Shemini / Tazria / Metzora: What a REAL Rationalist Would Say About Tumah

Synopsis: This is the audio version of the 3-page article I wrote and published on rabbischneeweiss.substack.com/ on 4/16/26 title: Shemini / Tazria / Metzora: What a REAL Rationalist Would Say About Tumah. These three parshiyos all deal with tumah (impurity), which many regard as a mysterious force. Self-described rationalists will likely reject such a notion. But what if THEY are the irrational ones?

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:11

Hello, I'm Rabbi Matt Schneewise, and this is the audio version of the three-page article I wrote and published on my Substack at rabbishneweiss.substack.com on April 16th, 2026, and the article is titled Shemini Tazriya Mitsora: What a Real Rationalist Would Say About Tuma. A contemporary author who will remain unnamed for the moment posits that there are two fundamentally different views of Kidusha, holiness, reflected in the writings of the early Rishonim, medieval authorities. He presents the first view along with a helpful analogy. Here's the excerpt with my emphasis in bold. Quote: According to this first view, however it becomes holy, a holy place, person, nation, time, or object is, once holy, objectively different from profane places, persons, nations, times, and objects. According to this view, sanctity is real. It inheres in sacred places, etc. It is intrinsic to them. It is, one might say, part of their metaphysical makeup. It has ontological standing. Holy places, persons, nations, times, and objects are ontologically distinct from and religiously superior to profane places, persons, nations, times, and objects. This distinction is part of the universe, whether from the time of creation or say from Sinai. Let me try to make this point clearer with an analogy. Radioactivity existed before Geiger discovered a way to measure it. Similarly, holiness can be thought objectively to inhere in holy places, persons, nations, times, and objects, even though there's no way for us presently to measure it. It is out there, a feature of the objectively real world, even if not part of the world susceptible to laboratory examination. Of course, radioactivity relates to the material universe and holiness to the spiritual universe, but the analogy should be helpful all the same. End quote. He contrasts this with a second view, attributed to a thinker who will remain unnamed for the time being. Quote, I find a different, alternative view of holiness in the thought of redacted. According to his view, holiness cannot be characterized as ontological or essentialist, since holy places, persons, nations, times, and objects are in no objective way distinct from profane places, persons, nations, times, and objects. Holiness is a status, not a quality or property. It is a challenge, not a given, normative, not descriptive. It is institutional in the sense of being part of a system of laws and determined by those laws, and hence contingent. This sort of holiness does not reflect objective reality. It helps constitute social reality. According to this view, holy places, persons, times, and objects are indubitably holy and must be treated with all due respect, but they are, in and of themselves, like all other places, persons, times, and objects. What is different about them is the way in which the Torah commands that they be treated. Holy places, persons, nations, times, and objects derive their sanctity from the roles they play, the uses to which they are put. A matter of halakhic definition, not ontological, somehow actually in the universe. End quote. Can you guess the thinker to whom this author ascribes this view? If you guessed Rambam, you'd be correct. The excerpt above is from Menachem Kellner's Maimonides' Confrontation with Mysticism, pages 27 through 28. Kellner contrasts the Rambam's non-ontological view of Kedusha with what he calls the hyper-realism or proto-kabbalistic view, which he attributes to Rabbi Huda Halevi and the Ramban. Kellner makes the same distinction with regard to Tuma, impurity, providing another analogy for the non-Maimonidean ontological view. Quote: Ritual impurity, according to the evidence of this text, is a powerful force in the universe. This force exists independently of halacha, or perhaps better, prior to halakha. It can effect real changes in the world of objective reality. According to this view to the view found in this text, ritual impurity is hypostasized. It is seen as a force or substance having objective reality, a force or substance which can harm and which must be resisted, subdued, overcome. In line with my discussions above, I call this the ontological view of ritual impurity. I should like to try to explain this point further with the example of an allergy. I am deeply allergic to cats, and if exposed to them, usually get an attack of asthma. Similarly, there is a long tradition in Judaism which holds that Jews are allergic to ritual impurity, and that exposure to ritually impure objects actually affects Jews in a way parallel to that in which exposure to cats actually affects me. The effects of ritual impurity on Jews may not be measurable by any known sensing device, but they are nonetheless real and important. End quote. See my article, Khukas, Ultra Pure Cave Babies, Taylor Swift and Enriched Uranium, for an elaboration on my understanding. However, I would like to challenge the notion that the Ramam's view is necessarily more rational than the opposing ontological view. Granted, the essentialist view lends itself to all kinds of non-rationalist approaches: superstition, mysticism, pseudoscience, and other speculative methodologies. But I have found at least one Rishon who articulates a view that may be characterized as both rationalist and essentialist. That Rishon is the Sefer Hakinach. As far as I know, and if I'm wrong, please inform me, the Sefer Hachinach's clearest articulation of his view on Tuma and Tara can be found in Parshis Shmini, Mitzvah No. 159, the mitzvah of the Tuma of the Eight Shratzim, crawling creatures. He begins with a fairly lengthy preface about the limits of human knowledge in relation to the quest for Tame Mitzvos, rationales for the commandments. Quote, Anyone who has knowledge will not doubt that there was never a man that attains to know all wisdom to its end, such that nothing of it would be hidden from him. As behold, even about our teacher Moshe, peace be upon him, they, may their memory be blessed, said in Rosh Hashanah 21b, quote, There are fifty gates of understanding, and they were given, they were all given to Moshe, except for one, end quote. And likewise