This year, I read the opening passages of the Torah portion of Tazria (Leviticus Ch. 12) with a different lens than I have in the past. I’ve long believed that the meaning of any Biblical passage lies in the realm between the words in the text and the life experience of the person reading the passages. While the words of the text are the same year after year, we are not.

Leviticus 12 addresses things that contaminate people and places. There is a lot about skin diseases, like leprosy, as well as things that appear on the walls of buildings, likely some kind of mold. Bodily discharges, particularly having to do with sex, a woman’s menstrual cycle and giving birth get special attention. Not surprisingly, the Bible correlates these conditions with relative states purity and little distinction is made between what might be a disease and what might be a natural bodily function. One condition is declared, tameh, impure or contaminated, while the other condition is considered tahor, pure or holy.

It is no surprise to learn that ancient cultures, run by men, had many ways to declare the natural bodily functions of women dangerous and requiring many forms of boundary taboos. That included forbidding women who were menstruating or who had recently given birth to come near men, near wine, near food, or near weapons of war (presumably because the weapons might fail in battle due to the proximity to a “contaminated” woman). For sure, “impure” women could not enter areas that were considered “holy” because their very presence would rob the space of its holiness.

The opening verses of Leviticus 12 indicate that, after giving birth to a male, the mother’s period of impurity lasts for 33 days (v.2 and 4).  Then, in v. 5, it indicates that after giving birth to a female, the mother’s impurity lasts for 66 days, twice as long. Traditional rabbinic commentaries range from Shimon bar Yochai’s suggestion that women have less joy when giving birth to a female than to a male (Niddah 31a) to the Kli Yakar’s (17th century Poland) “scientific” speculation that a woman’s discharge after giving birth to a female is twice as long as when she gives birth to a male. Not only did these rabbinic explanations strike me as inadequate to explain the double standard in the opening verses of Leviticus 12, but none of the commentaries I found addressed the much larger issue: Why does a natural bodily function of a woman lead to any “impurity” at all?

I looked at the two most widely-used Bibles in American synagogues for a more contemporary explanation. But neither the Reform Movement’s The Torah (Gunther Plaut, 1981) nor the Conservative Movement’s Etz Chaim (2001) speak to the double standard at all. What struck me as the most honest comment on the morally problematic passage from Leviticus 12 appears in the Women’s Torah Commentary, published by the Women of Reform Judaism in 2008. There, one can find this comment: “The view that women-via their normal, recurring bodily functions—generate a pollution antagonistic to holiness, served as a justification for women’s distance from the sacred throughout Jewish history.”

The clarity and honesty of this explanation from the Women’s Torah Commentary made me all the more aware of how problematic it is that more widely-used synagogue Bibles did not even think the passage was worthy of comment.

I am convinced that the reason I picked up on the morally problematic issues raised, both by this Biblical passage and the lack of comment on it by contemporary Biblical scholarship, was because of a talk I recently heard from McArthur Genius Award winner, choreographer, Liz Lerman. She was talking about one of her award-winning dances called “Witches”. Her research revealed that tens of thousands of women were killed throughout history and the pretext was often to declare women to be “witches”, women who had the power to undermine a patriarchal society.

Lerman’s presentation made me better understand how it is that the oldest and most widespread prejudice in human history is the prejudice against women. We marginalize and often fear that which we don’t understand. Men were mystified by women’s bodies and how women’s bodies functioned. It was surely one of the roots of the misogyny in cultures throughout history. Misogyny is the contempt, or ingrained prejudice, against women. Misogyny often functions as a systemic social or cultural force that seeks to maintain male dominance and keep women in subordinate roles. It became clear to me that Leviticus 12 was one of many examples of classical sacred texts that informed misogyny in Western civilization.

What do we do when we confront morally problematic passages in our sacred texts? Let me offer three observations.

First: Given how old the Biblical text is, I am not surprised by passages that offend modern sensibilities or contemporary ethical standards. Mordecai Kaplan, the founder of Reconstructionist Judaism, was considered a “troublemaker” by many of his rabbinic peers because he thought that honesty and integrity demanded that we identify in Judaism language and practices that were inconsistent with contemporary ethics. He argued that Judaism must evolve with the times. We must apply the highest possible standards of ethics to our tradition and, when necessary, make changes. This is a hallmark of Reconstructionist Judaism.

Second: Other parts of the non-Orthodox Jewish world have also helped to reframe traditional Jewish attitudes and practices. One of the leading lights of the Jewish Feminist Movement of the past 50 years is Rachel Adler. Raised as a Reform Jew in Chicago, she became Orthodox in her teens and married an Orthodox Rabbi named Moshe Adler. As an Orthodox Rebbetzin, in 1971, she authored her, now famous, feminist article, “The Jew Who Wasn’t There”, a standard reading at many Women’s Passover Seders. Later, after divorcing her husband, she was ordained as a Reform Rabbi.

Adler’s 1998 book, Engendering Judaism: An Inclusive Theology and Ethics was groundbreaking. It was the first book, written by a woman, to receive the National Jewish Book Award for Jewish Thought. Adler was one of the first to point out that the traditional laws of Niddah (menstrual purity) often left women feeling like their bodies were a source of contamination.

Adler argued for a theology that honors the physical body. Here is a powerful passage she authored: “The body is not a shell to be purified or a source of dread. It is the site of revelation. When we approach intimacy without the shadow of ‘impurity,’ we allow the body to speak its own holiness. A theology that shames the body shames the Creator who fashioned it.”

Third: Mikvah is the ritual bath that allows a woman to move from the state of tumah to one of taharah. When I attended rabbinical school in the 1970’s, mikvah was seen as very retro, an anathema to progressive Jews who were sensitive to the critiques being offered by Jewish feminists about the way women and their bodies were characterized by traditional Judaism.

Yet the mikvah is a great example of how Judaism can be modified and made much more relevant to contemporary values. In 2004, thanks to the efforts of author, Anita Diamant (The Red Tent in addition to other titles), the institution of the mikvah was, essentially, re-invented.  Mayyim Hayim, meaning “living waters” was established in Boston. It created a new paradigm for the mikvah in which women’s bodies were to be honored and celebrated, not quarantined and shamed. Over time, rituals and liturgies have been created for many uses of this new model of mikvah, for everything from recovery from serious illness to gender transition ceremonies.

It is to be celebrated that this model of mikvaot has spread. There is now an international network of over 50 new paradigm mikvaot called Rising Tide Open Waters following the lead of Mayyim Hayim. They share practices, new rituals and new liturgies.

Is the Jewish tradition that we’ve inherited perfect? Not by a long shot. But our tradition invites creativity and evolution. For Jews who want Judaism to be a vehicle to advance a more humanistic and ethically sensitive approach to life, it needs to be added to our “work to be done”.

Note: The above was offered as a dvar torah at Adat Shalom Reconstructionist Congregation  (Bethesda, MD) on April 18, 2026, where Rabbi Sid is the Founding Rabbi. 

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)