Ritual Washing

I’ve been moved to write about ritual washing. Ceremonially impurity is a concept that we read about both in the Torah and the Koran. Though the specifics are a little bit different, both point towards the same: If ritually unclean, the believer should perform a ritual cleansing.

In Islam we read that Gushl and Wudu are required to perform the prayers to God. Not performing Gushl or Wudu when and as required by the scriptures and traditions would make all prayers invalid. One should wonder why a physical condition may hinder the spiritual relationship with God. I believe I have an explanation.

Islam is rooted in the scriptures, that is The Torah, the Injil, The Zabur and the Koran. Setting aside the dispute of whether the Torah in our hands today is the very same original Torah, We should look at the The Hebrew Bible. In the Hebrew Bible is included various regulations about bathing:

And whoever he that hath issue (a zav, abnormal seminal discharge) touches without having rinsed his hands in water, he shall wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and be unclean until the evening (Leviticus 15:11). A subsequent seven clean days are then required, culminating in a ritual and temple offering before the 'zav' is clean of their malady. Leviticus 15:13-14 “‘Now in case the one having a running discharge would become clean from his running discharge, he must then count for himself seven days for his purification, and he must wash his garments and bathe his flesh in running water; and he must be clean.14And on the eighth day he should take for himself two turtledoves or two young pigeons, and he must come before Jehovah to the entrance of the tent of meeting and give them to the priest.

 

Ritual bathing was performed to achieve an state of ritual cleanliness. A person or object can becometame (טָמֵא) "ritually impure," in a number of ways:

1. By contact with a "dead body"—tumat met—which, in addition to the body itself, includes significant parts of a body, soil in which the body decomposed, and others.
2. By being present in a building or roofed structure containing a dead body (tumat ohel)
3. By coming in contact with certain dead animals, including most insects and all lizards (enumerated in Leviticus, Chapter 11, verses 29–32).
4. By contact with certain bodily fluids—niddah, zav/zavah - This view is held by Orthodox Judaism and remains a traditional view within Conservative Judaism. AlthoughConservative Judaism retains the concept of niddah and a prohibition on sexual relations during the niddah period (including childbirth), recent decisions by the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards have endorsed multiple views about the concept of zavah, as well as the tumah status of a niddah. The liberal view held that the concepts of tumah andtaharah are not relevant outside the context of a Holy Temple (as distinct from asynagogue; hence a niddah cannot convey tumah today), found the concept of zavah no longer applicable, and permitted spouses to touch each other in a manner similar to siblings during the niddah period (while retaining a prohibition on sexual conduct). The traditional view retained the applicability of the concepts of tumah, taharah, and zavah, and retained a prohibition on all contact. See Niddah. (See Leviticus Chapter 15)
5. By giving birth to a child (the time of tumah is 7 days for a boy, followed by 33 days oftaharah and 14 days for a girl followed by 66 days of taharah).
6. By contact with a primary source of tumah or an object that has been in contact with a primary source of tumah.
7. By contracting tzaraath—see Leviticus chapters 13–14.

In the Injil is reported how carefully and strictly the pharisees Jews would follow the rituals to assure they were as righteous as possible. Nabi Isa-AlMasih (Prophet Jesus, Yeshua HaMashiach) spoke like this about ritual vs inner purity:

 

Jesus Teaches about Inner Purity

7 One day some Pharisees and teachers of religious law arrived from Jerusalem to see Jesus. ² They noticed that some of his disciples failed to follow the Jewish ritual of hand washing before eating.³ (The Jews, especially the Pharisees, do not eat until they have poured water over their cupped hands,^[a] as required by their ancient traditions. ⁴ Similarly, they don’t eat anything from the market until they immerse their hands^[b] in water. This is but one of many traditions they have clung to—such as their ceremonial washing of cups, pitchers, and kettles.^[c])

⁵ So the Pharisees and teachers of religious law asked him, “Why don’t your disciples follow our age-old tradition? They eat without first performing the hand-washing ceremony.”

⁶ Jesus replied, “You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you, for he wrote,

‘These people honor me with their lips,
    but their hearts are far from me.
⁷ Their worship is a farce,
    for they teach man-made ideas as commands from God.’^[d]

⁸ For you ignore God’s law and substitute your own tradition.”

