The Torah describes ritual contamination after a woman gives birth to a child. When the child is male, the mother is impure for 7 days and separated from participating in marital relations. She then remains in a partial state of contamination for another 33 days. During this period, she may not touch sacrificial meat. Thus, for a 40-day period after the birth of a son. A woman is considered contaminated. Many would also say she may not have marital relations during this time.
If the child is a girl. Then the numbers are 14 days of impurity and 66 days of partial state of contamination. Both periods of recovery are twice the time for a male child. 80 days total after the birth of a female child.
“Impurity” and “contamination” should be thought of as spiritual states of fragility. The mother is suffering great loss, which the father can never truly understand. A man is changed by becoming a father; he has a new identity, a new self-image. Subsequent children affect the power of that identity to various degrees, depending upon the attitude of the man towards having, raising, and supporting progeny.
The mother undergoes a monumental physical, emotional, and spiritual transformation. Her entire life is in upheaval. She is more susceptible to bodily and phycological illness, and she experiences a loss that is undefinable.
After this 40-day or 80-day time, the woman is to bring elevation and sin offerings to the Kohen.
Why is there a difference in time of “contamination” for a boy than for a girl?
Why does there have to be a sin offering?
The explanation is in the biology, history, and known complications of childbirth.
When a boy is born, the mother is separating herself from a single soul. The soul of her son. Separation from another human being is a traumatic physical event, as any mother will affirm. The process causes an upheaval throughout the body. There is physical pain, intense emotion, fear, joy, relief, sadness. There is concern about the future well-being of the child. There can be worry about the ability of the parents to properly provide for, raise, educate, and protect the child. Childbirth is fairly safe with modern technology, but it was not uncommon through human history for the mother and/or the child to die during the event. This adds to the trauma involved.
These and other reasons explain why there needs to be a separation after birth.
But these points apply to both male and female offspring.
True, there are differing concerns regarding the problems of raising a son or a daughter. Both have their stereotypically unique risks in their lives. Males are more likely to die from war and risky behavior than females. Females have greater risk of harm from predators. There are different social concerns relating to each gender. One might consider that there is a net balance to these concerns. Or maybe not. Some might say that girls have more risk than boys for long-term success and well-being in life. Some might say the difference is not huge.
But a huge difference is the spiritual aspect. The Torah is first and foremost a spiritual document or guide.
When a mother separates from a son, she is losing a single soul that she has been attached to through her womb. Although the boy will start manufacturing the seeds of new souls around age 13 (when puberty begins and, not coincidentally, at bar mitzvah age), at the time of birth there is only the one soul: that of the infant. The male child has no gametes which contain the genetic material donation for a future human being. Once the boy reaches puberty, he starts manufacturing sperm, within which are those genes. But at birth, his contribution to future offspring are still years away.
On the other hand, a newborn girl already has all the ova (eggs) in her ovaries that she will ever have. These are formed while the child is in her mother’s uterus. She will never manufacture any new ova. Each of these hundreds of thousands of ova are a step away from being joined to new souls. Or maybe 2 steps. Either way, there are many more parts to the female child that are closer to actual souls than there are in the male infant. This is a greater spiritual birth trauma event for the mother. Probably for the baby, too.
So, the mother has greater overall trauma giving birth to a girl than to a boy. She requires greater recovery form such an experience. She needs longer separation.
She is suffering from greater loss.
Because she is having this loss, she is grieving.
I believe that the sin offering is really a grief offering. The two are not that much different in their nature (sin and grief). Both are overwhelming emotions that require expiation. The “sin” is the loss of the other[s]. (Not “sin” as usually defined.) This is like any loss, and grief is its result. Hence, the mother needs to back off spiritually and act to overcome grief. Interestingly, this moment of intense grief is coupled with the intense joy of having transitioned from being pregnant to being a new mother.
In effect, because the female infant has all her preformed eggs in her ovaries, she has all that spiritual potential residing within her. This makes leaving the mother’s womb more problematic from a spiritual perspective. The reality is that the spiritual connections of a mother with her child in utero are at least as powerful as the more obvious physical connections. Severing any of these connections is traumatic. That is why there is such an emotional aspect to childbirth.
That may also help to explain why mothers spend their entire lifetimes trying much harder to reconnect with daughters than with sons. And, generally, the reverse is also true. (Or maybe it’s just that daughters and mothers understand each other better; the same applying to sons and fathers.)
Post-partum, the mother can no longer feel the souls or the souls-in-waiting that are the nature of a female infant. She did have this sense pre-partum. The sense may not necessarily be conscious. But it is real and answers the question about the different length of time of recovering from “impurity” post-partum for a boy newborn and for a newborn girl.
Does a mother of a girl feel greater emotional or spiritual trauma than the mother of a boy? I do not know. If she did, that would substantiate the Torah guidelines according to this explanation. If such a survey was done of new mothers, it might help to prove or disprove the thesis. (Conducting this appraisal would be no easy task. It may be impossible because of different senses of spirituality and belief.) But the concepts contained herein are a decent explanation of the Torah dictates on this subject.
How can we use this insight? We live in a material universe. There is a spiritual aspect to this universe in which we reside. Every person has a spiritual nature accompanying their physical self. To address this separation, and incidentally make the entire pregnancy an easier experience, mothers will benefit from meditation during this momentous period.
Another thing that will help all aspects of a pregnancy is to seek optimal health. My book, IF EVERYONE SAYS I LOOK SO GOOD, THEN WHY DO I FEEL SO TERRIBLE?, gives great advice that all couples should follow before and after pregnancy – and throughout life – to best assure good health for themselves and their children. It is available for Kindle and in paperback on Amazon.com.
(The above are further thoughts on a subject that has been discussed in this blog previously.)
Health and Spirit by Dr. Jack Zoldan 