home. It is similar to the cycle of the moon, which is of thirty-day duration. During the first half of the month, the moon waxes and increases its radiance on a daily basis until it reaches the apex of its luminosity. Its light then wanes and diminishes during the second half of the month until its radiance disappears entirely.
The same is true with Jewish family life. There is a time of “concealment,” of distance between husband and wife, so that when the proper time comes that intimacy is again permitted, the love between them should be as strong as on the day they married.
Good and Evil Intermingled
The following examines the inner aspect of the ritual impurity of menses according to Kabbalah and Chassidus:8
Our physical world is an amalgamation of good and evil, both of them functioning in combination with each other. Therefore nothing exists in our world that is wholly good or entirely evil; good is intermixed with evil and evil possesses an admixture of good.
This admixture exists within man as well. Thus it is explained in Mussar and Chassidus9 that every individual possesses two souls: a Divine soul — his “good inclination” — and an animalistic soul — his “evil inclination.”
A person is thus engaged in a constant struggle between his two inclinations.
The Divine soul seeks to occupy itself exclusively with spiritual and sacred matters — Divine service alone — while the animal soul and the physical body desire to immerse themselves in corporeal matters — food and drink and other forms of physical and corporeal pleasures.
The battle between these two forces is both relentless and ferocious, for during every moment of the day these two souls are tugging the person in two opposing and mutually exclusive directions: The Divine soul draws the person to good and holy matters alone, desiring that everything the person does be part of his spiritual service, while the animal soul wrenches the individual in an entirely opposite direction.
In his classic work Tanya,10 the Alter Rebbelikens this battle to two warring factions that are battling over a “disputed area of land,” i.e., over the person’s body.
“The body is called ‘a small city.’ Just as two kings who wage war over a city which each wishes to capture and rule — that is to say, to direct its inhabitants according to his will so that they obey him in all that he decrees upon them — so, too, do the two souls, the Divine soul, which is holy, and the vitalizing animal soul, which originates from kelipah, wage war against each other over the body and all its organs.”
A Daily Battle and Struggle
How can one possibly resolve this struggle?
Since man possesses a physical body that requires and demands that its physical needs be met, the person is obligated to occupy himself in material matters in order to sustain himself and his family. On the other hand, the person’s soul aspires and strives to sever itself from physicality and corporeality, seeking to rise to the greatest possible spiritual heights, bonding with G‑d and occupying itself solely with His Torah and mitzvos.
Were we to say to a person, “Cease your physical labors and stop occupying yourself in material affairs. From now on you are to toil day and night exclusively in Torah and mitzvos,” then, in the words of the Mishnah,11 the result would be that “All Torah study not combined with work will in the end cease and, [moreover,] lead to sin.” For were an individual to do so, he would not have the means to sustain himself and his family and take care of his and their physical needs.
On the other hand, if we were to say to a person, “Go out into the marketplace and the like; toil and labor and provide for your physical needs,” he may become so swept away by the physical world with its manifold pleasures and desires that he may become completely immersed in corporeality and stop thinking about spirituality and holiness at all. As a result, he may well transgress G‑d’s will.12
Occupation in Physical Matters
Merely to Fulfill One’s Obligation
How then does one go about living his life without being baffled and confused by the apparent conflicts and contradictions between body and soul? How does one retain his proper spiritual perspective and values while still maintaining contact with, and living within, the physical world?
One accomplishes this when his occupation in the physical world and with physical matters is merely to “fulfill one’s duty and obligation”; not to become wrapped up and engrossed in his material affairs. As long as he occupies himself with these physical matters because he has no other choice and is compelled to do so, his true life and vitality will be exclusively reserved for his spiritual matters and affairs: the study of Torah and the performance of mitzvos and good deeds.
A person who occupies himself in his physical affairs with excitement and enthusiasm will quickly become immersed in the physical delights and pleasures of this world, speedily forgetting about his soul and spiritual matters.
