verge of dying, the Gemara told, the Angel of Death was instructed to perform Rabbi Joshua's bidding, as he was a righteous man and deserves to die in the manner he saw fit. Rabbi Joshua ben Levi asked the Angel of Death to show him his place in paradise, and the Angel agreed. Rabbi Joshua ben Levi asked the Angel to give him the knife that the Angel used to kill people, lest the Angel frighten him on the way, and the Angel gave it to him. When they arrived in paradise, the Angel lifted Rabbi Joshua so that he could see his place in paradise, and Rabbi Joshua jumped to the other side, escaping into paradise. Elijah the Prophet then told those in paradise to make way for Rabbi Joshua. The Gemara told that Rabbi Joshua ben Levi asked Elijah when the Messiah would come, and Elijah told Rabbi Joshua ben Levi that he could find the Messiah sitting at the entrance of the city of Rome among the poor who suffer from illnesses. In medieval Jewish interpretation The parashah is discussed in these medieval Jewish sources: Leviticus chapter 12 Maimonides taught that the laws of impurity serve many uses: (1) They keep Jews at a distance from dirty and filthy objects. (2) They guard the Sanctuary. (3) They pay regard to an established custom. (4) They lightened the burden. For these laws do not impede people affected with impurity in their ordinary occupations. For the distinction between pure and impure applies only with reference to the Sanctuary and the holy objects connected with it; it does not apply to other cases. Citing , "She shall touch no hallowed thing, nor come into the Sanctuary," Maimonides noted that people who do not intend to enter the Sanctuary or touch any holy thing are not guilty of any sin if they remain unclean as long as they like, and eat, according to their pleasure, ordinary food that has been in contact with unclean things. In modern interpretation The parashah is discussed in these modern sources: Leviticus chapter 12 Dr. Elaine Goodfriend of California State University, Northridge, observed that and its focus on menstruating women had an enormous effect on Jewish women's lives. Goodfriend reported that "the view that women—via their normal, recurring bodily functions—generate a pollution antagonistic to holiness served as a justification for women's distance from the sacred throughout