Year 1, Day 101: Leviticus 12

The Problem with Childbirth

Okay, today we get to read about the blood-flow uncleanliness derived from child-birth and menstruation.  These are both topics that I’m really not all that accustomed to talking about publicly.  But, we’ll make do.

Gender Issues

First, though, let’s look at this concept that the gender of the baby determines the length of the period of uncleanliness.  Please do not read this as a chauvinistic approach to gender.  Longer periods of uncleanliness do not always imply a lower status.  In fact, it is common for longer periods of uncleanliness to imply a greater social status.  This is true because as the status of something increases, often the punishment goes up.  For example, someone who steals typically gets less of a punishment than someone who murders.  This is because we value human life more than we value our possessions.

To illustrate that this is true in Jewish law as well, you should know that touching the corpse of a human provides a greater period of uncleanliness than touching the corpse of an animal.  Clearly we value the human more than the animal.  Clearly the same is true about God as well.  Therefore the penalty associated shouldn’t reflect importance.

In fact, what this does is make a decent case for understanding the cultural importance of women.  The reality is that a society can build itself far more quickly if it has more women.  A community of 10,000 men and only 100 women will take much more time to grow than a society with 100 men and 10,000 women.  It’s just the mathematics of childbirth.  In our species, only the women bear young.  That makes them incredibly important for the growth and strengthening of community.

I believe that it is this reason that the period of uncleanliness is longer for the female children.  God – and the whole of the Hebrew people – knows that each girl born means that there will be even more babies born in the future.  This is what drives the longer period of uncleanliness for the birth of the girl.

Reflections into the New Testament

I’d like to reflect this particular chapter into the New Testament for a second.  Notice that it is this law that is referred to in Luke 2:24 when Mary goes to offer the sacrifice of two turtledoves when Jesus is born.  Why is this important?  Well, Mary uses the sacrifice for the poor.

I guess this goes to reinforce just how much God doesn’t care about social status.  He sent His Son into a family that couldn’t even afford the preferred sacrifice when a child was born.  God sent His Son into a family that had to opt for the poor option.  If God was most interested in the value of the sacrifice, Jesus would have been sent to a different family. 

This leads me back to a very familiar conclusion.  It is not the quality of the sacrifice God desires.  Rather it is the inner motivation of the heart behind the sacrifice that God looks upon.  You can find evidence of this in many places in the Bible.  Two of my favorite places are Hosea 6:6 and Psalm 51:15-17.  That’s pretty meaningful to me today.

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