He shall wash his clothes

[tomturbomatic]

Twice in this morning's Torah portion this phrase occurred. Some people think it is a pain to follow the text and the translation, but I found this little gem that I felt was one of those "something from Me for you, my son" moments. At any rate, it was fun to see a reference to doing laundry from a few thousand years ago.

 

[frigilux]

And a few thousand years ago, there were probably a couple of guys arguing about which format was better; rock-pounding or plain old swishing.

Great find, Tom!

 

[pturo]

Women could get out of a lot of laundry doing citing this from the Torah. "G-d said, 'HE shall wash his clothes,' not SHE should wash everyone's clothes."

I think it is pretty remarkable that so much in the Torah had to do with cleanliness and dietary restrictions,which were sort of the beginning of health rules that became religious traditions, but based on common sense for tribes of people trying to exist in the desert and stay alive and clean.

 

[gyrafoam]

Ach-----Metzora!

He also must shave off all of his hair including his eyebrows!
Not to mention having to get the Kohanim to intervene and sacrifice innocent animals, etc.

All this for being a "Gladys Kravitz".
Very severe! It does give one pause to think about the consequences of being too chatty.

 

[tomturbomatic]

Yeah, linking disease with behavior has lead us down a pretty path. Of course, a Talmudic justification for circumcising a boy baby was to purify him from the carnal act that created him and that is stretching, you should pardon the term, credibility beyond the breaking point.

This same "leprosy" attacked houses! Historians are still not able to say what this was other than some creeping crud. If it did not go away after the place was vacated, the house had to be torn down and the stones and beams hauled out of town (1-800-GOT JUNK?). Seems like something could have been found to kill it, but maybe the Kohanim had lock on dealing with it and forbade any research by the laity. That would be typical also. I wonder if they cleaned things with hot water back then? Somewhere along the line, all of those rules for kashering stuff with boiling water were invented. I can't inmagine a baleboosta (an excellent and praiseworthy homemaker), even in ancient times, being satisfied with less than immaculate cleanliness.
"Have you tried a little boiling water on that moldy spot on your wall?"
"Do you think it would help?"
"Well, like chicken soup, it couldn't hurt."

 

[gyrafoam]

LMAO!!!!!!!!

Tom, I think fire was the perferred cleanser of the ancient households. Figures.