Parshat Shemini As the Pesach holiday approached it was essential to remind the people that one must maintain a state of “purity”—as one who was “impure” could not partake of the korban Pesach. For this reason, both today’s special Maftir reading as well as the accompanying haftarah focus upon the concepts of tahara and tumah, purity and defilement. Understandably, these concepts can be difficult to explain to a modern society as they are no longer applicable since they relate directly to the sanctity of the Beit HaMikdash (and the sacrificial rite) that, to our sorrow, no longer stands. As a result, many mistakenly equate the state of purity with that of cleanliness and the state of defilement with that of squalor. Yet, tumah and tahara are not physical states, they are halachic ones and, therefore, there is no recognizable difference between a person in the state of purity and one who is not.