I wish I had the time to prepare posts in advance for the coming dapim,  but Yom-Tov prep in the house also has to be done, so will have to try catch up next week.

Meanwhile , some food for thought and Iyun over the chag  from the dapim , with some relevance to shavuos ( as we get very close to the sugyot about Matan Torah!)

1. Items used for Avoda Zara are compared to a Nida regarding certain laws of impurity. 

The implication of the pesukim is that a Niddah is treated as rejected, “צא תאמר לו “

The Zav, Metzora, and Tamei Meis are also  treated seemingly harshly and physically  sent out from at least part of the camp.

Yet these are all people who do not seem to have done anything wrong.

It is true that  biblical צרעת is viewed by chazal as a punishment for lashon harah, but since when do we punish a person ourselves without warning or witnesses?

Being a Niddah is a natural process every woman goes through regularly , so why should she be considered impure for that , let alone be described in what seems to be such a harsh language?

More than this, it is normal for a man to become a Baal Keri even more  regularly , often daily , without necessarily doing anything wrong , so why is he treated as Tamei, to the point that at certain periods in history , he was not even allowed to learn Torah ( see Mishnayos in chapter 3 of brachos and related sugyos)

It seems that the Torah is trying to teach us something so important, that even normal and unavoidable biological processes are somehow used to illustrate it.

Can it perhaps be something to do with the value of life , which Rav Shimshon Raphael Hirsch famously related to virtually all types of impurity?

2.It is amazing how so many of us who have regular Torah learning programs, whether its daf yomi, amud yomi, shnayim bemikra , nach yomi, or whatever else, can testify to the fact that there is almost always something we can notice that is relevant to the time we are learning a particular piece .

Purity was a requirement for Kabbalas haTorah, and incredible , our dapim  in the days leading up to this shavuos and beyond have taken a major detour from matters of shabbos and focused on matters of purity !

Even more amazingly , our daf ends with some incredible Agadot about learning Torah- how one should never leave the Beis haMidrash, learn till the moment one dies , and “kill himself ” with exertion in order to master it .

May we merit to renew our acceptance of the Torah with the required devotion, motivation, and dedication to fulfill Chazal’s tremendously high bar that they set for us in this regard !