Parasha Tazria – Metzorah and Rosh Chodesh Iyar
SAN DIEGO — Once again, with open eyes, we can see the weekly parasha coming with contemporary lessons to help us live better. Parashat Tazria – Metzorah focuses on our physical wellbeing and a specific disfiguring infectious disease, tzara’at, or what has come to be seen as leprosy. The first parasha deals with the infliction while the second deals with the purification process.
The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying: When a person has on the skin of his body a swelling, a rash, or a discoloration, and it develops into a scaly affection on the skin of his body, it shall be reported to Aaron the priest or to one of his sons, the priests. The priest shall examine the affection on the skin of his body…
In ancient times leprosy was thought to be incurable and mutilating. Even today this illness carries with it a terrifying, negative stigma that leaves those with the diagnosis, often shunned as outcasts. By comparison to today’s COVID-19 pandemic, the World Health Organization informs us that about 180,000 people around the world are infected with leprosy. While most are in Africa and Asia, about 100 people contract the disease every year in America, mostly in California, the South and in Hawaii.
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. 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. These priests were not “providers” and their patients were not “consumers” in a commercial transaction. We see the very sensitive, caring, connection between the one who examines and the one who is afflicted.
We learn in the Talmud, in Erachin 15b, that lashon hara, perhaps another even more widespread 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. Our physical distancing today, our contemporary isolation, through open eyes, offers 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. IY’H, with open eyes, we will use this time well.
Shabbat Shalom and Chodesh Tov
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Michael Mantell, Ph.D., prepares a weekly d’var Torah for Young Israel of San Diego, where he and his family worship. He may be contacted via michael.mantell@sdjewishworld.com