Torah Technology Institute

One of the most perplexing and often misunderstood areas of Torah is the area of tahara – specifically the states of tuma and tahara. In this article we will try to gain some insight as to what these states are, specifically as they relate to netilat yadayim.

Tuma commonly is taken to mean the presence of something “unclean,” a “negative spiritual force” of sorts. Indeed, since tuma can transfer from one person to the next, it is understandable that people have come to view it as a kind of contamination. But as we will see, tuma may be something altogether different – not “bad” energy, but a lack of energy. Chol is a vacuum, the state of depletion or lack of energy. This is as opposed to kodesh, which is the concentration or high-intensity presence of energy. In Torah, we find that the same thing that is m’chalel (depletes kedusha) simultaneously causes tuma, as it says:

“he has given his offspring to the Molech in order to make My Mikdash Tamei
and deplete my Kodesh name.” [1]

The state of tuma is also linked in the Torah with the state of mourning, a low-energy state (as opposed to simcha, which is a high-energy state), as it says:

“I did not eat from it in my mourning,
and I did not devour it in a Tamei state.” [2]

Perhaps the most suggestive evidence that tuma results from a loss of energy is the fact that it is so strongly linked to death. The most severe level of tuma (the avi avot ha’tuma) is that of a dead person. Death is a total loss of vital energy, a cessation of movement. The heart stops, blood no longer circulates, and all nefesh is drained from the body. The sharp depletion of nefesh, of bioenergy, leaves in its wake a severe tuma.

Sleep, Chazal say, is one sixtieth of death. [3] During sleep, the conscious, thinking mind is temporarily out of commission. The body’s basic metabolism slows down – heart rate and blood pressure drop, respiration and core body temperature decrease. [4] With less movement, less flow of energy, the nefesh is diminished. Thus, just as death (the greatest loss of nefesh) incurs the highest level of tuma, so too sleep (a partial death, partial loss of nefesh) incurs a lesser tuma. In other words, the severity of tuma is proportional to the amount of nefesh lost.

As we just stated, the traditional concept of sleep is a partial death and therefore a loss of nefesh. This is reasonable except for one small detail: sleep revitalizes – it restores the nefesh. Death does just the opposite – it drains the nefesh. So how do we understand that sleep brings on tuma? Some explain that tuma is produced because during sleep we may have touched a sweaty area of the body or a part that is usually covered. Others say that ruach ra’a (“evil spirit,” i.e. destructive energy) comes upon the hands during sleep. Let us explore another possible answer.

Perhaps it is not while a person sleeps that the nefesh is actually lost, but rather when he initially wakes up. As we said, the body’s metabolism decreases during sleep. When the circulation slows, blood does not reach the extremeties as well as it usually does. Upon awakening however, the metabolism rises sharply, and blood pressure increases, and blood itself is pumped to the fingertips. (This can produce the sensation of tingling.) The Torah associates nefesh with blood, [5] as the pasuk says:

That is, the nefesh (human energy field) is produced by (and circulates along with) blood flow. Thus, as blood rushes to the hands, heat is lost, nefesh is ejected from the body, leaving a slight vacuum – tuma – at the area of the hands, particularly on the fingertips.

When a person’s hands are in the state of tuma, he is required to do netilat yadayim, to pour water over the hands in order to render his hands tahor (cleared of tuma) once again. After washing the hands for netilat yadayim, we are supposed to lift our hands, fingertips up. One reason given for the lifting is that it prevents poured water from dripping down the arm to the fingertips, which would render them tamei once again. [7] But if lifting the hands is not a means of tahara but merely a safeguard against the recurrence of tuma, then why does the bracha itself emphasize the lifting? The bracha does not say “al rechitzat yadaim” (“upon the washing of the hands”), but rather “al netilat yadaim” (“upon the lifting of the hands”). Perhaps we can also understand it in terms of blood-flow and loss of nefesh. That is, lifting the hands simply allows gravity to act on the hands, pulling the blood (and nefesh) down and away from the fingertips. Thus, less nefesh will leave the body.

Since nefesh is tied to the blood, a sharp loss of blood will bring about a corresponding depletion of nefesh, resulting in the state of tuma. As such, a woman is tame’a during her menstrual cycle (nida) and after childbirth, both of which involve a considerable loss of blood. With childbirth however, not only does the mother lose nefesh through the loss of her own blood, but she also loses the nefesh associated with her baby. That is, during pregnancy, the nefesh of the baby is subsumed within the energy field of the mother. At birth, when the baby separates, the fields of the two living beings are separated, and this is experienced by the mother as a loss of nefesh.