However, when a person occupies himself in obtaining his physical needs with the feeling of a servant who is performing his compulsory duty, finding no particular pleasure and delight in his work, then he will not become engrossed in his work and immerse himself in physical pleasures and delights. He will then do only that which is absolutely required of him in the minimum amount of time possible, spending the rest of his time wholly immersed and engrossed in his fervent and passionate service of G‑d.
The Toil of “Your Hands,” Not of “Your Head”
With regard to earning a living, King David says in Tehillim: “Fortunate are you when you eat from the toil of your hands.”
Why does the verse state “from the toil of your hands” and not “from the toil of your mind”? After all, the world also needs people who use their heads and not necessarily their hands in their toils and labors.
The commentators explain that the “head” and “hands” referred to here are not alluding to a physical head or hands but to the inner context of “head” and “hands”: “head” denoting the loftier, more important parts of the body; and “hands” referring to man’s external limbs.
The verse, “Fortunate are you when you eat from the toil of your hands,” comes to teach us that our occupation with earning a living — even if earning that living requires the use of our “heads” and minds — should only involve us to an external degree, but we should not internalize our work and make it our raison d’être.
Thus, while “the toil of your hands” is perfectly legitimate, it should never consume our entire being. Our externalities, our physical self, are to be involved in performing this necessary labor, however, we may not be obsessed with earning a living. Our “head” and “mind,” our true and inner self, must be solely dedicated to serving G‑d, while only our “hands” are toiling to earn a living.
Employer and Employee
The above is analogous to the crucial difference between an employer and an employee.
Even a most dedicated employee, an employee who works diligently on behalf of his employer, is not really consumed by the state of affairs and condition of the business. What interests the employee most is receiving his paycheck. At the end of the day, when he leaves for home, he is able to leave his work entirely behind him as his interest in the welfare of the company is casual.
The employer/proprietor, by contrast, is so entirely consumed and devoted to his business that it disturbs his rest and tranquility. Even when he is not physically at his place of business he is still thinking about it, and even when he sleeps, he dreams about it, for his business truly absorbs him.
Even the employer/proprietor is told that his absorption and interest should be limited to “the toil of your hands”: that although he owns the business, he should not become totally preoccupied with it. He should not take his work home with him and should not let it cause him sleepless nights, for only “your hands” should conduct the business. His “head” should be immersed in holier and loftier matters.13
For the true “owner” of all, the true “boss” is G‑d, Who sustains and nurtures the entire world, as we say at the beginning of the Grace After Meals: “…Who in His goodness, provides sustenance for the entire world.... He provides food to all flesh.” Even if man is an employer, he is in truth no more than G‑d’s employee, and even the most dedicated employee does not let the state of the business overly trouble him. Indeed, his immersion in the business is no more than minor.
“Torah Study, His Fixed Occupation; His Work, Transitory”
The above theme appears in Shulchan Aruch, where we are instructed as to how we are to relate to our business affairs:14 “A person must establish his Torah study as his fixed occupation and [look upon] his work as a transitory matter.” In the Rambam, this thought is stated more succinctly:15 “Make your Torah study fixed and your work transitory.”
At first glance this seems strange indeed.
How can a person be commanded to view his work as merely transitory and fleeting, when according to the Torah, he is obligated to provide for himself and his family, something that invariably takes many long and arduous hours? Surely, this can hardly be accomplished in a transitory and fleeting manner.
Moreover, when one is extremely occupied in his business affairs and only manages to study “one chapter of Torah in the morning and one chapter in the evening,”16 he also fulfills his obligation of Torah study. As the Alter Rebbewrites:17 “If it happens at times that he is so greatly preoccupied with his business dealings that he is unable to study for the entire time that he has set aside ... he can fulfill his obligation ... by studying one chapter in the morning and one chapter in the evening.”
Clearly, this individual’s Torah study is transitory and fleeting, while his business affairs are his “fixed occupation.” Nevertheless, even he fully fulfills the obligation of “The Torah shall not depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night.”
