For the source text click/tap here: Chagigah 20
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The third perek (chapter) of Masechet Chagigah, Homer ba-Kodesh, begins on our daf .
Its basic theme deals with a concept, repeated several times in the Torah:
the need to take great care when dealing with terumah (tithes) and kodashim (sacrifices), to ensure that they remain ritually pure.
Furthermore, the Torah commands that protective enactments be created to assist in this endeavor.
Also connected with this concept are the severe punishments meted out by the Torah to someone who eats terumah or kodashim while in a state of ritual defilement.
After reviewing Rav Aaron Lichtenstein’s landmark essay on learning Talmud we dive into underlying responses to purity/impurity as applied to the body and to food
and modern enlightenment struggles with legislating how women see their purity status.