Spirit and Reason: The Embodied Character of Ezekiel's Symbolic Thinking

2: The Pure versus the Impure

95 CHAPTEr TWO The Pure versus the Impure A Vital Tension within a Living Symbol Defilement results from a violation of the integrity of life. Humans, who have been given a life on this planet shared with other creatures, recognize when they have transgressed against the basic order of the universe. The experience of defilement arises as a feeling that one is dirty. Dirt is a substance that is out of place. To remove the dirt by washing or sweeping returns the person or place to the proper condition. When such cleansing removes defilement, it is called purification. In the daily round of activities, persons and places become dirty. Washing and cleaning are scheduled because it is certain that they will be necessary to some extent. When this language of becoming dirty and washing is applied to the sphere of defilement, it becomes a charged metaphor. To be defiled evokes a feeling of “being dirty” that indicates a disruption in one’s relations with the basic forces of life. To be cleansed is to remove that substance that puts one at odds with the fundamental order of life. To ignore this dirt and not have it cleansed places a person and a community in danger, for the order of things will not tolerate such highly charged dirt.1 Ezekiel explains the exile as a consequence of Israel’s defilement. Their deeds defiled their land such that Yhwh proclaimed: “Their conduct in my sight was like the uncleanness of a woman in her menstrual period” (Ezek 36:17). Ezekiel ’s inflammatory language strikes the ear of the listener with jarring force. Why would the natural cycles of woman’s body be regarded as defiling? Ezekiel, informed by the priestly legislation in Leviticus 15:19-23, states that her discharge 1 Paul Ricoeur, Symbolism of Evil (Boston: Beacon Press, 1969) 362. 96 SPIrIT AND rEASON of blood renders her unclean for seven days and whoever touches her or whatever she sits upon for one day. The priestly legislators do not explain why menstrual blood is impure and contagious. Interpreters of the priestly system explain that bodily emissions associated with reproduction—i.e, menstrual blood, semen, lochial blood—are defiling.2 Although the patriarchal bias of the priestly texts is indisputable, the common denominator of these contagious defiling substances is their association with reproduction and sexuality. The defilement communicated to others by menstrual blood and semen is temporary: one need only launder and bathe and avoid the sanctuary until evening (Lev 15:16-17, 19-23). Jacob Milgrom notes that in a society in which women married at a young age and were pregnant for much of the time between ages twenty and forty, this treatment of the menstruant was less intrusive than it would be in contemporary Western cultures.3 Another serious question would be why a bodily function that is natural would be labeled with the pejorative term “defiling.” The ancient Israelite priests regarded reproductive blood as a substance wielding a power that must be contained. So while menstruation is not controllable, its effects can be contained by defining the measures to be taken to keep it from spreading throughout the community and leading to the defilement of the sanctuary. Ezekiel uses this metaphor to explain why the Judahites were deported: both the land and the sanctuary were defiled, and Yhwh had to depart. Matters associated with birth, death, and sexuality are regarded as defiling in many cultures. In Israel, some defiling actions (e.g., murder and adultery) are unethical, but other defiling actions must be performed to avoid committing sin. For example, an Israelite would be defiled when standing near the bedside of a parent who has died (Num 19:14).4 This action of honoring a parent responds to a command of the Decalogue (Exod 20:12). So, to act ethically entails that one becomes defiled. After mourning a parent, one would then need to be purified by the ashes of the Red Cow on the third and seventh days of a seven-day waiting period (Num 19:17-19) and then would be ready to rejoin society and to approach the sanctuary. Failure to carry out this purificatory measure would then bring defilement on the land that would pollute the sanctuary (Num 19:20). Ezekiel proclaims that the people of Judah and Jerusalem have been guilty not only of defiling actions but also of neglecting to carry out purificatory measures (Ezek 22:26; 23:39). Defilement is a...