Vayikra 12: The Tomb — The Secret of the Living, 4 | Rav Ziegler zatsal
The Secret of the Living · chapter 4 · Rav Haim Ziegler זצ״ל

Vayikra 12: The Tomb

Why is birth tumah, impurity of death?
A teaching of Rav Haim Ziegler zatsal · Éditions Gueoula
Translated from the French original; the French version remains the reference text.
Vayikra 12: The Tomb
Why is birth tumah, impurity of death?

Vayikra 12:2: the woman who gives birth is tameh, impure, for seven days. Yet tumah is always linked to death.

Rashi says: “even if the tomb opens without blood”. He calls the womb hakever, the tomb.

The lesson draws: at birth, the living soul of Olam HaEmet enters this world, which is death; the womb is the entrance.

The lesson also reads in the word אמת: אם (mother) + מת (death).

📖 Read the lesson
1 The verse of the Torah
אִשָּׁה כִּי תַזְרִיעַ וְיָלְדָה זָכָר וְטָמְאָה שִׁבְעַת יָמִים

“A woman who conceives and bears a male child shall be tameh (impure) seven days.” — Vayikra 12:2

2 The disturbing question

Why does birth confer the status of tumah? In the Torah, tumah is always linked to death: touching a corpse, the leper (a living dead man), the flow of blood (a loss of life).

So why would birth, the arrival of life, be tumah? Why associate birth with the impurity of death?

3 Rashi’s comment

Rashi, on Vayikra 12:2:

וַאֲפִילוּ נִפְתַּח הַקֶּבֶר בְּלֹא דָם

“And even if the tomb opens without blood.”

Rashi calls the womb הַקֶּבֶר, hakever, the tomb. He uses neither “belly” (בטן) nor “womb” (רחם): he uses “tomb” (קבר).
4 What this reveals

The womb is a tomb. If the soul came out of the tomb at birth, it would have been there before. The lesson says: it is the opposite.

The soul was alive, in Olam HaEmet, the world of truth. At birth, the soul enters the tomb, this world which is death. The womb is the entrance into the tomb: the living soul enters the world of death.

It is not the blood that causes the tumah, it is the opening of the tomb: Rashi says it, “even if the tomb opens without blood”, the tumah remains. The mother has the status of one who touches a dead body, because she brings a living soul out of Olam HaEmet and makes it enter this world which is death.

5 The reading of the letters: אמת

The lesson offers this reading of the Hebrew letters:

אם (em, mother) + מת (met, death) = אמת (emet, truth).

The lesson concludes: the mother gives death, not life, that is, entry into this world of death. The mother is the door between life (Olam HaEmet, the other world) and death (this world).

6 The symmetry

Before birth, the soul is in life, Olam HaEmet. Through the mother, הקבר, the tomb, it enters death, this world. According to the lesson, everything is coherent: birth is tumah, the womb is the tomb (קבר), and the word אמת is mother + death.

7 Conclusion

The lesson concludes: you were not born into life, you were born into death. The womb is not a cradle of life but a tomb. The mother does not give life: she gives entry into this world of death. And the word אמת, truth, reveals it in its very construction.

Did you follow the lesson?

Five questions on the fourth chapter.

1
Which verse is the starting point of the chapter?
The woman who gives birth is tameh seven days.
2
To what is tumah always linked, according to the lesson?
Corpse, leper, flow of blood: always death.
3
What word does Rashi use for the womb, according to the lesson?
“Even if the tomb opens without blood.”
4
According to the lesson, what causes the tumah of birth?
Rashi: the tumah remains even without blood.
5
How does the lesson break down the word אמת?
A reading offered by the lesson: mother + death = truth.

Result