Purity (Tehora) (review)

Purity examines the traditional Jewish requirement that women immerse in a miqveh, a ritual bath, at specified moments in their lives to remove the ritual impurity associated with menstruation and childbirth. This practice originates in biblical ordinances such as Leviticus 15 that concern contraction of ritual impurity from corporeal emissions of various kinds. While immersion for most forms of ritual impurity lapsed with the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 of the Common Era, the requirement of miqveh immersion for women prior to marriage, following each menstruation, and after giving birth was maintained. The Talmud, completed in the sixth century of the Common Era, expanded a woman's state of ritual impurity, adding seven "white" days after the end of menstruation before miqveh immersion could take place, effectively forbidding any physical contact between spouses for at least 12 days each month. While these practices are concerned with preserving men from contact with their ritually impure wives, calculating the time when spousal contact is forbidden depends on a woman's knowledge of the stages of her cycle and careful monitoring of her menstrual flow. These family purity regulations (taharat hamishpahah), as they have come to be known, continue to be practiced today within all Jewish Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox communities.

Purity, a documentary set in Israel, presents three interwoven narratives concerned with contemporary attitudes toward ritual immersion. The first vignette introduces Shoshanna, the mother of a large family, who works as a miqveh guide, overseeing women's visits to the ritual bath. Shoshannah is depicted instructing her daughter Shira, a bride-to-be, about the need for strict observance of family purity regulations, including assiduous self-examination during the "white" days. She also shows her daughter the modern and sparkling clean miqveh she administers. Shoshanna believes that ritual purity observances must simply be accepted as part of a Jewish woman's life since they are divinely ordained. Shira, who is initially repelled by the entire topic, moves in the course of the film to a neutral stance, and finally, following her marriage, to a positive acceptance that this is the "right" way of life for her husband and herself.

Katy and Arie, an English-speaking couple in their 40s, are questioning the family purity regulations they have long observed. Katy is resentful that any physical expressions of affection from her husband are forbidden for almost half of each month. Her situation is complex since her menstrual periods are long and irregular; she might be in a state of ritual impurity for as long as six weeks at a time. Katy is shown visiting a physician who suggests hormone injections and the possibility of a hysterectomy but declines to offer any religious opinion. She also visits Shani, a young woman who is trained in the talmudic regulations concerning menstruation. Shani's counsel is acceptance of religious law; even though adherence to these practices can cause significant fertility and marital problems for some individual women with abnormal cycles, they cannot be questioned since they come from God.

The film's third thread concerns Natalie, a divorcée, who comes from an ultra-Orthodox background. Natalie apparently engineered her exit from an unsatisfactory marriage by choosing not to visit the miqveh. According to Jewish law, a woman who persistently refuses to observe family purity regulations is a moredet (a rebellious wife) who may be divorced without any financial support from her husband. Natalie, who has integrated herself into Israel's secular world following her divorce, sees family purity practices, including the requirement that a wife sleep separately from her husband during her period of ritual impurity, as indicative of the lesser view of women in traditional Judaism. A final character in Purity is the filmmaker, herself, whose visit to the miqveh following the birth of her fourth daughter, is filmed in detail.

Purity deals with a topic that will be strange and alienating to many North American viewers. Moreover, Zuria assumes considerable knowledge of traditional Jewish life and social demarcations among Israeli's Orthodox communities...