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Mythical Roots of Women's Impurity in the Laws of Leviticus: Gendered Mathematics of the Pure and Impure*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 July 2014
Abstract
In the biblical book of Leviticus, the whole life of the Hebrew people is codified under the aspect of purity and impurity, and the reintegration into purity. When read in the light of gender, these prescriptions show that women are twice as impure as men, while their monetary value is half. Using the semiotic approach developed by A. J. Greimas, this study shows that, beneath the religious discourse obscuring this valuation, is an equally gendered ideology. The source of this valuation is not the foundational events which engender mosaic law, but its roots are to be found in deeper mythical ground. For the condition of women to change, the issue of their impurity—inferiority must be treated at this level. A striking example illustrating this argument is the persistence of purification rites related to the menstrual cycle in modern Orthodox Judaism. Over the course of centuries, the code that contains them has become obsolete. Nevertheless, they remain in place through successive reinterpretations, which do not address the real reason for their existence.
Résumé
Dans la Bible, au Lévitique, toute la vie du peuple hébreu est codifiée sous l'angle du pur, de l'impur et de la réintégration dans la pureté. Relues selon la catégorie du genre, ces prescriptions rigoureuses sous-entendent l'existence d'un taux d'impureté deux fois plus grand chez la femme que chez l'homme et imposent une évaluation monétaire de la femme deux fois moindre. Une analyse sémiotique montre que, sous le discours religieux qui la recouvre, cette tarification ne prend pourtant pas sa source dans l'événement fondateur qui engendre la Loi mosaïque, mais, par-delà une idéologie également genrée, dans un terreau mythique plus profond. Sous peine de ne jamais arriver à vraiment rajuster la condition des femmes, c'est à ce niveau qu'il faudrait traiter le problème de l'impureté-infériorité des femmes. L'exemple frappant du maintien dans le judaïsme orthodoxe moderne des rites de purification entourant les menstruations illustre cette argumentation. Le code qui les porte est devenu caduc au cours des siècles. Ils sont pourtant gardés en place grâce à des réiterprétations successives qui n'entament pas la question de leur véritable raison d'être.
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References
1. Except the woman who is judged by ordeal. See Leviticus 5: 11–30.
2. As part of its myth-constructing enterprise, Leviticus uses language appropriated from Israel's origins as a people, the vocabulary used to describe the Exodus from Egypt and the sojourn in the desert that took place 700 years before. It speaks of the sanctuary as the “Tent of Meeting” and the city as the “Camp.” See Deuteronomy 24: 1–4 for a description of the land that is sullied.
3. All quotations from the Bible are taken from the New Revised Standard Version [hereinafter NRSV]. Metzger, Bruce & Murphy, Roland E., eds., The New Oxford Annotated Bible With the Apocryphal / Deuterocanonical Books (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991).Google Scholar
4. According to Thomas Aquinas, God creates a soul for every human being who is born. The soul is infused the 40th day of conception for boys and the 60th day for girls. In both cases, however, the mathematics of conception tellingly illustrates the attitude towards the feminine of the mathematician who establishes the rule.
5. This is a more literal translation of the original Hebrew than that given by the NRSV.
6. NRSV, supra note 3, Leviticus at 18: 30.
7. Ibid. at 12:2 2.
8. Ibid. at 11: 9–12.
9. NRSV, Exodus at 13: 12.
10. Ibid. at 13: 15.
11. Ibid. at 22: 17–20, 22: 24–25.
12. Ibid. at 14: 14–18.
13. Ibid. at 6: 22, 7: 6, 21: 17–23.
14. Not long ago, the Roman Catholic Church would not accept candidates for the priesthood who did not measure a certain height, were handicapped, or had been born out of wedlock.
15. A shekel was a measure of weight. One shekel was equivalent to 11.4 grams of silver, which was the salary for four days work at one denarius per day.
