Tazria-Metzora: Tumah

These two chapters are the peaks of impurity. They deal exclusively with details of the diagnosis and treatment of Tumah.  The word tumah does not translate well into modern languages. I see it most frequently translated as "ritually unclean."  It is not dirt. It is a condition that isforeign to us, it is part of that ritual world. A person or object that is in a tumah state  may not enter a holy space, or eat sanctified food, or touch a sanctified object. Tumah is a disqualification for participation in the sacred ritual.

Tumah is a transmissible property. Usually its intensity decreases as it moves from object to object. The tumah that emanates from the a person's state of being, like the tumah of tzoraath ("leprosy") or ziva (gonorrhea) is particularly intense. The most severe tumah is a dead body. 

The ritual status of a woman who has just given birth to a child is very difficult to understand. Blood that originated in the uterus seems to have a tumah property. Childbirth is associated with such blood and, I presume that is the basis for the first 7 ( for a boy) or 14 ( for a girl) days of tumah after childbirth. The following 33 ( for a boy) or 66 ( for a girl) days of taharah ( ritual purity)  carry with them the restrictions of tumah ( impurity) -  but are called tahor ( pure). The countdown of days is followed by a purification ritual that involves birds (and a lamb, if the woman is wealthy) 

To my modern modern mind, it seems strange to penalize a woman ritually (she is banned from the sacred place, sacred objects, and sacred food for a month or two) and financially ( sacrificial animals were probably expensive) for having a baby. But that sense of injustice comes from the underlying assumption that tumah ,and the banishment that accompanies it, is a punishment. I am not sure that reasoning is correct. 

 It is easy to assume that tumah devolves from an inappropriate act of the victim. That line of reasoning devolves from Gd's involvement in this process. Through the lens of the modern, Tumah appears to be a state in which one cannot come close to Gd and the sacred. Tumah stinks; tumah is ugly; tumah is inappropriate. The dirty child has failed to be careful (or continent). To stand before royalty, one must be clean, odorless and well dressed. Failure to be in that state is the fault of the supplicant.  

The severe and long lasting tumah of tzoraath (the King James committee calls it leprosy) feels like a punishment.  The Talmud lists behaviors that cause tzoraath ( Arachin 16a): 

אָמַר רַבִּי שְׁמוּאֵל בַּר נַחְמָנִי אָמַר רַבִּי יוֹחָנָן: עַל שִׁבְעָה דְּבָרִים נְגָעִים בָּאִין — עַל לָשׁוֹן הָרָע, וְעַל שְׁפִיכוּת דָּמִים, וְעַל שְׁבוּעַת שָׁוְא, וְעַל גִּילּוּי עֲרָיוֹת, וְעַל גַּסּוּת הָרוּחַ, וְעַל הַגָּזֵל, וְעַל צָרוּת הָעַיִן.

§ Rabbi Shmuel bar Naḥmani says that Rabbi Yoḥanan says: Leprous marks come and afflict a person for seven sinful matters: For malicious speech, for bloodshed, for an oath taken in vain, for forbidden sexual relations, for arrogance, for theft, and for stinginess.

The Gd of Justice is invoked as the agent of disease. 

Modern people try to blame the victims of disease, too. It is a way to avoid the indiscriminate aspect of degeneration and  contagion. Diet and exercise have some impact on health, but most of the factors that determine freedom from disease are out of the individuals control (time, genes, principles of biology). It has become inconvenient to invoke Divine justice as the responsible agent when we see extremely sick young children suffer from cancers. 

Although we dedicate almost two chapters of the Torah to these tumah states, they no longer apply. The sacred place, the sacred food and the sacred objects have disappeared.  The remnants that remain serve other purposes.

Lepers searched their past deeds for causes of their plight. People with cancer often do the same (but in more modern terms). Even in the absence of disease there is a value in searching  one's deeds, and staying clean. Maybe it helps a little.