In chapter 14 of VaYikra (Leviticus), we learn about the purification ritual for someone who has recovered from tzara’at plague, how to find out if your house’s weird symptoms are tzara’at, and decide whether emptying and completely dismantling your house (if it is in fact tzara’at) is harder or easier than cleaning your house for Pesach today.
Then we move on to another favourite topic, bodily discharges. Men have different categories of “discharge from his flesh” — though it it possible, according to the Stone Edition Chumash, that the different categories are actually the same substance, but differentiated based on whether it happened once, twice, or three or more times in a given time period. If the last option, he needs to bring an offering at the end of a seven-day period. Women have a different type of discharge, with the same status and rules. Only if a woman’s blood flow lasts “many days outside the norm of her menstrual period,” or has multiple periods in a month, must she bring an offering at the end of a seven-day period.
Why do so many Jews have OCD about cleanliness? Could the Torah have something to do with it? Does being a holy nation mean constantly having to wash, clean, and ritually purify our bodies, our clothes, and our houses? I don’t know, but I’m secretly glad that at least once a year, everything we own comes out sparkling. I believe it has saved us from past plagues.
Metzora: Impure Houses and Manly Discharges