Portion of the Week

This week we read a combine portion, Tazria Metzorah.  This portion deals with a variety of impurities and the prescribed remedy for them...in other words, how do you move from a state of impurity to purity.  

A woman, for example (and the rabbis of the Talmud were mostly concerned with the impurity of women) can be impure impure during the specific days of her cycle (and she is called a zavah) or impure during any other period of bloody discharge at any other time in which she is considered a niddah.  The status of zavah was considered a more severe form of impurity than niddah.  A zavah must bring offerings with her as part of the purification procedures; a niddah is not required to do so.

In chapter 15, verses 1-2 of Leviticus, the text reads:  "God spoke to Moses and Aaron saying, 'Speak to the Children of Israel and say to them:  Any man who will have a discharge from his flesh his discharge is impure.'"  Based on a simple reading of the text, the specific type of discharge is unclear.  For example, could this refer to a boil or a pimple from which there is a discharge of pus?  

Rashi sets us straight.  By using a bit of reasoning (and remember, there are certain specific kinds of reasoning that are permitted) Rashi determines that this discharge must in fact refer to semen.  Rashi actually states:  "I have the right to use reasoning..."  He draws an analogy:  as a woman's impurity comes from a specific place on the body, so too must a man's come from the similar and analogous place on the body; hence the discharge must be semen. 

The reason this passage is interesting is that it provides us with a perfect example of a gezerah shavah, which means that similar laws or situations are equal and hence an analogy can be drawn.  The case of the woman is analogous to the case of a man and since we know what 'discharge' means as it applies to a woman, we can then draw the inference as it applies to a man.