Why did someone with the skin condition of tzara’at have to undergo a lengthy and humiliating purification process?
Table for Five: Tazria-Metzora
In partnership with the Jewish Journal of Los Angeles
Edited by Nina Litvak & Salvador Litvak, the Accidental Talmudist
And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, This shall be the law of the person afflicted with tzara’ath, on the day of his cleansing: He shall be brought to the kohen. Lev. 14:1-2
Rabbi Cheryl Peretz, Vice Dean, Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies, AJU
With proper medical treatment, leprosy is curable. In biblical times, however, treatment lay in the hands of the priest. Following diagnosis, the priest inspected and performed elaborate sacrificial and purification rituals using birds, blood and oils with no mention of medicine or prevention.
Rabbinic lore likens “metzora” (leper) to its associated Hebrew words “motzi shem ra” (one with a bad name). With the example of Miriam who is stricken with a skin disease after gossiping about her brothers and their wives, the rabbis say leprosy is a supernatural phenomenon afflicting those who engage in slanderous talk.
Rabbi Israel Salanter offers deeper insight in the juxtaposition of this discussion with what came before. There, the Torah details the animals and birds that may or may not be eaten. The laws of the leper immediately follow to remind us to be as scrupulous about what comes out of our mouths as we are about what goes into them. He cautions against having more concern about not eating non-kosher food than about “eating up” a person through gossip or evil speech.
As Jews, we elevate the primal needs for nutrition and for connecting others as opportunities to encounter God. To be a good Jew means observing ritual and living side by side in love and unity and to understand that we reach our highest aspirations in dance between ritual and ethics. Anything less is dangerous to our body and spirit, a malady whose remedies ae well beyond what medicine can provide.
Rabbi Bentzion Kravitz, Founder and Jerusalem Director, JewsforJudaism.org
Words can inspire and educate, but they can also cause deep emotional harm. As King Solomon said, “The tongue has the power of life and death” (Proverbs 18:21). Recognizing this, the Torah warns us to avoid falsehood and slander (Exodus 23:7; Leviticus 19:16), and refers to harmful speech as “lashon hara”—“evil tongue.”
Rabbi Yosei ben Zimra (Arakhin 15b) connects lashon hara to tzara’at, a spiritual affliction sometimes mistranslated as leprosy. Unlike a natural disease, tzara’at was a divine sign of moral failing, often linked to improper speech, manifesting as a white blemish on the skin to prompt reflection and repentance.
Since tzara’at causes a person (called a metzora) to be banished from the community while undergoing a purification process, this painful and embarrassing judgment, which ostracizes an individual, can be pronounced only by someone whose decisions are driven by compassion. Kohanim are predisposed to love and kindness, because they inherited these predispositions from Aaron, the first High Priest, who our sages say exemplified the motto, “Loving peace and pursuing peace, and loving people and drawing them to the Torah” (Ethics of the Fathers 1:12). Today, we encounter many Jews who have separated themselves from the community, whether by choice or due to outside influences, including cult and missionary activity. We can learn an important lesson from the Kohen/metzora relationship. We must try to assist those who are “outside the community” with compassion, drawing them close to the Torah by demonstrating its warmth, truth, and spiritual beauty.
Lori Shapiro, Rabbi/Artistic Director/Open Temple
Rabbi SR Hirsch comments that tza’arah could not be a bodily disease, as “the Talmud teaches that if the symptoms of tza’arth appear on a newlywed or during a festival season, the Kohen does not examine the affliction or declare it to be tamei (impure).” Rather, tza’arah is a physical manifestation of a spiritual malaise. Rabbis of an apodictic nature suggest that the malady is a punishment for transgressions; a corrective of moral transgession. Considering new theories in modern medicine, is this relationship between transgression and bodily punishment an outrageous theological assertion?
Besser van der Kolk’s “The Body Keeps the Score” suggests otherwise: trauma, and even our smallest actions, affect the body, brain, nervous system and impacts our body’s homeostasis, resulting in chronic stress responses that increase our cortisol and adrenaline. A suppressed immune system can disrupt our healing process, increasing inflammation and risk of related auto-immune diseases.
Our “Glymphatic System” works as the brain’s “waste removal,” flushing toxins and stress chemicals, supporting the body’s ability to cleanse. Van der Kolk describes cerebrospinal fluid washing through the brain tissue for cleansing. Timeless healing modalities such as meditation, yoga, and prayer and more newfangled ones like biofeedback and glymphatic massage – a form of massage using brain scans, deep lymphatic drainage, cupping and heat – move the body and brain into cleansing mode.
Torah is a blueprint for life; and the rabbi’s assertion of tz’arah not as a communicative disease, but as a spiritual ailment, indeed, keeps the score.
Abe Mezrich, Author, “Words for a Dazzling Firmament” / abemezrich.substack.com
The Law is that the unclean can be cleansed. The Law is new beginnings, second chances. The Law is the path home, though we’ve sent you away. The Law is the holy man ready to greet you with outstretched arms. We want you here, the holy man says. You are one of us. You were always one of us.
Nina Litvak, Screenwriter, Accidental Talmudist Co-Creator
The law of the metzora, a member of the Israelite camp suffering a skin condition known as tzara’at (often mistranslated as leprosy) seems unsettling to modern sensibilities. Someone with this unsightly rash must be isolated, shaved (including head, beard and even eyebrows), and undergo an elaborate process of purification and sacrifices. A rash is annoying enough without making the sufferer undergo what may feel like a lengthy and humiliating punishment. Isn’t this blaming the victim?
Our Sages teach that tzara’at is the physical manifestation of a spiritual malady. Specifically, it is punishment for speaking lashon hara (evil speech), just as Miriam was struck with the condition after speaking negatively about Moses. King Solomon says in Ecclesiastes, “let not your mouth bring guilt on your flesh;” this refers to the sin of badmouthing fellow Jews. These days God no longer rebukes us in such a direct way as tzara’at affliction because we do not enjoy as close a connection with the Holy One as we did in the time of the Temple, when this law was in effect. But the lesson of the metzora is no less relevant than it ever was. There are still Jews speaking negatively about fellow Jews, causing a ripple effect that hurts us all. May we finally learn the lesson of the metzora and take great care to guard our speech. As Shimon ben Gamliel says, “All my days I grew up among the sages, and I have found nothing better for a person than silence.”
With thanks to Rabbi Cheryl Peretz, Rabbi Bentzion Kravitz, Lori Shapiro, Abe Mezrich, and Nina Litvak.
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