III-4 Tazria Social Leprosy with a Jaundiced Eye

Torah: Lv 12-13:59 JPS transl

http://learn.jtsa.edu/topics/parashah/jp...

Haftorah: 2Kgs 4:42-5:19 JPS transl

http://learn.jtsa.edu/topics/parashah/jp...

Aliyot: 1. Lv 12:1-13:5

2. Lv 13:6-13:17

3. Lv 13:18-23

4. Lv 13:24-28

5. Lv 13:29-39

6. Lv 13:40-54

7. Lv 13: 55-59

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Tazria is concerned with the laws governing childbirth,"brit milah"-circumcison and tzar'as-"leprosy" with its associated physical and spiritual impurities. Tazria balances birth with its hope of new life and creativity with warnings of degenerative disease that corrupt the person, physically and spiritually, appearing in the clothes and home and extending to society. Tzara'as or "leprosy" is a spiritual and physical illness, corrupting the life of a person. Only the Kohen administered diagnosis. Rabbinical interpretion explores the passage metaphorically, acknowledging that spiritual corruption is contagious and, unless isolated, is a malignant cancer in society. Isolation is imposed on contagious diseases: scarlet fever or diptheria. Such plagues fall on the good and the bad, the innocent and the guilty, but "tzara'at", frequently translated as leprosy, is asssociated to "lashon hara" -slander. Slander and gossip corrupt society, defacing it as a degenerative disease that mutilates the body while robbing it of its functions.

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"As for the person with a leprous affection, his clothes shall be rent, his head shall be left bare, and he shall cover over his upper lip; and he shall call out, "Unclean! Unclean!" He shall be unclean as long as the disease is on him. Being unclean, he shall dwell apart; his dwelling shall be outside the camp." Lv 13: 45-46 JPS

"He who guards his mouth and tongue Guards himself from trouble" Prv 21:23 JPS

SOCIAL LEPROSY WITH A JAUNDICED EYE &&&&&&&&&&&&

The punishment seems injust. Contemporary readers exclaim, "How barbaric!" presuming the Kohen to be a witch doctor attending a physical ailment, conducting a magical ritual. Misconception arises from inaccurate translation, relating the malady to the known physical disease, associated with noses and fingers rotting away and people dying in putrid conditions of leper colonies.

This is not tzara'as. Year after year, preachers spout polemical diatribes, regarding the cruelty of Judaism and the compassion of Jesus with the leper, exacerberating the conflict. This is not leprosy, the dreaded physical illness; but a spiritual rot formenting in the hidden depths of the soul and emerging in the superficial appearance of a person's house, clothes and ultimately his body. Ostracism occurs only after every other precaution has been taken, with exacting detail, in the forty-third verse. The rabbis, concerned with the well-being of the individual, expanded these passages, preserving discussion in the Talmud and adding further commentary throughout the centuries.

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