Agency and Liberation, from Tazria to Arizona
Parashat Tazria begins by considering the case of "isha ki tazria," "a woman who is pregnant." After giving birth, the Torah says, a woman becomes ritually impure for a period of time and then must bring specific sacrifices in order to return to a state of ritual purity and be readmitted into the religious life of the Israelite community.
This section -- Leviticus 12:1-8 -- is a pretty technical text (on par with much of the Book of Leviticus in that way), and the details of the purity laws and word choices spark many worthy questions. Torah commentators wonder, for example, why the woman who gives birth is considered impure in the first place, why the duration of her impurity differs based on the sex of the baby, and why must she bring a chattat/sin-offering at all (does this imply wrong-doing?!). These are all important questions, and while our tradition is rich with answers and interpretation about these, none of them are what I want to focus on at the moment.
Instead, as I read this text of Tazria this week, my eye is drawn to the activity of the woman herself, the one who was pregnant and now has given birth. "On the completion of her period of purification, for either son or daughter, she shall bring to the priest, at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting, a lamb in its first year for a burnt offering and a pigeon or turtledove for a purification offering" (Lev. 12:6). I am struck that, just weeks after having given birth, a new mother is instructed to leave her home, to gather multiple animals, and to physically bring them to the Tent of Meeting. The text even allows for the possibility that she might not be able to afford all the requisite animals (Lev. 12:8): "If, however, her means do not suffice for a sheep, she shall take two turtledoves or two pigeons..." It seems that she can determine for herself what she can afford, and make the swap in sacrificial animals at her own discretion if necessary. Her husband or the birth father is nowhere in sight in this text; no one else makes decisions for her or acts as her representative or her emissary. In short, the isha (woman) in our Torah portion acts with remarkable agency in undertaking a public mission on her own behalf. Through her decisions and actions, she alone exercises control over her own ritual status and earns her re-entry into the sanctuary and the Israelite community.
In the midrashic collection Vayikra Rabbah, the primary midrashic work on the Book of Leviticus, the ancient rabbis find a major hook in the phrase "isha ki tazria," "the woman who is pregnant." Onto it, they hang many many midrashim (the entire chapter of Vayikra Rabbah 14), which emphasize and expound upon the incredible miracles that lie behind human reproduction. The rabbis were not reproductive endocrinologists or obstetricians (and their understanding of biology and anatomy certainly leaves something to be desired!), but they did have some sense of just how many things had to go right in order for a pregnancy to occur in the first place, and just how many more things had to go right in order for any pregnancy to result in a live birth. They marvel at conception, the protection that the womb affords, fetal development, and the process of labor and birth itself. The midrashim reinforce the underlying understanding (which is ubiquitous across Jewish legal and textual tradition) that until birth, an embryo or fetus has the potential to develop into a full human life but meanwhile exists as an extension of a woman's body. They deduce that behind every human being who comes into existence (including, of course, each and every one of us!), there were not only two humans who played a role in this creation but also a third partner: God.
In Arizona this week, the State Supreme Court ruled that an old 1864 law -- a near-total abortion ban (outlawing abortion in every case except to save the life of the mother) -- will once again stand as the law of the land. Historian and political analyst Heather Cox Richardson wrote this week about the context of this bit of Arizona's 1864 criminal code, which appears side-by-side with other laws seeking to curb many forms of male misbehavior: dueling, poisoning, maiming and more. Pointing out that this law was drafted by a single man and first became law at a time when only men could vote, she writes, "Written to police the behavior of men, the code tells a larger story about power and control."
Like many of you, I'm sure, I was educated to believe in the progressive sweep of history: that is, the core idea that over time, societies progress politically, culturally, or otherwise. In both the development of Judaism from ancient times to today and also within our American society, I grew up seeing evidence that human conditions, rights, and freedom generally improved over time. This was particularly true of women's rights, including reproductive rights. It has been jarring over the last handful of years to feel -- both in our American political realm, and also in some of the enacted expressions of Judaism we see -- that things are actually moving in the wrong direction: away from progress, freedom and expanded rights and instead towards increased tolerance of sexism, homophobia, patriarchy, racism, and xenophobia. Laws, as in Arizona, that restrict and constrain the bodily autonomy of women around fertility and childbirth are far from the only indicator of this, but they stand as clear and tangible examples that right now, some forces in our American society are pulling in the wrong direction.
It feels a little wild to sit here in the year 2024 and read texts as ancient as this part of Leviticus and its rabbinic midrashim -- all of which have previously felt archaic, quaint, and/or problematic to me -- and instead feel tempted to hold them up as examples or targets. And yet, that's exactly where my mind goes this week. Our parasha, which bears the name of the "isha ki tazria," "the woman who is pregnant," fundamentally instructs women to act with empowerment and agency. Its laws -- about how a postpartum woman is to gain re-admittance into the sanctuary and into the religious life of the Israelite community -- necessarily assume that she belongs there in the first place! Admittedly this is not the highest bar of equality I can imagine; however, shouldn't we expect at least this much of all 50 American states in the year 2024?!
May this Shabbat bring us one step closer to freedom and expansiveness, equality and agency for all... after all, this is our season of (collective) liberation!
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum
