Purity, Body, and Self in Early Rabbinic Literature

2. Subjecting the Body

48 A reader who is accustomed to associating the concepts of purity and impurity with states of mind or heart, as one who is versed in Jewish and Christian liturgical or moralistic literature might be, could perhaps be surprised by the extent to which purity and impurity in the Mishnah pertain strictly to material entities. In the Mishnah there is no such thing as impure thoughts or pure intentions, an impure soul or pure love. Rather, the rabbinic realm of impurity consists only of concrete physical objects, visible and palpable, which are made impure through direct physical contact with material sources of impurity (or through particular bodily situations), and which dispose of their impurity through a series of distinctly physical actions. As Jonathan Klawans showed in detail, in their halakhic writings the rabbis “compartmentalized” the entire range of moral and behavioral meanings of purity and impurity that can be found in the Hebrew Bible (for example, the notion that the land becomes impure as a result of murder or that evil doings make one impure), and presented instead a systematic view of impurity as an entirely natural phenomenon.1 Indeed, the rabbinic preoccupation with impurity as a pervasive and ever-present possibility, which I described in the previous chapter , is directed solely toward one’s engagements with the material world and not toward one’s actions, thoughts, or inclinations, except for actions, thoughts, and inclinations that, as I will argue in the sixth chapter, have to do with the management of ritual impurity itself. Human beings, needless to say, can contract and convey impurity in this system only insofar as they are themselves material objects, namely, only insofar as they are bodies. It should be noted, however, that “the material world” in which impurity transpires and with which one’s engagement must be carefully monitored, according to 2 Subjecting the Body Subjecting the Body 49 the Mishnah, is in fact quite limited in terms of its constituents. I have already mentioned that the primary sources of impurity are very few in number and that the rabbis do not add any further sources to those mentioned in the Priestly Code, but there are also only a few kinds of entities that are capable of contracting impurity upon contact with one of these sources. For one, no natural element that has not yet been processed by human beings can contract impurity. Fountains, rocks, soil,2 trees, air, and so forth are completely beyond the reach of impurity and are all categorically pure.3 Similarly, all living animals (except for humans) are completely “immune” to impurity—they cannot contract it and cannot transmit it further. Finally, anything that is firmly connected to the ground is categorically pure, which means, for example, that houses cannot contract impurity.4 In short, the only things that are susceptible to impurity are human beings, artifacts (that is, inanimate objects processed by humans), liquids (drawn or contained by humans), and foodstuffs. The ongoing management and monitoring of impurity that, as I argued, underwrite the daily life of the mishnaic subject as constructed by the rabbis can thus be examined through the lens of the relations between the subject and these four elements . Put simply, the effort to stave off or at least be cognizant of ritual impurity manifests itself in the manner in which one interacts with or approaches the bodies , artifacts, liquids, and foods in one’s environment: in the manner in which one watches them, handles them, exposes them to the touch of others, and so on. However , a closer look at the ways in which the rabbis parse, subclassify, and develop each of these four categories of things susceptible to impurity reveals that these categories themselves are profoundly shaped and defined by human subjectivity. The mishnaic subject not only determines (to the extent that this is in his control) whether and how to have contact with potentially impure things, but also determines —if only to a limited extent—which things actually constitute the material world of impurity that surrounds him. To prevent any misunderstanding at the outset, this does not mean that the subject can control impurity through his volitions or desires in such a way that one will not become impure if one decides not to become impure. Undeniably, one’s desire not to contract impurity has no more impact on his purity status than one’s desire not to get wet when it is raining has on him actually getting wet. Rather, it...