The life of the Torah-oriented Jew is immersed in the values of the Bible. He differs from the materialist who deals with the world of nature from the limited viewpoint of only here and now. In the eyes of the atheist, the human being is but a conglomeration of atoms and molecules which came from nowhere and, in the words of Franz Werfel, somehow won a limited license to life, until its ultimate return to a final nothingness. In his eyes, death is a biological inevitability, and brings the individual's existence to an end.

The Torah Jew lives with a very different concept of life. For him, man is theoretically immortal. What is more, not only his soul is immortal; in theory, his body might also have been beyond the grasp of death had it not been for Adam's sin. Until Mankind frees itself of the shackles of wrongdoing, we are subject to death physically, and his body is given to decay. Despite this verdict of physical mortality, Man has not forgotten his former immortality and eternity. Firmly engraved in Man's inner consciousness, it is this recollection of his potential to ultimately vanquish the Angel of Death which determines Man's self image and defines his relationship to his environment.

The Torah clearly sets out the laws regarding how one's state of spiritual purity or contamination affects the permissibility of entering the Sanctuary in Jerusalem. In Biblical times, one's status with this regard had little influence on day-to-day life within the four walls of his home. Not so regarding entrance to the Temple area. The Torah clearly defines the process of regaining one's status as pure. Described in Chapter 19 of Numbers, the process took up to seven days and involved the sprinkling of specially prepared water on the individual and his immersion in a mikveh on the seventh day. The fate of anyone who failed to comply with these precepts and entered the Sanctuary while contaminated is stated in the verses that follow:

But a man who becomes contaminated and does not purify himself, that man shall be cut off from the midst of the congregation, because he has contaminated the Sanctuary of G-d...

(Numbers 19:20)

It is a grave offense to enter the gates of the Temple while still in a state of spiritual contamination. The Sanctuary represented the closest approximation of the Eden which Man lost in the time of Adam. The Temple served the Jewish People in the post-Eden era, when encumbered by mortality and all the ills that Adam's sin brought in its wake. Nonetheless, the Temple itself represented a very different, higher standard of moral living. It was like a verdant oasis in the midst of a harsh barren desert. The fragrance of Eden wafted on its breezes, and within its bounds, one could renew his link with the origin purity with which the world was created.

Jewish sources relate that in its time, the Garden of Eden encompassed the entire world. So long as Adam lived there, the physical and spirit realms were balanced against each other perfectly, as G-d had originally created them. This complete harmony was experienced by all those privileged to enter the gates of the Sanctuary when it stood in Jerusalem. A person sensed the Divine Presence which dwelt there. This is why a Jew was required to purify his body before entering the Sanctuary, the replica of Eden. Within its walls, he was temporarily above and beyond the realm of death and the contamination which emanates from it. By immersing his body in the waters of the “river flowing from Eden”, he returns to the point of origin, the world as it was before Adam contaminated it with sin and mortality. Here, within the confines of the Sanctuary, the Jew could again taste the primordial harmony between his body and his soul, just as it was in Eden.

Before entering this miniature Eden, he cleanses his body of all contamination from the taint of sin and death by immersing in the water which is still an adjunct to the original “river flowing out of Eden.”.In doing so, he removes his body from any connection with the whisper of death that clings to all flesh. The mikveh returns to Man his original starting point at the moment of Adam's creation before he sinned. Once again, body and soul merge into one harmonious unit, dedicated to the same ideal and free of any conflict between them. The mikveh takes Man back to the birth of the world before it emerged from the primeval waters which constituted the womb of the creation. In this moment of bonding to the primordial earth, man shakes off, if only temporarily, the shackles of sin and death which cloud over his perception of spirituality. At this moment, we sense a renewed purity flowing into the wellsprings of the spirit hidden deep within our soul.

The Temple in Jerusalem is no longer. Together with it, we have lost our last access to purifying ourselves from spiritual contamination. No longer can we grasp hold of the spark of eternity which glows within the soul of Man. Nonetheless, the women of Israel still have who each month, experience a whisper of death.

Simone de Beauvoir describes what takes place in the woman's body at this time: The majority of biologists consider this process as another example of the inefficiency of the process of human reproduction. They claim that there is no medical or biological justification for the fact that that an ovum which was not fertilized be discharged by the body, together with the complex lining of the womb which was built up to house and nourish the fertilized egg. It would be far more efficient, they claim, if the lining of the uterus were absorbed into the body. There is no doubt that this would be far more esthetically pleasing and more convenient for the woman. Furthermore, there is no explanation why an unfertilized egg must “die” and be discharged in order to prepare the way for the next one. It strikes researchers as odd that the body is so frivolous with its resources, particularly in view of the astoundingly co-ordinated involvement of nearly all the systems of the body in the process of the menstrual cycle.

In primitive societies, a woman's monthly period was regarded with fear and aversion. During the days of her flow, the woman was ostracized and contact with her avoided. The Scriptures explain this process as a consequence of Adam's sin: To the woman, He said: “I will increase your suffering greatly, and your childbearing. In pain you shall bear children.” (Genesis 3:16, and the commentary of Yonasan ben Uziel on this verse)

Man's imperfection as a result of Adam's sin finds expression in the processes involved in the renewal of human life. Childbearing became a burden, akin to illness, bringing with it discomfort, pain, and a woman's monthly rendezvous with this whisper of death. Before she returns to her husband, the woman cleanses herself spirituality through immersion in the mikveh.

In the view of the Torah, the last vestige of Eden available to Mankind today is the family circle. Herein lies the private Holy Temple of each individual couple. It is here that each couple find the harmony which once prevailed in Eden, and later in the Sanctuary in Jerusalem. It is not by chance that Judaism calls the marriage ceremony “kiddushin”, literally, “sanctification.” Our Sages tell us that “when a husband and wife are found worthy, the Presence of Heaven dwells between them.” This is a Holy Temple which can never be destroyed. It is something which words cannot described, but must be experienced if it is to be understood.