30 Nisan 5783 | April 21, 2023
Parshat Tazria-Metzora
Rabbi Emily Goldberg Winer
Class of 2022
In Parshat Tazria, we are offered a window into the depths of Bnei Yisrael’s anxiety. Without context or background, we are presented with a diagnosis and recovery plan for tzaraat, a skin ailment that has been categorized as leprosy:
When a person has on the skin of the body a swelling, a rash, or a discoloration, and it develops into a scaly affection on the skin of the 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 the body: if hair in the affected patch has turned white and the affection appears to be deeper than the skin of the body, it is a leprous affection; when the priest sees it, he shall pronounce the person impure. But if it is a white discoloration on the skin of the body which does not appear to be deeper than the skin and the hair in it has not turned white, the priest shall isolate the affected person for seven days.
A common association with leprosy is Miriam, Moshe’s sister, who is afflicted with leprosy supposedly as a punishment for speaking lashon hara. Yet this detailed description of tzaarat suggests that such visible skin ailments have existed for Bnei Yisrael long before our commentators and rabbis ascribed particular meanings and theological analyses to them. The diagnosis of leprosy seems to rely on two factors: the se’ar lavan (hair that turns white) and – the area of deep spiritual meaning – the “amok me’or b’saro,” the beyond-skin depths of this infection.
What is it about tzaraat that causes the Torah to deem the skin of others as tameh? What drives the fear of patches or rashes going deeper than the skin, causing the community to isolate the inflicted?
Rabbi Mordechai Yosef Leiner of Ishbitz sees tzaraat as a spiritual issue:
“Leprous” means anger, for the word for leprosy, (tsara’at) contains the word “evil,” Ra’a. (See Gemara, Arachin 15b. A “Zav” is a man who suffers from a gonorrheal emission, a man who entertains lusts. “One who comes in contact with the dead'' is depression. The law requires that the leper is sent outside of all three encampments, because the attribute of anger has no place in all of Israel. The Zav was sent outside both the encampment of the Levites (see previous note) and the encampment of the Shekhina, for Torah scholars, exemplified by the Kohanim and the Levites, may not be steeped in lust. “One who has come in contact with the dead” is only sent outside of the Machanei haShechina, God’s camp, for Torah scholars also succumb at times to the attribute of sadness, as it is written in the Gemara (Ta’anit4a), “the Torah causes him to boil,” and this “boiling” is depression. Tainted by sadness, he is forbidden from entering into in the place of the Shechina [The Tabernacle in the desert or the Temple in Jerusalem, and so too the place where you have the greatest feeling of God’s presence because “strength and joy are in His place.”
For the Ishbitzer, tzaraat is the manifestation of anger. Depression and frustration cause people to figuratively boil in despair. These feelings of deep internal pain can be seen on the paleness and stiffness of the bodies of enraged people as they clench their fists and blink back tears. It’s perhaps where we derive the phrase “blood is boiling” when we feel enraged at something or someone in our midst. Our bodies are deeply impacted by the anger we feel, whether it’s through the presence of blistering rashes or the paling of our skin. And since the attribute of anger “has no place in all of Israel,” the individuals whose frustration causes their blood to boil must be removed.
Pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber, a Lutheran reverend who founded “House for All Sinners and Saints” in Denver, Colorado, writes in an essay titled “God’s No Leper Left Behind Program,” that leprosy is the living reminder that there are people around us who are suffering, and we too are vulnerable to it. She writes:
What might it look like for the camp of Bnei Yisrael to be able to hold individuals rather than isolate them? Whether it’s the suffering that Bolz-Weber is describing or the boiling anger that the Ishbitzer is diagnosing, the people we’ve categorized as impure with tzaraat are walking reminders that we will never truly be immune from these feelings of anguish. We channel that anxiety by removing lepers from our camps, encouraging angry people to calm down, silencing and marginalizing the embittered. But what if we chose the opposite response?
Tzaraat is a physical diagnosis to a spiritual crisis, one far more metastatic than amok me’or b’saro. The impulse to tamper the anger and bury the suffering is real, but we, too, are vulnerable to the moments that will make us twenty-first century lepers. May the angry, depressed, suffering, and anguished lepers of Parshat Tazria and our community in this moment alike feel seen, held, and appreciated as more than a diagnosis.
Shabbat Shalom!
