What if the laws of niddah weren’t designed to oppress, but to protect? This article examines a leading Leviticus scholar’s theory and its implications.
I tried looking for Milgrom's commentary recently, but couldn't find a copy within my budget.
I've long assumed that a part of the reason for at least some aspects of the laws of niddah is to stop men bothering women for intimacy when they don't feel up to it...
It develops the other side of this equation, of what happens when you try to introduce advanced ideas to a primitive culture which isn't ready, due to their need to interpret your message in familiar categories. Which helps explain what happened with the attempt to introduce torah and chochmah to a nation seeped in the Egyptian worldview.
Thanks! Just printed it out to read over Shabbos. I'm REALLY interested in this because I get questions like this from my students all the time (e.g. "Why couldn't the Torah have just forced such-and-such a change?")
Thanks again for this, Yaakov! It was really helpful. I had ChatGPT write a one-page summary of just the facts, so that I can have my students read it, and then I can apply it to the types of cases in Torah that you were alluding to. Here's the summary.
The Cargo Cults and the Misinterpretation of Advanced Knowledge
- based on Peter Lawrence’s Road Belong Cargo and summarized in Jane Psmith’s review, synthesized by ChatGPT
In the early to mid-20th century, anthropologist Peter Lawrence conducted extensive fieldwork in the Madang District of Papua New Guinea, particularly among the Garia people. These were traditional agrarian societies that had been only recently exposed to Western colonial influence, Christianity, and global commerce. Their worldview was rooted in clan-based social structures, ancestor worship, and a strong emphasis on reciprocity in interpersonal and spiritual relations. Power and status were often understood in terms of access to hidden knowledge, ritual efficacy, and visible blessings—especially in the form of food and goods.
When European colonial officers, missionaries, and later American soldiers during World War II arrived, they brought with them a staggering array of material goods: tinned food, tools, weapons, medicine, clothing, and machines. These “cargo” items far exceeded anything the local population had ever seen. Yet because the Garia and other nearby groups had no framework for industrial manufacture, supply chains, or global economics, they sought to explain the appearance of these goods through the categories they already knew—primarily religion and magic.
The result was the emergence of what came to be known as cargo cults. These were belief systems and ritual practices that aimed to attract more cargo by imitating or appropriating perceived religious or magical causes of material wealth. The logic went something like this: white men have cargo; white men are Christians; therefore, Christianity is the key to cargo. Many assumed that Europeans had a secret spiritual knowledge that caused cargo to arrive and that, if that knowledge were properly accessed—via conversion, ritual performance, or purification—cargo would come to them too.
One well-documented practice was the construction of makeshift landing strips and wooden radio towers by villagers, who believed that by mimicking the infrastructure of military supply operations, they could summon cargo planes from the sky. Others participated in church services with great seriousness, but not to attain spiritual salvation—instead, they believed that if they prayed and followed Christian rituals, God would reward them with the same goods He had given to the white people.
Their reinterpretation of biblical language is particularly revealing. When missionaries taught about Noah being “blessed by God,” locals understood this as: “God gave Noah cargo.” In their worldview, to be blessed could only mean to be given material wealth. Similarly, when missionaries said Satan must be expelled, they took this as a call to reject their traditional deities and spirits—figures they had previously believed were responsible for minor forms of cargo like taro and yams—in favor of the high god who sent canned meat and steel knives.
One charismatic leader, Yali, exemplifies the cognitive tension. He had worked closely with Europeans and even understood (to some degree) that factories and production systems existed. Yet even he ultimately believed that Europeans received cargo through spiritual means, and that if his people could just uncover the right “secret,” they too could gain access to this flow of divine goods. Even accurate explanations of supply chains and manufacturing were filtered through spiritual assumptions and repurposed as mystical knowledge.
Peter Lawrence’s account reveals not only the ingenuity and internal logic of the cargo cults but also the deep power of cultural framing. New facts were not received neutrally—they were absorbed and reshaped by the existing worldview of the Garia people. As Lawrence observed, the people were not irrational; rather, they were drawing reasoned conclusions from flawed premises.
