Why exactly is tumah “bad” and why is a dead body the most severe form of tumah? The answer, in a nutshell, is the attitude of “I can’t.” Westerners influenced by modern psychological theories are especially vulnerable to this attitude:
“I can’t. I’m suffering from a childhood trauma.”
“I can’t. I have a mental issue that’s holding me back.”
“I can’t. I’m a victim of economic or societal forces greater than me.”
Nothing is more theoretically crushing to the human spirit than death. Every organic creature – every person – ultimately dies. No one can escape it. In other words, physical nature wins. No matter how much we try, no matter how much we strive, nature ultimately conquers us.
And yet, this stark reality should not shape our behavior, for while nature may control the ultimate fate of our body, it doesn’t shape our decisions. G-d created us as a combination of body and soul, and our soul is free. It isn’t subject to any force outside it. We always have the ability to do what’s right. Nothing ever truly holds us back from doing G-d’s will. If we truly wish to act properly, we can.
A dead body is the worst form of tumah because the lesson one may derive from it opposes this central principle of Judaism – that we are free to choose correctly.
The parah adumah purifies the impure by means of, fittingly, “living waters” (mayim chayim), but it also renders impure some of the people involved in its preparation. Why? Because, as Rav Hirsch writes, the parah adumah water is “medicine, not bread.” It reorients people in whom death might inspire thoughts of moral bondage. In normal, everyday living, however, we aren’t supposed to think about the inescapable weight of death. The “normal, pure, undisturbed beat of the pulse [of human living] is entirely that of life.”
Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch (1808-1888) – head of the Jewish community in Frankfurt, Germany for over 35 years – was a prolific writer whose ideas, passion, and brilliance helped save German Jewry from the onslaught of modernity.
Elliot Resnick, PhD, is the host of “The Elliot Resnick Show” and the editor of an upcoming work on etymological explanations in Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch’s commentary on Chumash.
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