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{"id":17984,"date":"2016-03-23T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-03-23T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leithart.level2d.com\/?p=2799"},"modified":"2016-03-23T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2016-03-23T00:00:00","slug":"logic-of-impurity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2016\/03\/logic-of-impurity\/","title":{"rendered":"Logic of Impurity"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

It\u2019s an inventive solution. In an essay on the Logic of Impurity<\/a>, David Kraemer argues, counterintuitively, that impurity marks something as God\u2019s possession.<\/p>\n

He argues from the strange anomalies associated with corpse defilement and its cleansing: \u201cThe human corpse is, according to the Torah, the most powerful source of ritual impurity there is. It is so powerful that the corpse can render the one who contacts it himself a source of impurity for other individuals or objects he touches. In the language of the rabbis, the corpse is \u2018the grandfather [or, if you prefer, the \u2018big daddy\u2019] of all impurities\u2019 . . . . The only way to eliminate corpse impurity is through administration of the waters produced with the ashes of the Red Heifer; that is how powerful these waters of purification are.\u201d But then \u201canyone who is involved in the production of the Red Heifer waters is himself rendered impure.\u201d<\/p>\n

How can the concoction of something that cleanses defile?<\/p>\n

Kraemer suggests that \u201cthe only way to make any kind of sense of this paradox is to recognize that power sometimes overwhelms a system, and when an input is too powerful, the logic of a system cannot be maintained. In the Torah\u2019s purity system, I want to argue, the impurity of the corpse represents a kind of systemic overload.\u201d<\/p>\n

He finds a solution in Rabbi Eliezer, who said, \u201cWhat is the difference between the impure and the pure [animals]?\u201d \u201cThe pure one, its soul belongs to heaven and its body belongs to its [human] owner, but the impure one, both its soul and its body belong to heaven\u201d (Mishnah Nedarim<\/em> 4:3).<\/p>\n

<\/span>In short, \u201cmarking something as \u2018impure\u2019 means marking it as being somehow in God\u2019s realm, touchable but in some profound sense inaccessible to us. . . . life and death are in the realm of God. . . . Both, therefore, are marked as \u2018impure.\u2019 The same is true of menstrual blood, which emerges from \u2018the source\u2019 of human life, deep in the womb, and the same is true of birth blood \u2014 the blood that issues forth when a woman gives birth.\u201d<\/p>\n

Death is particularly defiling because it is peculiarly the realm of God: \u201cunder ordinary circumstances (putting aside war or self-defense, for example), humans should have no place in death. It should be entirely the work of God. By contrast, humans do have a place in reproduction and childbirth. By marking death as so powerfully impure, the Torah signals to humans to stay away, to leave to God what is fully God\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kraemer\u2019s argument has some important implications for Christian use of the purity laws. If certain things are impure because they belong to God, and now \u201call things are cleansed,\u201d that is a mark of the elevated status of humanity in Christ. God has given us access to the tree of knowledge; He has handed over the sword and fire. <\/p>\n

But: If \u201cimpure\u201d things belong to God, why are people who are counted \u201cimpure\u201d prohibited from going before Him? Kraemer\u2019s argument seems to equate sanctity and impurity. There is something to this; taboo stretches to both ends of a spectrum. But there is a spectrum, and holiness and impurity, whatever the complexities of their relationship, are not identical. The judgment on Kraemer\u2019s counter-intuitive thesis is: Sometimes intuitions are better than their counters.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"