Netilat yadayim, or lifting up of the hands, is the Hebrew term for ritual hand washing.
Out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile.
Jesus, Matthew 15 29-30
One does not become pure by washing, as do the multitude of mortals in this world, he who casts away every sin, great and small, he is a brahmin who has cast off sin.
Buddha, Udanavarga 33.13
Excerpted From the Marcus Borg book, Jesus and Buddha: The Parallel Sayings
Pontius Pilate Washed His Hands
So when he saw that he could gain nothing, but that on the contrary there was a riot threatening, he called for water and washed his hands in sight of them all, saying, “I am not responsible for this murder: you must answer for it.” -Matthew 27:24
In the Jewish faith the ritual of washing hands was also used to show innocence of a crime committed by others. Pilate, in so doing, meant to denote that the tumultuous crowd and Jewish magistrates were guilty of Christ’s death, but that he himself was innocent. But according to the above quotes from Jesus and Buddha, the hollow performance of a religious rite (washing hands) did not free him from guilt. As a prefect with the militia at his command, he had the opportunity and obligation to free an innocent man. For Pilate as for ourselves, neither the clamor of the crowd nor the perfunctory performance of a religious ritual removes the responsibility to act in a moral manner.
The Father of Washing Hands, Savior of Mothers
Through institutions like the Mind Life Institute and others, Buddhism is currently undergoing scientific scrutiny which is revealing the value of its religious practices. Though today, everyone recognizes the value of washing hands, this was not always the case. In the nineteenth century, the best minds of the medical profession considered hand washing to be mere superstition. Consider the case of Ignaz Semmelweis.
Dr. Semmelweis is considered the pioneer of antiseptic procedures.
“In 1818, Ignaz Phillip Semmelweis was born into a world of dying women. The finest hospitals lost one out of six young mothers to the scourge of “childbed fever.” A doctor’s daily routine began in the dissecting room where he performed autopsies. From there he made his way to the hospital to examine expectant mothers without ever pausing to wash his hands.
Dr. Semmelweis was the first man in history to associate such examinations with the resultant infection and death. His own practice was to wash with a chlorine solution, and after eleven years and the delivery of 8,537 babies, he lost only 184 mothers—about one in fifty. He spent the vigor of his life lecturing and debating with his colleagues.
Once he argued, “Puerperal fever is caused by decomposed material, conveyed to a wound. I have shown how it can be prevented. I have proved all that I have said. But while we talk, talk, talk, gentlemen, women are dying. I am not asking anything world shaking. I am asking you only to wash. For God’s sake, wash your hands.”
But virtually no one believed him. Doctors and midwives had been delivering babies for thousands of years without washing, and no outspoken Hungarian was going to change them now!
Semmelweis died insane at the age of 47, his wash basins discarded, his colleagues laughing in his face, and the death rattle of a thousand women ringing in his ears.” -Boyce Mouton, Daily in the Word, October 28, 2008
Childbirth Today
The acceptance of germ theory and hand washing has done much to improve childbirth outcomes in hospitals worldwide. Nonetheless, midwives still have a major advantage over medical doctors when it comes to childbirth as it did in Semmelweis’s day. The evidence is overwhelming. The data base for these figures is in the millions and consistent around the globe and to the present day. Statistics state that if all American women had birth attendants with a midwife approach, both mother and baby mortality would be halved, and the rates of brain damage, birth injuries and complications in newborns would be cut by three quarters. Furthermore, it would result in a savings of $8.5 billion a year.
Ritual purification is a feature of many religions including Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Bahá'í Faith, Hinduism, Shinto, Buddhism and Indigenous American religions. Pictured is a Japanese Buddhist basin known as a tsukubai from a Buddhist temple in Kyoto.