Today’s portion seems difficult to our modern ears. This d’var Torah might need to come with a trigger warning. I will be discussing maternal health and rights, rape, miscarriage and abortion.  

Yesterday I heard an interview on NPR on Science Friday with an author of the book Period. No, not with Anita Diamant who has a book by the same, although I did reach out to her later in the day. This book, by Kate Clancy deals with some of the science behind menstruation 

The goodreads “book jacket” description says:.  

Menstruation is something half the world does for a week at a time, for months and years on end, yet it remains largely misunderstood. Scientists once thought of an individual’s period as useless and some doctors still believe it’s unsafe for a menstruating person to swim in the ocean wearing a tampon. Period counters the false theories that have long defined the study of the uterus, exposing the eugenic history of gynecology while providing an intersectional feminist perspective on menstruation science.” 

Yes, we are allowed to use that word here in the sanctuary.  

Fast forward, or go back in time to this morning’s Torah portion. On Thursday, as part of our usual Torah Study, we wrestled with the beginning of today’s portion. Chapter 12 tells us that a woman who gives birth to a boy child remains in a state of blood purification for 33 days and if she births a  girl 66 days. Why the difference? The notes in Etz Hayyim are not much help. My working at a mikveh was not much help either. 

What is tameh? There are various translations. Impure, unclean, Anita Diamant’s ritually unready. Why the difference between the birth of a boy and the birth of a girl? Doesn’t that just lead to further discrimination of women and girls and their feeling less good about themselves? 

Dr. Ora Horn Prouser, CEO and Academic Dean at the Academy for Jewish Religion, a Bible scholar, taught for me one day after my bone marrow transplant. The participants thought she had a really good interpretation of this complicated topic so we spoke on the phone to get her understanding. She describes tameh this way: “the idea of impurity is a physical substance. It is things that God can’t be around, almost like G-d has an allergy and it is physical and needs to be removed. Clean and unclean are not good words to translate this as. Maybe something that needs to be eliminated. This is not metaphorical. The idea of this, the way I like to think about it, and it is really easy with the pandemic, is it is like a germ, or something that is radioactive. You can’t see it but it will harm you nonetheless and it needs to be removed.” She added, however, that it won’t help with the difference between girls and boys.  

It is clear that our ancients seem to be afraid of various fluids, blood, seminal emissions, skin eruptions of various sorts. These are powerful life forces. There is much to be said about the anthropology of all of this.  

Mary Douglas wrote a powerful book, Purity and Danger about anthropology and pollution, including blood..  Because it was seen as a pollutant, we must not touch blood. IWe must not eat anything with blood. Blood was somehow taboo. It is out of place and therefore scary. You might remember that the first of the 10 plagues was turning the river Nile into blood. That was very scary! 

“Any interpretations will fail which take the Do-nots of the Old Testament in piecemeal fashion. The only sound approach is to forget hygiene, aesthetics, morals and instinctive revulsion, even to forget the Canaanites and the Zoroastrian Magi, and start with the texts. Since each of the injunctions is prefaced by the command to be holy, so they must be explained by that command. There must be contrariness between holiness and abomination which will make over-all sense of all the particular restrictions.” (Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger, 1966 and 2002, page 50) 

Childbirth was scary. A walk through any colonial American cemetery will show you how many women died in childbirth. Our own birkat hagomel which I just recited recently includes a note that it can be said even for a women surviving childbirth. It seems farfetched. Ancient. Not part of our current world.  

It is not. And here is where the trigger warning might be really important. There are several women at CKI who lost children at full term. I have done four funerals for babies who didn’t make it. They are brutal. From my perspective, we are doing better at marking these moments. It used to be true that we didn’t mark the birth and death of a child until they reached 30 days. They weren’t considered a viable nefesh, soul. Others who have been through the experience are mixed on what is helpful.  

When I was studying in Israel, there was an 11 year old girl who was raped on the beach in Tel Aviv. Because of the way the court system is set up there, she had to carry that baby to full term. I’ve been working on issues of sexual assault prevention, rape counseling and maternal health issues ever since. 

In Israel, abortion is legal, when determined by a termination committee, and not used very often with most cases being approved in 2019 (the last year I could find statistics about). They have been declining since 1988 and abortion rates for women of childbearing age are less than the US, 13.2 per 1000 women or Great Britain at 16.2 per 1000 women. In Israel only 9 in 1000 women seek an abortion.  

Maternal health includes more than access to abortion. It includes access to good nutrition, safe housing, birth control, good gynecological care, physicians who listen to women to discern their symptoms and don’t just dismiss something as all in their heads, affordable health care that is independent of just being on their husbands’ plan. Good maternal health care is harder to access if you are black or brown.  

Maternal health care is in our news every day. Including yesterday. In the United States, where the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, there have been debates over the medication mifepristone, the medication used in abortion and miscarriage care.  