There is a fairly glaring question regarding the laws of childbirth as stated in the Torah: What does the Torah mean when it says that a post-partum mother is tame’a for twice the amount of time for a baby girl (6 weeks) than for a baby boy (3 weeks)? [8] If we define tuma not as impurity but rather as a loss of nefesh, then this leads us to a potential answer: a girl is understood in Torah as possessing twice the nefesh of a boy. Therefore, the birth of a girl results in a greater loss of nefesh (x2) for the mother, while the birth of a boy results in less of a loss (x1). The more nefesh lost, the more time it takes to be replenished. Why a girl would have a double-dose of nefesh is then the question, but perhaps we can reason that having the ablity to produce and support a whole new human life by definition makes her twice the person that a boy is. In other words, in order to be a working life-support system, a woman must have extra life-energy to give.

If we understand tuma not as a “negative energy” but rather as a lack of energy, how then do we account for the phenomenon of tuma transference? That is, how does “lack” get transferred from one person to another? Here is a possible answer: When energy is lost, it leaves a vacuum in its place. A vacuum has the tendency to draw energy into itself. So rather than think of transfer of tuma in terms of Person A (with tuma) “giving something” to Person B, understand it the opposite way – Person A’s vacuum draws energy from Person B, leaving Person B with a vacuum. Thus, touch something tamei, and you will become tamei. [9]

One curious feature of tuma however is that the energy it sucks into itself from other things does not “fill” its own vacuum. The energy does not get integrated – instead, it simply dissipates. [10] In this way, tuma is capable of multiplying itself, spreading from Person A to B, C, D, and so on. (Hence it seems like “contamination.”) The force of tuma however diminishes with each generation of contact – i.e. tuma_A >tuma_B >tuma_C… [11]

The state of tuma, as we have said, is a disturbance in the nefesh caused by a localized vacuum. When there is a “hole” in the nefesh, this interrupts normal, healthy circulation. It’s like a pothole in the road that causes a car to slow down and bump through it before proceeding. In Torah, something that has this impedence by virtue of lack is called tamei, while something that allows the free flow of energy is called tahor.

The word tahara is commonly translated to mean “purity.” When speaking about energy, we can understand purity in terms of conductivity – again, relating to free-flow. For example, the Torah specifies not simply gold but zahav tahor (pure gold) as a material needed for building the Ark. Not only is pure gold more “precious” than gold with impurities, with foreign elements – it is a better conductor of energy, electricity. Likewise, a person who is tahor is a better conductor, more readily able to circulate nefesh and integrate kedusha, conduct energy, than a person who is tamei. A general principle in Torah is that tahara (the ability to conduct energy) is a prerequisite for kedusha (the infusion of energy).

Two principal methods for nullifying tuma/restoring tahara are 1) the passage of time, and 2) immersion in flowing water, as the psukim say:

Just as wounds heal over time, so too is the vacuum of tuma gradually replenished with nefesh over time. The greater the loss of nefesh, the more time is necessary. [13] Besides allowing a certain amount of time to pass, it can be necessary to immerse either the hands or the entire body in water. Hence the necessity of the mikveh (ritual bath). But what is it about water that restores a person’s nefesh, her energy?

One very obvious answer is that water is simply the basis of life. It is the main ingredient in the human being. It’s the basis of blood and milk, of all nourishment, all sources of nefesh. But perhaps more to the point is that every living system is made up of two parts: guf (material body, structure) and nefesh (animating energy). Within the body, flesh is the guf, and blood is the nefesh.. The flesh is static, and the blood is dynamic. Within the Earth, the soil/rock is the guf, and flowing water (mayim chaim) is the nefesh. And so it is the connection to another source of nefesh, to “live” flowing water, that revives our nefesh, alleviating the vacuum of tuma and restoring proper energy circulation.

[1] Vayikra 20.3

[2] Devarim 26.14

[3] See: Brachot 57b

[4] Although these rise sharply during REM sleep.

[5] Which is suggestively similar to the association between chi and blood which is understood in the Chinese medical tradition.

[6] Vayikra 17.11

[7] See: Orach Chaim 162.1

[8] See: Vayikra 12.1-5

[9] Transfer of tuma from A to B assumes that B is m’kabel tuma – i.e., that its structure is susceptible to disruption by vacuum.

[10] This may be why, as we discussed in the last section, we are permitted to drink milk but not blood, even though both contain nefesh. Whereas milk is packaged in a form whereby our systems are able to integrate the nefesh, blood is not packaged as such, and by drinking it the nefesh is dissipated, wasted.

[11] Distinctions in the strength of tuma correspond to the Halachic statuses of “avi avot ha’tuma,” “av ha’tuma,” “rishon l’tuma,” “sheni l’tuma,” and so on.

[12] Vayikra 11.32, 15.13 – Korban (sacrifice) and mei nida (water with ashes from the Red Cow) also restore tahara, and these are discussed in Part 2 – “Korbanot.”

[13] Although it is curious that for those cases of tuma that make one tamei until the evening, one regains tahara in the evening whether he became tamei 6 minutes ago or 6 hours ago. It would seem in this case that it is not so much the duration of time but rather the special property of “erev” (evening) that replenishes the nefesh.