This case presents a striking anthropological example of how radically different cognitive frameworks can distort the meaning of otherwise straightforward information—even when that information is offered in good faith and with apparent clarity.
This is really good and I think the Ramban alludes to this idea in his commentary here, as I'm sure you've seen.
I would like to note that those who are not initially open to using Milgrom as a commentator would most likely not be convinced by Dr. Elman's statement that his work is “the finest commentary ever written on a book of the Torah”, for several reasons. I myself have no problem using the works of any scholar, and that includes Dr. Elman, Dr. Milgrom, or even non-Jewish scholars, because of "accept the truth from whence it comes", provided I find their words convincing, and in this case it is pretty convincing!
Thanks! And yeah, you're probably right about people who aren't open to Milgrom. It's just that I know that there are some people who determine what is "kosher" or "non-kosher" based on whether Artscroll incorporates it into its commentaries, and I'm holding out hope that there are some fence-sitters that would be equally reassured by Koren. And once I was quoting Koren, I HAD to deploy that bomb of an endorsement from Dr. Elman.
I dropped several footnotes to Milgrom's commentary when I was translating Shadal on Vayikra.
Are you familiar with "The Red Tent," by Anita Diamant? It's a fictionalized account of Dinah's life. The tent in the title refers to the place in which (as imagined by Diamant) women of Jacob's tribe had to take refuge while menstruating or giving birth, and in which they found "mutual support and encouragement from their mothers, sisters and aunts." But in an interview, Diamant candidly admitted that "I did not find any evidence that women in this period of history in this place (ancient Iraq/Israel) used a menstrual tent."
I was thinking about The Red Tent as I read this article. Interesting that there was no evidence the Israelites used it. I had assumed they did, like everyone else, and these mitzvos were to help ease them out
By "dropping footnotes," I meant inserting them, not omitting them. I found his commentary quite interesting. For instance, at Lev. 21:7, I cited him to support an opinion by one of Shadal's students that "ḥalalah" could include a victim of rape.
I tried looking for Milgrom's commentary recently, but couldn't find a copy within my budget.
I've long assumed that a part of the reason for at least some aspects of the laws of niddah is to stop men bothering women for intimacy when they don't feel up to it...
I've wondered about that myself!
(FYI, I only own an abridged copy of Milgrom's commentary - not the full shebang. Available on Amazon for $38. https://a.co/d/343aQIF)
I think you would enjoy this book review about cargo cults
https://www.thepsmiths.com/p/review-road-belong-cargo-by-peter
It develops the other side of this equation, of what happens when you try to introduce advanced ideas to a primitive culture which isn't ready, due to their need to interpret your message in familiar categories. Which helps explain what happened with the attempt to introduce torah and chochmah to a nation seeped in the Egyptian worldview.
Thanks! Just printed it out to read over Shabbos. I'm REALLY interested in this because I get questions like this from my students all the time (e.g. "Why couldn't the Torah have just forced such-and-such a change?")
Thanks again for this, Yaakov! It was really helpful. I had ChatGPT write a one-page summary of just the facts, so that I can have my students read it, and then I can apply it to the types of cases in Torah that you were alluding to. Here's the summary.
The Cargo Cults and the Misinterpretation of Advanced Knowledge
- based on Peter Lawrence’s Road Belong Cargo and summarized in Jane Psmith’s review, synthesized by ChatGPT
In the early to mid-20th century, anthropologist Peter Lawrence conducted extensive fieldwork in the Madang District of Papua New Guinea, particularly among the Garia people. These were traditional agrarian societies that had been only recently exposed to Western colonial influence, Christianity, and global commerce. Their worldview was rooted in clan-based social structures, ancestor worship, and a strong emphasis on reciprocity in interpersonal and spiritual relations. Power and status were often understood in terms of access to hidden knowledge, ritual efficacy, and visible blessings—especially in the form of food and goods.
When European colonial officers, missionaries, and later American soldiers during World War II arrived, they brought with them a staggering array of material goods: tinned food, tools, weapons, medicine, clothing, and machines. These “cargo” items far exceeded anything the local population had ever seen. Yet because the Garia and other nearby groups had no framework for industrial manufacture, supply chains, or global economics, they sought to explain the appearance of these goods through the categories they already knew—primarily religion and magic.