the king, the wise king Shlomo said about himself, quote, I said, I will be wise, but it is distant from me, end quote, from Kohelas 723. And also anyone with a brain in his skull will not doubt that Hashem, exalted as he is, the father of wisdom, and it is from him, it all uh comes uh included within him. Okay, I gotta fix that in the text. And there is also not any doubt that the father of all good would command would only command something to his creatures for their for their good and for their benefit and to distance any injury from them. And therefore, when we grasp some of the commandments with our wisdom, to know the benefit that accrues to us from them, we shall rejoice about it. But when we do not grasp the benefit to us from them with our wisdom, we must nonetheless think that with the surplus of wisdom that Hashem, exalted as he has over every creature, he knows the benefit, he knows the benefit to us in that commandment, and therefore he commanded us about it. End quote. Those who are somewhat familiar with the Sefrachinach might be tempted to dismiss or downplay this introduction as one of his general prefaces about Tamiyametos. However, as I hope to demonstrate, these premises are critical for understanding his approach to Tumavatara. A few sentences later, the Seferinach presents his approach. Quote, and now, after this preface of ours, that the wisdom of God is greater than all wisdom, and that he only commands a thing for our good and for our great benefit, we have no difficulty or question in all of the prohibition of foods and distancing of Tumma, in everything where the benefit to us is not known and graspable by investigation, as we truthfully know, it is all for the good. And do not ponder, well, sorry, do not wonder, my son, about m the matters of Tumma, if it is very hidden from every creature, as it is possible that Tumma injures the soul and makes it a little sick. And so too have I heard the thing from the mouth of the sages. And it is similar to that which they said in Yuma 39a, quote, uh and you shall become impure through them, Vinit Mesem Bam, Vikra 1143. And it is written, and you shall become foolish, Vinitamtem Bam, end quote from Yuma. Meaning to say that the springs of the intellect, which is the eternal soul, are somewhat spoiled by the matter of Tumma. End quote. I can imagine the rationalists squirming in their seats. So you're telling me that Tuma is some invisible force that causes a harm to my non-physical intellect? That's insane, that's mystical, that's superstitious. The Safer Hinoc was clearly familiar with such objections, because he continues by responding to them as follows Quote, do not be astonished about the intellect being spoiled by physical phenomena, even though it is not its type. As due to the partnership of the soul with the body, such occurs to it regardless. And if so, we, the sons of man, in the poverty of our knowledge, do not know the soul and its nature. And so, how do we exhaust ourselves to know its healing or sickness by way of investigation? Is it not that physicians have no strategy in healing until they know the essence of the sickness? Therefore, regarding all the distancings of Tumma that are in the Torah, we should not dig for their roots until we come to complete knowledge of the matters of the soul, to know its nature, where it comes from, and where it is going. And understand this and know it, for in it there is a bit of an answer to all the roots of the commandments of Tumma Vatara. This is the case to the point that there is like a veil over our faces regarding the novelty of the red heifer that renders the pure impure, but purifies the impure. And there too, in mitzvah number 397, we will write at length about the matter with God's help, so as to receive reward for the effort to find desirable words. End quote. The Sefer Kinach responds to these objections by making two important points. The first is that because the soul functions through the body, it can be affected by physical phenomena. I'm fond of Mortimer J. Adler's quip about the relationship between the physical brain and the non-physical mind. Quote, we don't think with our brains, but we can't think without them. End quote. If I hit you on the head with a blunt object hard enough, I can temporarily stop your thinking. If I hit you harder, I can permanently stop it. If instead I take you out and convince you to have a couple of drinks, I can impair your thinking. See Shmini DUI Domining Under the Influence for an article on that. The Seferin's second point is that until we attain a complete understanding of the soul, we cannot definitively know what is good or bad for it. It's become somewhat of a joke among my students that whenever they ask me a question about the soul, I tell them that I don't know anything about it. The more I learn, the more I realize how little I know. It doesn't help that nearly all the Rishonim were working with Aristotelian models of the soul that rely on outdated premises or with models that are even less sophisticated or highly speculative. It also doesn't help that the vast majority of modern thinkers who have made progress in the relevant fields, psychology, neurology, epistemology, are materialists, dogmatically denying the existence of anything immaterial or unquantifiable. From one perspective, we know more now about the soul than our predecessors did. But from another perspective, our knowledge has only revealed the depth and breadth of our ignorance. What about the objection to the notion of tumma as a real but invisible force? That is why I like Kellner's radioactivity analogy. Radioactivity has always existed. It has an impact on the physical world, even though we can't see it. It can even impact the activity of the soul by affecting the brain, as we see from the effects of radiation therapy, radioactive disasters, and fetal or childhood radiation exposure. That is how this model views Tuma. But how do we know that such a force exists? The Torah. That is precisely the Seifra Khenok's point, that Hashem in his infinite wisdom and beneficence not only revealed to us the existence of this invisible force, but also gave us a set of laws to minimize its deleterious effects. Am I trying to argue that the Sefer Khinoch's view is correct? No. As I said, I favor the Rammam's view. But I am arguing that a true rationalist would acknowledge how little we know about mitzvos and how little we know about the soul, as the Sefer Khenok reminds us, and be open to the possibility that an ontological view could be true. Because in my book, dogmatic denial in the face of ignorance is not a rational stance.