Tazria-Metzora (When a Woman Conceives-The Person with Tsarat) An Unlikely Gift
By Rabbi Yeruchem Eilfort
CARLSBAD, California –This week we read a double portion, Tazria – Metzora, which mean, ‘When a Woman Conceives’ and, ‘The Person with Tzarat.’ Many of the laws of human purity and impurity are covered as are the laws of Tzarat, a leprous-like skin disease caused by certain sins.
Being that purity and impurity as well as Tzarat are largely misunderstood, it would be helpful to try and understand what they really are, as well as what they are not. Let’s begin with impurity and purity – Tumah and Taharah in Hebrew.
Many people misconstrue purity and impurity as being analogous to clean and unclean or righteous and sinful. After studying the laws one can quickly see that this is not the case. A person could be as ‘clean as a whistle’ and still be impure. A person could be as righteous as the greatest sage and still be impure. Both conditions are actually states of spiritual status.
By way of explanation; one becomes spiritually impure by touching a dead body, for instance. In fact, this is the most severe type of impurity. When in such a state one was prohibited from entering the Holy Temple or eating food that was designated as holy. It was entirely possible to become ritually impure by fulfilling a Mitzvah! For example if someone was traveling and found an unattended body, it is incumbent upon the finder to take care of the needs of the deceased, which would necessarily render him/her impure. By the way, even the Kohen Gadol, the High Priest himself who was always on call to serve in the Holy Temple had to take care of the needs of a dead body if there was no one else to do so.
Regarding Tzarat, the leprous-like skin condition, we see that it could not only affect an individual on his/her body, but could affect his/her clothes or house. Furthermore, the diagnosis could only come through a Kohen, NOT a doctor. Tzarat was a consequence of numerous sins, most prominent of them was Lashon Harah – evil gossip. Interestingly, the person suffering from Tzarat was placed into quarantine, not so that the disease wouldn’t spread, but instead to demonstrate to the person with the disease that his anti-social behavior resulted in an anti-social situation. The disease only appeared when the Jewish people were on a greater spiritual level than we have been in millennia. Ironically, due to our spiritual coarseness we can no longer contract the disease!
Clearly it was not pleasant for the person suffering from Tzarat. However, it seems that there was a tremendous bright side. Imagine being the recipient of ‘divine feedback’. Is there not an advantage to experiencing manifested consequences for our behavior? Would it not be beneficial for us to know when we have displeased the Almighty? Those who were afflicted by Tzarat knew definitively that they had work to do and corrections to make.
Having that level of divine feedback demonstrates that the people in those days had a more profound connection with G-d than we do today. Think of it in terms of someone who has an illness. Is it not better to be diagnosed and then treated, even if the treatment is not pleasant, than to neglect taking care of the condition?
In today’s world we are awash in secular influences. The atmosphere is generally very far from ideal and, let’s be honest, this has affected us spiritually where we are not as sensitized to holiness as we should be.
G-d willing we will soon be appropriately sensitized to spirituality, AND we will achieve spiritual greatness obviating the need for any consequences that are not necessarily pleasant. May this time come, the Era of Moshiach, speedily in our days!
Wishing everyone a good Shabbos!
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Rabbi Eilfort is director of Chabad at La Costa and welcomes readers’ comments and questions via email to RabbiE@ChabadatLaCosta.com.