A Thought on Parshas Tazria

"...isha ki tazria v'yalda zachar..." "...when a woman conceives and bears a son..." (12:2) This verse can seem intriguing by virtue of it referring to a woman who conceives yet it makes no prior statement about what occurred or who was responsible for her pregnancy. One might be tempted to wonder, if prone to thinking about such topics, just who the man was whose identity, whose very mention, is seemingly omitted from this verse. The Panae'ach Raza writes that this was precisely the line of thought enjoyed by the "minim sh'pokrim b'minus" ("min" is often understood as a rabbinic acrostic for "ma'aminnae yeshu notzri" and the root pkr is also found in the rabbinic term apikorus). The allusion made by the Panae'ach Raza is to heretics and apostates. During his time in Medieval Europe, those who misused the Torah as a resource for cryptic signs to support their doctrines pounced on the above verse. They claimed that the subtext of the verse is a "virgin birth." The woman who conceived with no mention of the man in her life and gave birth to a male child was, by their theological hubris, the scion of G-d Himself. The Panae'ach Raza cautiously examines this. He notes that the verse goes on to say that this woman is tamaeah, unclean, for seven days. He observes that the "woman" of our verse is declared tameah for seven days yet if her offspring had been a female, that time interval is doubled. Now, if the difference between "the woman" who gave birth to this cryptic male in contrast with ones who deliver little girls is that the latter conceptions were of mortal origin, what would double the unclean period into a fourteen day interval? If it was a function of her having had contact with a mortal spouse, we know that those tumos which are specific to men (namely, keri, zav and of course the generic tumas mais) only require one day or seven days, respectively, prior to their cleansing tahara. If so, the differential which the minim attribute to our verse would not parallel the laws and criteria of tuma. Thus, in context, deliveries of both male and female infants and the resultant tuma statuses point to the mortal origin of births, without exception. The Panae'ach Raza then observes that those other doctrines contend that the mother of this cryptic child is described as having bathed and washed him to preserve his putative purity. They declared that he was holy, given his immaculate origin (note that immaculate means clean of impurity). He adds that in any case, this is the "minhag shel ha'olam" to keep an infant clean. If so, he asks, that child would have contracted tuma anyway through physical contact with his mother, during the thirty three days of impurity (verse 4) which all mothers contend with. Moreover, that same verse asserts "b'kol kodesh lo siga" - she is not allowed to contact anything holy during that time. If so, queries the Panae'ach Raza, had our verse been referring to an infant to whom those doctrines ascribe holy status, that mother would have been forbidden to touch him. He thus rejects on reasoning alone any suggestion that our Torah hints at a concept inconsistent with its own principles, and inherently untenable according to those other doctrines. I recognize that this dvar Torah is somewhat different and cloaked in mysterious jargon. I selected it primarily because it is one of the more intriguing one's in the Panae'ach Raza's writings this week. Additionally, it demonstrates his courage in respectfully analyzing a thought which is foreign to our beliefs, and his boldly speaking out to his Jewish brethren during a time in history when theological debate and challenges to a host culture's beliefs were usually met with persecution, condemnation or death. Good Shabbos. D Fox