Tazreeyah – Conceives

This week we read the Portion Tazreeyah and a special reading called Hachodesh (the New Month – referring to the command given to sanctify the New Month which was the month of Nissan, the month the Jews would leave Egypt. This marked the beginning of the Jewish nation and their first command as a nation.)

The Torah portion starts off with the laws of impurity for a woman who gave birth to a boy or a girl.  Then strangely we jump to the laws of someone who gossiped and their impurity.  In the time of the Temple, when a person gossiped they were punished with a form of leprosy that rendered them impure.  Gossip (Loshan Hara) is the concept of speaking destructively about a person, the opposite of creating or giving birth.

It is interesting to note that a woman was rendered impure but not isolated and cast out while someone who gossiped and acquired leprosy was cast out and isolated.  A woman also had a set time of impurity for either a boy or a girl.  The gossiper with leprosy had no set time.  One would assume it depended on the level of repentance for the terrible crime of gossip.

A woman was willing to make sacrifices in order to have children, even if it meant that for a short limited time she would have restrictions that the level of impurity placed on her.  The Jewish woman was willing to make those sacrifices.

The gossiper, knowing what the end punishment would be, did not care.  For that lack of care and concern, isolation was appropriate.  Perhaps then the gossiper would begin to care about other people and not speak badly about them.

This concept could reflect the idea of becoming part of a nation with a new beginning, a New Month to begin shinning in a positive way that would be a step toward redemption and total purification.