REQUIRES ATONEMENT
At the end of the Torah section discussing a woman who gives birth, the verse says, “The kohen must first effect atonement for her {through the sin-offering}, and she will thus be rid of this impurity.” The Gemara expounds: “The clause and she will thus be rid of this impurity implies that {beforehand} she was impure.” Anyone who “requires atonement” (after “a person immersed and emerged” and “the sun has set for him” — but before he has brought his atonement offering) is still impure in certain respects: (a) The prohibition of “she may not touch anything sacred” — to refrain from eating sacrificial foods — still applies. (b) A person in this state who serves in the Temple deserves death (because “an impure {kohen} who performs a Temple service is punishable by death”). (c) He (the person still requiring atonement) invalidates the service performed in the Temple.
In his Mishneh Torah, Rambam cites this teaching in two places: (a) regarding someone requiring atonement who served in the Temple — “his service is invalid”; (b) regarding the prohibition to enter the Temple (from the Courtyard of Israelites and onward). However, in these two places, Rambam describes the mother’s status slightly differently than the Gemara: “and she will thus be rid of this impurity — this implies that until this point her purification was incomplete.”
Rambam’s diction suggests that the deficiency of someone who “requires atonement” is not so much because of lingering impurity. [Such a proposition would be understood as follows: True, an impure person who has immersed, and for whom the day of the immersion has passed, is regarded as pure for certain things, including eating terumah. Nevertheless, when it comes to eating sacrificial foods or entering the Temple, since a trace of the impurity lingers, he is forbidden to partake of sacrificial foods, enter the Temple, and so on.]
Instead, Rambam maintains that this atonement is required due to (the absence of something, namely) a lack in the person’s purification: He can’t engage in these holy activities because his purification is still incomplete, which is completed by “atonement,” namely, by bringing a sacrifice.
This understanding can be seen clearly in Rambam’s words at the beginning of this section: “Why are they referred to as ‘requiring atonement’? Because even after each of them has become pure from the condition that caused his impurity — he has immersed in a mikveh, and the day of the immersion has passed — the person’s purification is still deficient. His purity remains incomplete, preventing him from partaking in sacrificial foods until he offers the required sacrifice. However, before he makes this sacrifice, he is forbidden to partake in sacrificial food (as explained in Hilchos Pesulei HaMukdashim).” Put differently, the prohibition is not due to lingering impurity, but because his purity is lacking.
[This is also indicated from the fact that the Gemara chose the verse, “his impurity is still upon him” to prove that a person “requiring atonement” is forbidden to enter the Temple — “this serves to include a person who requires atonement”; as opposed to Rambam who (as mentioned above) derives the law from the verse, “and she will thus be rid of this impurity — this implies that until this point her purification was incomplete.”]
These two approaches lead to a practical difference in halachah: since Rambam views the person who requires atonement as not being impure (and it is only that “her purification was incomplete”), Rambam therefore rules that if this person (ate sacrificial food or) served in the Temple, he would not be liable for the death-penalty (or kares).
Raavad, by contrast, maintains that the person would be liable, disputing Rambam’s stance as follows: “Have we not learnt in tractate Makkos, ‘his impurity is still upon him — this serves to include a person who requires atonement’... Moreover, the Torah states ‘and she will be purified’ in the context of a woman who gave birth, indicating that until that point, she is still considered impure. And the Gemara in Zevachim states: ‘a zav who still requires atonement is considered like a zav’; and Tosefta of Zevachim counts him {a person who still requires atonement} among those who are liable for the death-penalty.”
Disagreeing with Rambam, Raavad maintains that people who require atonement retain a trace of their previous impurity until they bring their sacrifice. (Only a remnant of their impurity — preventing them from eating terumah — is removed.)