However, the meaning of “fixed occupation” and “transitory” does not refer to the amount of time spent in Torah study versus the amount of time spent in earning a living. It is referring to a qualitative aspect: where the person’s heart and soul is focused while occupied with his business affairs and where his heart and soul is focused while occupied with Torah study.
Even the individual who spends numerous hours earning a living can view his work as a merely transitory matter, something that he does because he must. Even if he is an employer, he should act like an employee, a person who works because he was Divinely commanded to be employed in order to provide for his family. His “fixed occupation,” however, i.e., that which he lives for and fully occupies his being, is his study of Torah.
Herein lies the solution to the eternal conflict between body and soul:
Not only may a person occupy himself with earning a living, he must, in fact, do so. But this should never become his “fixed occupation.” His life and vitality should be exclusively dedicated to and occupied by spiritual and holy matters — the study of Torah and the performance of mitzvos — while his time spent earning a living should always be “transitory.”
“Ritually Impure Blood” — Physical Passion and Spiritual Apathy
To a certain degree, the obscuring and blurring of boundaries between the physical and the spiritual is reflected in the ritual impurity of the blood of the niddah.
Menstrual bleeding is a result of an overabundance of blood in the woman’s body to the extent that the excess blood is expelled and leaves her body.
Blood is the very “lifeblood” of physical existence, as the verse states,18 “For the soul of the body is within the blood.” Blood is the power of life and vitality, the warmth and fervor that exists within the human body. A person requires a certain amount of blood in order to live19 for blood provides the body with its life-force.
A niddah, however, possesses an excessive amount of blood, more blood than is necessary. Such an excess is “impure,” for the inner meaning of an “excess of blood” is that there is too much life, vitality and fervor in one’s physical and corporeal matters. Such a state of affairs inevitably leads to spiritual impurity and one’s severance from G‑dliness.
To more fully understand this matter:
The body must contain blood in order to live. In a deeper and inner sense, this means that although a person must possess a certain degree of joie de vivre — i.e., living one’s life with vim and vigor (for it is impossible to exist in this world entirely on spirituality) — a plethora of “blood” (too much joy, vitality and celebration of the physical and the material) is entirely unjustifiable. One must always remember to engage in one’s work and interact with the physical realm like an employee and not as an employer.
When one fails to do so, a state of “spiritual impurity” results, for an overabundance of corporeality automatically leads to a lessening of spirituality.
This, then, is the inner meaning of the ritual impurity of the niddah: an excessive degree of passion for physical matters which leads to apathy and indifference to one’s spiritual matters.
Niddah — A Derivative of “Excluded and Expelled”
The very term niddah is an expression of icy indifference to, and distance from, G‑dliness:
Niddah is a derivative20 of the Hebrew word that means “exclusion” and “expulsion.” It signifies distance between husband and wife and distance between G‑d and the Jewish people.21 For an overabundance of blood, i.e., excess occupation with material and mundane matters, leads to a state where the Jew is “excluded” and “expelled” from G‑d’s presence.
Why This State Is Specifically Found in the Woman
The reason this state of ritual impurity is specifically found within the woman and not the man is as follows:
In Kabbalah and Chassidus, the woman represents the “body,” and the man, the “soul,22 for just as the body receives from the soul, so does the female receive from the male.
Therefore the symbolic signs or ritual impurity, an excess of blood, is found within the woman, the “body,” and not within the “man,” the soul, for the soul always remains pure and untainted by the body’s spiritual impurities and imperfections.
[It goes without saying, however, that the lesson of not being overly engrossed in one’s mundane and material affairs applies to men and women equally.]
The Color Red
To conclude, a few additional points:
The ritual impurity of niddah only results when the blood is absolutely red.23
The color red is indicative of passion and ardor. As noted above, the “impurity” does not result from merely being occupied with one’s physical affairs and needs, but from doing so in an overly passionate and ardent manner — a manner that should be employed strictly for spiritual and holy purposes.
