CHUKKAS - GHETTO

December 1, 1993

"This is the law: when a man dies in a tent, every one that comes into the tent, and every thing that is in the tent, shall be unclean seven days.  And every open vesasel, which has no covering close-bound upon it, ils unclean." Numbers 19:14

 The name 'ghetto' is Italian for 'iron works', and refers to the section of the city in Rome that housed both the iron works and the Jewish community in Rome during the Middle Ages.  It carries overtones that the Jewish community kept separate from the rest of the city and culture.  The name 'ghetto', in fact, has come to refer to a tendency for Jews throughout Jewish history to remain in their own community, not mixing with the general population and culture. 

There is an interesting Jewish law regarding 'tumah and tahara', ritual impurity and purity, that might possibly have induced Jews to live in 'ghetto's, aside from the other obvious benefit of reducing assimilation.

Jewish law contains both laws that make logical sense, called 'mishpatim', and laws that seem beyond our understanding, called 'chukim'.  The laws of tumah and tahara are mostly 'chukim', and seem somewhat mysterious.

The highest form of tumah, or ritual impurity, is called an 'avi avos ha tumah', literally a father of a father of tumah.  The arch example of an 'av ha tumah' is a Jewish person who has died.  If a Jew touches an 'avi avos ha tumah', he becomes 'tomay', and can only become 'tahor' (ritually clean) by going to a 'mikveh', a ritual bath. To become tahor also requires being sprinkled by water containing the ashes of the 'red heifer', found only in the times of our Holy Temple. 

Not only does touching an 'avi avos ha tumah' make a person 'tomay', but even being in the same house with an 'avi avos ha tumeh' makes a person tomay.  Even if the dead body is in a totally insulated box, the tumah escapes the box and fills the house making everything in the building tomay. 

However, anything in the house that is WITHIN an insulated box is protected from the tumeh.  A dead body fills a house with tumeh, but cannot penetrate an insulated box in the house. If a person, God forbid, was in a house with a dying person, he could climb into a box before the other person died, and be protected from the tumeh.  In short, a source of tumah is not contained by a box, but anything in the house within a box is protected and remains tahor, pure.

The religious mind often regards the non-relgious society as being a source of tumah in the metaphorical sense. The general culture with its violence, promiscuity, and focus on hedonism is regarded as something to protect one's family and community from.  But according to the above law of tumah, if the culture we live in is regarded as a 'house', even it has only ONE source of tumah and a sealed box is placed around the tumah, the tumah would escape and fill the culture. 

However, if a community within the culture would put ITSELF in a box, then it would be protected from the tumah.  Even if the general culture was filled with many sources of tumah, a community remaining inside its own box would protect it and keep it pure. 

This law could be related to the attitudes that contributed to the tendency of Jews to live in a ghetto.  Isolating the source of tumah in a society and putting a box around it does not protect us from being defiled by it.  If there is a source of tumeh, it will escape and defile us, even if we enclose it and seal it off.  However, if we can build a wall around our community, and seal OURSELVES off, then even if the culture around us is filled with all kinds of tumah, we would remain clean and untouched by it.

Ironically, however, there could be a situation where living in such a 'ghetto' would have just the opposite of its intended effect.  Even if the general society is filled with tumah, perhaps it is not regarded as a house, and then the tumah would escape into the air and only affect things that come in direct contact with it. But a Jewish community that encloses itself in order to protect itself would in effect be creating its own enclosed house.  Then, if there was even a single source of tumah in the ghetto, then everything within the ghetto would become tomay.