Although the majority of this week's portion is devoted to purification rituals and regulations regarding the scaly affliction tzara'at (often erroneously rendered as "leprosy"), it is the opening section on childbirth that demands our initial attention.

The Torah suggests that giving birth renders the mother ritually impure. "Impure" here refers primarily to a series of restrictions regarding access to and/or contact with components of the ritual system associated with the Mishkan (portable sanctuary) and later, by extension, with the Temple in Jerusalem. In order to discharge the impurity, a series of offerings as well as the fulfillment of several cycles of time are required.

Contemporary Jews, influenced by the feminist revolution in the general culture as well as by its Jewish recension, often have great difficulty with this portion. The ancient assumptions embedded within it suggest a problematic attitude toward women in general and specifically toward their unique biological capacity to generate life.

A closer reading of the text coupled with a sympathetic reading of much of traditional Jewish commentary on this section mitigates to a degree the discomfort many may experience. But we remain acutely aware of the curious combination of awe and anxiety (and perhaps envy) manifested by the (presumably male) Torah writers in the face of the mysterious moment of birth.

Much of contemporary anthropological research focuses on the ways in which cultures manage marginal moments, especially those at the borders of life – namely birth and death. In every birth and in every death, the overwhelming mystery and majesty of existence is replayed. The questions rabbinic tradition dissuades us from addressing – what comes before (creation), what is above (existence), and what is below (reality) – are unavoidable at these marginal moments.

The Torah records an early Jewish cultural response to birth, one that suggests a need to neutralize the anxiety and awe through the imposition of a set of stabilizing and normative rituals. While moderns might find the Torah attitudes and rituals to be archaic, the awe and mystery as well as the anxiety that continue to surround birth, even in our modern setting, remain.

Among the most rational and nonreligious people, one often still finds a sympathetic nod in the direction of traditional rituals and customs associated with birth. The presumably protective custom of the red ribbon affixed to the mother or baby (or both) or, alternatively, to the birthing bed (or crib) can often be found in modern Jewish settings, employed by Jews who otherwise distance themselves from "superstitious rituals."

At the other end of the life cycle, secular Jews often become compliant, even scrupulous, with regard to the requirements of mourning.

What is it about these liminal moments, these boundaries of life and death, that calls forth ritual response? Perhaps it is the universality of the events of birth and death – after all, regardless of language, culture, gender, religion, each human being, past, present, and future, shares with every other human being these two common moments.

Perhaps it is the humbling awe that is evoked in the presence of life itself – its arrival at birth, its departure at death – that unconsciously, subconsciously, or consciously makes us seek out rituals that carry us over these moments in which meaning threatens to overwhelm us.

Perhaps it is the anxiety at the fragility of life – the tender vulnerability of the neonate, the powerless surrender of those who slip into death – that suggests substitutionary actions, such as the ritual sacrifices prescribed by the Torah, which vainly but valiantly do battle against the transience of existence.

At the margins of life, we are often surprised to find that – notwithstanding the millennia that lie between the Torah writers and ourselves – we share more with them than we might have imagined: an ability to meet the mystery of life with both reverence and gratitude.