16. NRSV, supra note 3, Leviticus at 30: 12–17.
17. NRSV, ibid., Deuteronomy at 24: 1–4.
18. See Perdue, Leo G., The Collapse of History: Reconstructing Old Testament Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994).Google Scholar
19. NRSV, supra note 3, Deuteronomy at 23: 18–19: “You shall not bring the fee of a prostitute or the wages of a male prostitute (a ‘dog’) into the house of the LORD your God in payment for any vow for both of these are abhorrent to the LORD your God.”
20. Julia Kristeva has initiated the study of the subject of abomination. Kristeva, Julia, “Sémiotique de l'abomination” in Kristeva, Julia, ed., Pouvoirs de l'horreur (Paris: Seuil, 1980).Google Scholar She concludes via a psychoanalytical reading that the original abomination shunned throughout all others is fusion with one's mother.
21. The NRSV translates “common” for the Hebrew noun hol, which means profaneness or commonness. Derived from the verb halal, which can mean to pollute, defile, or profane, hol is often used in opposition to kodesh, or holiness. Refering to ritual purity and impurity and not to hygiene, this opposition is especially evident when used with the verb badal, “to divide or separate,” rendered as “You will distinguish between” by the NRSV. In addition, the same expression can be used in relation to: (1) the separation of an individual from the community, caused by sin (Deuteronomy 29: 30); (2) the separation of a class or group from the general population, because they are holy (Moses setting apart the Leviticus in Num. 8: 14); or (3) the setting apart of Israel from other nations (Leviticus 20:24). It can also be used in the sense of creating a new or separate reality, i.e. God separates light from darkness (Genesis 14).
22. For generations of Jewish holy people, rabbis and exegetes, the issue is at a different level founded in Yahweh. In cases where they grasp their meaning, the reason for observing the restrictions remains the submission to the will of God, not their pertinence.
23. NRSV, supra note 3, Leviticus, 11: 44–47.
24. In a religious and theological interpretation, the consequences of this analysis are very serious. In the Covenant offered and ratified by Yahweh with the human race, women would not be equal to men and therefore not part of the contract with God. Of course, other books in the Bible present women in a purely patriarchal society in an inferior and submissive situation, but still in a direct relationship with Yahweh, who will sometimes use them to change the course of history: A woman participates in the theocratic Israelite society through her husband or her father, even though, according to Genesis 1: 27 and 5: 1–2 she is equally the image of God. However, we are forced to admit that the fundamental anthropological definition “image of God” disappears in the rest of the Bible, except for a brief allusion in a psalm, and reappears only in the work of Paul after many centuries of redaction, only partially succeeding in its application to women. The troubling ideology of Leviticus prevails throughout.
25. Ibid., 27: 1–8.
26. Here it is impossible to discuss all the distinctiveness pertinent to the so-called “revealed” religions and their interaction with their group of origin, the import and export of religions and the subject of inculturation.
27. In Bali, the outside doors of Buddhist temples proclaim in Balinese and English: “Menstruating Women Cannot Enter.”
28. The prohibitions in relation to food consumption also have nine lives. They have been used to promote questions of identity, national resistance and Election in the same sense as that found in Leviticus.
29. NRSV, supra note 3, Leviticus, 15: 19–32; 18: 19, 20: 18.
30. This panorama is taken from an excellent article by Steinberg, Jonah, “From a ‘Pot of Filth’ to a ‘Hedge of Roses’ (and Back): Changing Theorization of Menstruation” in (1997) 13:2Judaism. Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 5.Google Scholar
31. Ibid. at 21.
32. Ibid. at 7–8.
33. Ibid. at 24.
34. Within the same vein, in everyday life one often hears: “Laws of purity do not marginalise Jewish women, but allow them to have a period of rest.” This argument is often expressed in the Muslim world in relation to polygamy. In addition, “Women should be allowed to be rabbis, because consulting the rabbi in matters pertaining to purity will then become less difficult for them.” This consideration of women prevents any questioning of the laws of purity, of the impure nature of femininity and the periodic setting aside of women.
35. Steinberg, supra note 30 at 24–25.
36. NRSV, supra note 3, Leviticus, 7: 11.