This news alert came out last night from National Council of Jewish Women: 

“As we are about to usher in Shabbat, the Supreme Court issued a stay of Judge Kacsmaryk’s order, which would have banned mifepristone — used in medication abortion and miscarriage care. This means that there is continued and full access to mifepristone. This is a win for abortion access!” 

For now. 

Almost all Jewish Women’s organizations that I could name; Hadassah, Women of Reform Judaism , the Conservative Movement’s Women’s League would all support this decision, and while it will continue to go through the courts in an appeals process, it gives me some hope.  

This drug is important not only for abortions but also for care of miscarriages. Many women miscarry.  

According to the March of Dimes, “Miscarriage is very common. Some research suggests that more than 30 percent of pregnancies end in miscarriage, and many end before a person even knows they’re pregnant. Most people who miscarry go on to have a healthy pregnancy later.” 

Many women mourn the loss of a child to miscarriage, this drug is critical in the aftercare.  

Many women have difficulty conceiving at all. Some have successfully used invitro fertilization, an expensive process. Others do not have access to it, precisely because of the cost and whether an individual’s insurance coverage will allow IVF. Make no mistake, this process is also threatened by the overturning of Roe v Wade. Threats include: 

• The ability to do testing on embryos, such as genetic testing  
• The ability to freeze embryos  
• The ability to move frozen embryos across state lines  
• Embryo disposition  
• Unintended consequences of harm coming to an embryo  
• Miscarriages, and care rendered to the patient 
• Ectopic pregnancies, and care rendered to the patient 
• Conferring Personhood rights on an in vitro embryo 

Another area of concern includes stem cell research. The stem cell controversy is an ethical debate concerning research using human embryos and embryonic stem cells. Not all stem cell research involves human embryos. For example, adult stem cells, amniotic stem cells, and induced pluripotent stem cells do not involve creating, using, or destroying human embryos, and thus are minimally, if at all, controversial. My own bone marrow transplant, also called a stem cell transplant was from my own cells, called autolougos transplant, which has less risks. Nonetheless, I am grateful for all the research done on stem cells, for maternal health and all of our health! 

Maternal health continues to be a risk—both in this country and in Israel to a lesser extent. Our Torah is very clear, we should have one law for citizen and strangr alike because we were strangers in the land of Egypt. We should take care of the widow, the orphan, the stranger. Yet, what I don’t see in our tradition, is the ruling that says we should have one law for male and female alike. 

The question of women’s rights doesn’t end with the right to conceive and bear a child, if that is what you so desire. Today is Rosh Hodesh, the new month of Iyar. Rosh Hodesh is seen as half holiday given to women precisely because as the Talmud states women didn’t give up their gold for the golden calf. (Or maybe because there is some connection between the phases of the moon and women’s menstrual cycles, but I digress). 

In the Talmud, women, children and slaves are exempt from time bound mitzvot. Things like saying the Sh;ma at set times, saying Kiddush, laying tefilin. etc.   Exempt, but not forbidden. If a woman chooses to take it on, then she can be encouraged to do so. We have seen that historically. Michal bat Kushi, also known as Saul, wore tefilin, one of those time bound commandments. Yonah’s wife used to make the festival pilgrimage, Tavi, Rabban Gamliel’s slave used to put on Tefillin. Rashi’s daughters did things that were considered time bound, including wearing tefilin, blowing shofar and one was a mohel.  

Prayer is not forbidden to women. In fact, while the Sh’ma is considered time bound, the Amidah and Birkat Hamazon is an obligation. And yet, there are those who think that women don’t pray, shouldn’t pray and their voices shouldn’t be heard. In the late 1800s, and there are photos of this, women would stand next to men, without even a mechitza and pray at the Western Wall. In 1988, Women of the Wall started to help women gain equal access to prayer at the Western Wall.  It is anathema that women have been spat at, shouted out, whistled, beaten and even arrested in Israel for praying, reading Torah or even lighting a chanukiah.  

There are those who think that the voice of a woman could be so alluring that a man might “spill his seed.” or in the language of today’s portion have a seminal emission. That is why in Israel, depending on which political party in power there are times when you will not hear women’s voices on the radio or even have a woman be allowed to say Kaddish for a parent or other relative.   

I am proud of the work of people like Anita Diamant who understand that the pink tax need to be eliminated. That access of period products and equal access to health care for women, all women need to be increased, I am proud of Congregation Kneseth Israel who have collected period products and donated to the Community Crisis Center (and made sure that they are available in our own restrooms). I am proud of Women on the Brink for doing the same thing,

It is our job, all of our jobs, women and men, to stand up for women rights, here and in Israel, for women’s health, all of our health, here and in Israel, for women’s rights, all of our rights, to practice Judaism in a manner to enrich our connection with the Divine and with Judaism. It begins with today’s portion. Then, and only then will we all be tahara, ritually ready.