The result was the emergence of what came to be known as cargo cults. These were belief systems and ritual practices that aimed to attract more cargo by imitating or appropriating perceived religious or magical causes of material wealth. The logic went something like this: white men have cargo; white men are Christians; therefore, Christianity is the key to cargo. Many assumed that Europeans had a secret spiritual knowledge that caused cargo to arrive and that, if that knowledge were properly accessed—via conversion, ritual performance, or purification—cargo would come to them too.
One well-documented practice was the construction of makeshift landing strips and wooden radio towers by villagers, who believed that by mimicking the infrastructure of military supply operations, they could summon cargo planes from the sky. Others participated in church services with great seriousness, but not to attain spiritual salvation—instead, they believed that if they prayed and followed Christian rituals, God would reward them with the same goods He had given to the white people.
Their reinterpretation of biblical language is particularly revealing. When missionaries taught about Noah being “blessed by God,” locals understood this as: “God gave Noah cargo.” In their worldview, to be blessed could only mean to be given material wealth. Similarly, when missionaries said Satan must be expelled, they took this as a call to reject their traditional deities and spirits—figures they had previously believed were responsible for minor forms of cargo like taro and yams—in favor of the high god who sent canned meat and steel knives.
One charismatic leader, Yali, exemplifies the cognitive tension. He had worked closely with Europeans and even understood (to some degree) that factories and production systems existed. Yet even he ultimately believed that Europeans received cargo through spiritual means, and that if his people could just uncover the right “secret,” they too could gain access to this flow of divine goods. Even accurate explanations of supply chains and manufacturing were filtered through spiritual assumptions and repurposed as mystical knowledge.
Peter Lawrence’s account reveals not only the ingenuity and internal logic of the cargo cults but also the deep power of cultural framing. New facts were not received neutrally—they were absorbed and reshaped by the existing worldview of the Garia people. As Lawrence observed, the people were not irrational; rather, they were drawing reasoned conclusions from flawed premises.
This case presents a striking anthropological example of how radically different cognitive frameworks can distort the meaning of otherwise straightforward information—even when that information is offered in good faith and with apparent clarity.
This is really good and I think the Ramban alludes to this idea in his commentary here, as I'm sure you've seen.
I would like to note that those who are not initially open to using Milgrom as a commentator would most likely not be convinced by Dr. Elman's statement that his work is “the finest commentary ever written on a book of the Torah”, for several reasons. I myself have no problem using the works of any scholar, and that includes Dr. Elman, Dr. Milgrom, or even non-Jewish scholars, because of "accept the truth from whence it comes", provided I find their words convincing, and in this case it is pretty convincing!
Thanks! And yeah, you're probably right about people who aren't open to Milgrom. It's just that I know that there are some people who determine what is "kosher" or "non-kosher" based on whether Artscroll incorporates it into its commentaries, and I'm holding out hope that there are some fence-sitters that would be equally reassured by Koren. And once I was quoting Koren, I HAD to deploy that bomb of an endorsement from Dr. Elman.
I dropped several footnotes to Milgrom's commentary when I was translating Shadal on Vayikra.
Are you familiar with "The Red Tent," by Anita Diamant? It's a fictionalized account of Dinah's life. The tent in the title refers to the place in which (as imagined by Diamant) women of Jacob's tribe had to take refuge while menstruating or giving birth, and in which they found "mutual support and encouragement from their mothers, sisters and aunts." But in an interview, Diamant candidly admitted that "I did not find any evidence that women in this period of history in this place (ancient Iraq/Israel) used a menstrual tent."
I was thinking about The Red Tent as I read this article. Interesting that there was no evidence the Israelites used it. I had assumed they did, like everyone else, and these mitzvos were to help ease them out
Very interesting!
Did you drop the footnotes because of the types of reservations I expressed in my article?
By "dropping footnotes," I meant inserting them, not omitting them. I found his commentary quite interesting. For instance, at Lev. 21:7, I cited him to support an opinion by one of Shadal's students that "ḥalalah" could include a victim of rape.
Ah, got it.