When blood is expelled from the body — an indication of an excessive amount of passion and zeal for one’s physical affairs — the result is a state of spiritual impurity.
“Impure for Seven Days”
According to Torah law, the state of the ritual impurity of the niddah lasts for seven days.24
A person’s emotions, or middos, possess seven particular traits: kindness, severity, etc.25 The impurity lasts seven days corresponding to these seven middos.26
The lesson in this is: When the body contains an excess of blood, i.e., when a person is too passionate about his physical affairs, it taints and impurifies all of his traits and characteristics — all seven middos.
The Sin of the Tree of Knowledge
Caused the Admixture of Good and Evil
The ritual impurity of the niddah began after the sin of the Tree of Knowledge, as our Sages state27 that one of the results of this sin was that a woman became subject to this ritual impurity.
The deeper and more profound connection between the sin of the Tree of Knowledge and the state of niddah is as follows.28
The state of evil was not brought into the world with the sin of the Tree of Knowledge, for evil was already built into Creation.29 Rather, prior to the sin of the Tree of Knowledge, good and evil were entirely separate from each other: good existed on its plane and evil existed on its plane. The sin of the Tree of Knowledge caused the admixture of good and evil.
Thus the Alter Rebbestates in Torah Or30 that prior to the sin of the Tree of Knowledge, “there was no doubt as to what was good and what was evil, with the evil being separate from the good, as in the statement, ‘He separates the holy from the mundane’ so they would not intermingle.” However, after the sin of the Tree of Knowledge, there came about the admixture of good and evil, where evil derives nurture from good and good from evil, ultimately merging into one — literally intermingled.
To explain, man’s present existence as a spiritual soul in a physical body existed prior to the sin of the Tree of Knowledge as well. The body, however, was much different then from the way it is now.
Prior to the sin of the Tree of Knowledge, when Adam lived in the Garden of Eden, he only possessed positive and good inclinations and strived only for spiritual and holy matters.31 It was thus impossible for his occupation with physical matters to pull him down and lead him to commit any type of act that would entice him away from G‑dliness. He was only drawn to and excited by holy things, utterly disdaining anything that was spiritually impure.
However, after the sin of the Tree of Knowledge, good and evil became intermingled and the physical body actually became connected to evil.32 Thus, presently, when one is occupied in his physical affairs, it naturally draws him toward physical pleasures and delights. These coarsen and contaminate the person and it thus becomes possible for him to directly disobey G‑d.
Thus it was only after the sin of the Tree of Knowledge that the ritual impurity of niddah commenced.
The impurity of the blood of the niddah denotes the intensification of one’s passion and fervor regarding physical and corporeal matters. This resulted from the sin of the Tree of Knowledge after which a person could solely desire the physical and material. This could lead one to distance himself from Torah and mitzvos.
The Particular Quality Of a Jew’s Body
The blood of the niddah is expelled by the body.33
Although it is entirely possible for a Jew to reach the state where he becomes overly enamored by material matters and icily indifferent to spirituality, ultimately, he will be roused to repentance and fully repent before G‑d. His fervor and passion will then once again be directed only toward matters of spirituality and holiness.
Moreover, this positive change emanates from the very nature of the body itself and is not a result of the person’s Divine soul or a spiritual arousal from Above.
This is what the verse means when it states,34 “You shall be for Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation”: the Jew’s body itself is holy, which is why it naturally expels all those things that are opposed to holiness.35
Similar to the state of a niddah, although the surfeit of blood is indicative of a surplus of passion and ardor for physical matters, in the end, the body itself, by its very nature, expels and expunges the disproportionate amount of blood.
This teaches us that a Jew possesses the unique quality that even when he is at his lowest and is swept away by inappropriate matters, he will ultimately — as a result of his innate physical nature — cleanse and purify himself of all matters that taint him. He will once again become pure and holy, a “holy nation,” in a body whose very nature demands that its passion and ardor be only for spiritual and holy matters.