⁹ Then he said, “You skillfully sidestep God’s law in order to hold on to your own tradition. ¹⁰ For instance, Moses gave you this law from God: ‘Honor your father and mother,’^[e] and ‘Anyone who speaks disrespectfully of father or mother must be put to death.’^[f] 11 But you say it is all right for people to say to their parents, ‘Sorry, I can’t help you. For I have vowed to give to God what I would have given to you.’^[g] 12 In this way, you let them disregard their needy parents. ¹³ And so you cancel the word of God in order to hand down your own tradition. And this is only one example among many others.”

¹⁴ Then Jesus called to the crowd to come and hear. “All of you listen,” he said, “and try to understand. ¹⁵ It’s not what goes into your body that defiles you; you are defiled by what comes from your heart.^[h]”

¹⁷ Then Jesus went into a house to get away from the crowd, and his disciples asked him what he meant by the parable he had just used. ¹⁸ “Don’t you understand either?” he asked. “Can’t you see that the food you put into your body cannot defile you? ¹⁹ Food doesn’t go into your heart, but only passes through the stomach and then goes into the sewer.” (By saying this, he declared that every kind of food is acceptable in God’s eyes.)

²⁰ And then he added, “It is what comes from inside that defiles you. ²¹ For from within, out of a person’s heart, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, ²² adultery, greed, wickedness, deceit, lustful desires, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness. ²³ All these vile things come from within; they are what defile you.”

Let me explain a bit the background. The book of Leviticus mentioned how some food would make the people of Israel ritually unclean (e.g. pork, shrimp, shellfish, camel), but also how some situations would make them unclean (as mentioned above, visiting the death, abnormal body discharges, touching someone unclean). The verbal tradition among the Jews evolved to develop a group of rules which would attempt to protect people from mistakenly becoming unclean or breaking a law. This is known as the Halakha. Halakha (Hebrew: הֲלָכָה, Sephardic: [halaˈχa]; alsotransliterated as halacha or halachah) or halocho (Ashkenazic: [haˈloχo]) is the collective body ofJewish religious laws derived from the Written and Oral Torah. It includes the 613 mitzvot("commandments"), subsequent talmudic and rabbinic law and the customs and traditions compiled in the Shulchan Aruch (literally "Set Table", but more commonly known as the "Code of Jewish Law").

According to Judaism, Halakha guides not only religious practices and beliefs, but numerous aspects of day-to-day life. Halakha is often translated as "Jewish Law", although a more literal translation might be "the path" or "the way of walking". The word derives from the root that means to go or to walk. The website www.jewfaq.org states that Halakhah comes from three sources: from the Torah, from laws instituted by the rabbis and from long-standing customs. Halakhah from any of these sources can be referred to as a mitzvah (commandment; plural: mitzvot). The word "mitzvah" is also commonly used in a casual way to refer to any good deed. Because of this imprecise usage, sophisticated halakhic discussions are careful to identify mitzvot as being mitzvot d'oraita (an Aramaic word meaning "from the Torah") or mitzvot d'rabbanan (Aramaic for "from the rabbis"). A mitzvah that arises from custom is referred to as a minhag. Mitzvot from all three of these sources are binding, though there are differences in the way they are applied (see below).

Washing hands before eating was an old age tradition from the rabbis, which aimed to prevent people from accidentally becoming impure. People could walk around touching something or someone who could be ritually unclean, thus becoming accidentally ritually unclean too. In Mark 7, the Pharisees criticized the Apostles of Jesus, because they didn’t was their hands. What Jesus answers is that what makes someone impure is not what comes into his body but what comes out of their heart.

We can perform rituals to clean our bodies. But how can we cleanse our heart? Have you thought how can YOU clean YOUR heart? I personally respect the Gushl traditions, though I don’t share them. I do appreciate that The Koran calls for it, but why would God make man and woman intercourse a source of uncleanliness? Why do we become unclean when we fit one of the reasons of our creation? Aren’t we created to have children in a family, to reproduce and be fruitful? If you see, in Judaism the commandment was to wash when you had zav (abnormal genital discharge), not after having a normal discharge.

The word of God is eternal, it does not change. The Law was given to Moses, but before Him father Abraham was declared righteous, though he did not have to follow rituals of cleansing. How did Abraham cleanse his heart?

It is said that Isa AlMasih claimed to be water, the streams of living water. Whomever drinks from him shall not be thirst. His waters can make you clean. The spiritual waters from  God are the only one who can cleanse you spiritually. Think about it. You can was your hands for as long as you want. But only the true power of the true living God can cleanse your Spirit from the stain of Sin.