Parashot Tazria – Metzora
By Michael R. Mantell, Ph.D.
SAN DIEGO — This week’s Torah reading brings profound, overwhelming, and weighty lessons for living a healthier, more mindfully caring, and considerate life. With more than a year of physical distancing, of quarantining, we’ve been dwelling outside of our ordinary camps, much like we read in Tazria, “All the days the lesion is upon him, he shall remain unclean. He is unclean; he shall dwell isolated; his dwelling shall be outside the camp.” (Leviticus 13:46).
In Arachin, 16b, Rabbi Shmuel bar Nadav asked Rabbi Hanina, “What is different about the leper, that the Torah states, “He shall dwell alone, outside the camp…?” Comes the answer, “By speaking malicious speech, he separated between husband and wife and between one person and another; therefore, he is punished with leprosy…”
During the 1848 cholera outbreak in Vilna, a man told Rabbi Yisroel Salanter that the plague came because of the behavior of those who sinned by not heeding the words of Torah. Rabbi Salanter explained that the reason those with tzara’at were sent out of the city was not necessarily because they spoke lashon hara, but rather because all they saw was negativity. We learn in the Talmud, in Arachin 15b, that lashon hara, perhaps an even more widespread societal malady, afflicts the a) listener, b) the speaker and, c) the subject of gossip. The punishment to the speaker was tzara’at, requiring isolation from others. They needed to focus on themselves to begin to see the good in others and replace their negative view. The punishment of isolation and loneliness was their opportunity to change their perspective. Ahh, the “link is what you think.”
We may wonder why must a “priest” examine people and proclaim one to be “unclean”? The “priests” were the spiritual heirs of Aaron, the first “priest.” What do we know Aaron was particularly recognized for? Promoting brotherly love, achdus, among the Jewish people. The Torah teaches us the value of preventing permanent stigma from being attached to one who has been afflicted by tzara’at. Declaring someone “unclean” in such a way as to not promote stigma, or shunning an individual with a feared disease, is a good lesson for today. Just as today we teach that it’s not what’s in the doctor’s black bag as much as it’s what’s in the heart of the person carrying the black bag that is associated with healing, so too must we take extreme care in not rushing to gossip about, reject, judge, or stigmatize one with an illness or deficiency of any kind. We see the very sensitive, caring, connection between the one who examines and the one who is afflicted.
We learn in this week’s reading to see the potential for extending our own community to include those ill in body, mind, or spirit, and are charged with fully welcoming them back after whatever diagnosis and treatment they receive for the “disease,” that does not, after all, alter their essential humanity. The Torah directs us to welcome and comfort the afflicted instead of solely expelling them. For the Sages, “visiting the sick,” bikur cholim, is a form of “walking in God’s ways” (Babylonian Talmud, Sotah 14a).
Especially when we are isolated, we can easily and erroneously identify and rate ourselves by our illness. Contemporary psychology teaches us that our essence cannot be summed, scored, or globally rated. We can rate a behavior of ours, but not ourselves. Many of us judge ourselves as lacking if we are no longer doing what we once did. We come to accept the notion that our worth is determined by some external measure. But our tradition, and I believe this week’s Torah reading, comes to teach us that our worth is not based on any external measure. We are worthy simply because we are beings beings created in the divine image.
Let’s see Tazria and Metzora as offering a path to our examining the ways in which we’ve allowed others to become painfully isolated in our midst. Let us become more thoughtful of the benefits of coming together and make sure that no one is ever subjected to the harmful feelings of loneliness.
Our physical distancing today, our contemporary isolation, can offer us an opportunity to contemplate our own approach to others. Just as the socially enforced physical distance of the metzora afforded time to reflect, grow, and recover, so too are we granted this chance for recovery from our own affliction, the pandemic of lashon hara. We are not being punished today, but are being given the gift of rebirth, of tazria for the metzorah, the one with tzara’at, an opportunity for transformation and improvement. Can anything be more wonderful than creating more receptive, inclusive, and openhearted communities for those straining with illness of mind, body, or spirit?
Shabbat Shalom
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Michael R. Mantell, Ph.D., prepares a weekly D’var Torah for Young Israel of San Diego, where he and his family are members. They are also active members of Congregation Adat Yeshurun. He may be contacted via michael.mantell@sdjewishworld.com