Tazria - Metzorah

The entire aim (of these laws) was to inspire awe in those who turned to the Temple, that they should be fearful when they see it… When a person frequents a place, its impact on his soul diminishes, and he is gradually less awed by it…Since the objective was to maintain this sense of awe, God cautioned those who are unclean against entering the Sanctuary by stipulating many sorts of uncleanness, to the extent that hardly a person turns out to be clean, save for a very few.

Maimonides (12^th Century)

If nature is full of obstacles to man’s development towards physical and spiritual perfection, God has gone out of His way to provide Israel with safeguards against the pitfalls encountered in nature…The reason that God revealed the fact that nature has inherent shortcomings, is to warn man not to take his existence for granted but to be on guard…Refinement of man, the objective of creation, is only possible if man starts out unrefined. Once warned, he who fails to heed the warning becomes a wicked person. He will suffer death of the soul, which is worse than death of the body. Death of the body is after all a fate common to all living creatures regardless of their moral standing. Death of the soul, however, is the result of free choice.

Yitzchak Arama (15^th Century)

It is the duty of the Jewish people to be at all times aware of the fact that there are things in this universe that are pure and others that are impure in a ritual sense…Our destiny cannot be achieved without our constant awareness of this fact.

Yaakov ben Asher (14^th Century)

“Impurity” is often translated as contamination, defilement, pollution or uncleanness…it is like an atmospheric layer or coating, enveloping the impure person or object. Though invisible, it is believed to be quite real; though amorphous, it is substantive…the disease “tzara’at” is thought of as a form of gradually escaping life…Unlike similar notions found outside the bible, “tumah is not demonic, not created by or connected with evil spirits or malicious deities. Neither is it the same as modern notions of dirt or filth, or of infection. Rather, it is a simple fact of life, a part of nature; certain phenomena in the crated world are sources of impurity. These phenomena are not necessarily bad…for this reason, nowhere is there a prohibition of the lay Israelite’s becoming “impure.”…

Michael Fishbane (Contemporary)

What obligates us in terms of faith are only those Mitzvot which were given…the worship of God through the mitzvot is not a remembrance of ancient times – as claimed by some today who wish to explain their significance as symbolic…The worship of God is not folklore, not even in the most profound sense. It is not a remembrance of what was. The worship of God means fulfilling the commands that were given to us…The Mitzvot (of this parsha) were not imposed on man in that he is a spiritual being, but in that he is a physical creature, who must worship God not only with his soul but also with his body – because the body and the soul together are the man. Biological foulness is an integral part of natural human reality, and man is commanded to worship God within this reality…

Yeshayahu Leibowitz (20^th Century)

The passages about the laws of purity and impurity can be seen as reflecting the development of a new reality characterized by increasing closeness between God and men. On the one hand, this closeness made it necessary to take precautions and to establish new restrictions on human behavior, so as to avoid the dangers it entailed. On the other hand, the most basic and essential events of human life, eating and reproduction, took on new and greater significance, as they acquired more profound meaning than ordinary physical acts.

Rivka Raviv (Contemporary)