Parshiyyot Tazria-Metzora 5780 — 04/25/2020
Tazria – Vayikra 12:1-13:59
Metzora –Vayikra 14:1-15:33
When you come into the land of Canaan which I am giving you as a possession, I will put [lit “give you”] the tzara’at affliction in a house of your possession. (14:34)
The wording is unusual – do we normally expect that an “affliction” is actually a “gift”? Yet Gd promises us that our houses will have this tzara’at affliction, which at best will require emptying the house of all of our possessions and finding a new place to live for a while, during the necessary renovations, and at worst may involve demolishing the whole house. Anybody who has dealt with a severe mold problem in their house knows what that is like!
The commentators of course pick up on this linguistic anomaly and suggest various answers. Here are two of the ones commonly cited:
- A tzara’at affliction in the walls of the house requires one to tear down the wall in the affected area. Rabbinic tradition has it that the Canaanites in the time of Yehoshua would hide their valuables in the walls of their houses, thinking they would soon be able to recover them when the Israelites were finally repelled. When the walls were dismantled, the Jews found their predecessors’ gold and silver, and realized that this affliction was, in fact, a gift of Gd.
- Tzara’at is most often associated with lashon hara (derogatory speech), but it is also associated with stinginess as well. Tzara’at of houses exposes this stinginess. How so? The stingy man’s neighbor asks if he can borrow some tool or some household goods. The miser will claim he has none, or they’re being repaired, or whatever. Now Gd puts tzara’at on the house, and he is obliged to call a Kohen. The Kohen orders everything to be removed from the house so that when he declared the house to be afflicted, everything inside would not acquire ritual impurity from the tzara’at. Now, with everything on the front lawn, everybody knows that he really did have that lawn mower, or snow blower, or whatever. How embarrassing! In this case Gd’s “gift” is not for the homeowner, but for all his neighbors!
Or haChaim suggests a different way of looking at the whole phenomenon of tzara’at, be it in a person’s house, his clothing or his person:
[We can explain “I will give you…”] based on what the Sages said in the Midrash (Vayikra Rabbah 17:4): R. Levi said: …the Merciful one does not initially afflict the bodies [of the sinners]. At first the afflictions come upon his house…
If, after the affliction comes on the house the person doesn’t mend his ways, the affliction comes onto the person’s clothing. Only if that fails does Gd afflict the person’s body, and then only the skin – the most superficial part of the body. Once the body is struck, the person must take substantial steps to recover, including going outside the camp and living alone (he can’t even live with others who have been banished for the same reason). Quarantine, with its associated opportunity to go inward and reflect on the course of one’s life, is most likely to give one the opportunity to confront himself, admit to himself where he has gotten off the right path, and make the necessary changes in his thinking and behavior. On a deeper level, the process of t’shuvah or “return” means returning to the essence of what we are, which is pure, unbounded Existence. This involves “going out of the camp” – leaving the ordinary world of material existence, and “dwelling alone” – in the transcendent. The mind is allowed to settle down, experience pure Existence, and come out purified and refreshed, able to look at the world not from within the world, but from the detached perspective of the transcendent. From this perspective, whatever appetites caused the person to sin appear petty and ephemeral, and the sin just loses its appeal.
Or haChaim goes on to explain the whole phenomenon of tzara’at in houses in an allegorical sense:
“The house” alludes to the person’s body, which houses the soul. “The Kohen” in this passage alludes to the Creator. When Hashem sees that the affliction is “in the walls of the house,” meaning that the evil component has permeated the very essence of this person’s body and caused the “house,” to become repulsive, … Hashem commands to “seal the house,” meaning that the sinner will not be infused [with the Divine bounty which allows him to remain alive]. … If the person realizes this and he repents, then all is well. But if not, Hashem will command that suffering be brought, to cleanse his stains and affliction. This is the deeper meaning of the “removal of the stones”. … If his actions remain repulsive, then he dies. And this is the statement: He shall demolish the house – its stones, etc. (v. 45).
The process Or haChaim describes here is the same as the overall “etiology” of tzara’at: it starts out at the furthest remove from our essence, namely our house. If we don’t wake up to the reality of our situation, it proceeds to afflict our clothes – the covering of our flesh. We can demolish our house and burn our clothes, but if we don’t make significant changes then the affliction will hit our bodies. We can’t run away from our bodies. If we still remain closed to the import of our condition, the affliction will work its way into our souls. For that level of impurity our Sages tell us only death can atone. Better to nip it in the bud. Transcend and find the treasure within. Come back to the world of activity and find treasure in your own home.
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Commentary by Steve Sufian
Parshiyyot Tazria-Metzora
“Tazria” means “she conceives.” Literally, it means “when a woman gives birth” but, symbolically, it can refer to bringing any action or project to fulfillment. “Metzorah” Chabad says is often mistranslated as “leper” but it is actually a super-natural plague. These parshiyyot present some of Gd’s commands about the states of being unclean and clean and also about the means for purification – pure water is involved both in the purification of a mother who has just given birth and in the purification of the metzora who has some blemishes on his/her skin, garments or home. Symbolically, a blemish can be a blemish of our mind that prevents us from being completely aware of the Unitary Nature of Gd, the All-n-All Nature of Gd. This blemish can be removed by deeper experiences of Consciousness, for which water is a common symbol. Words of Torah, of Siddur, and experiences through Transcendental Meditation are good ways to deepen our experience of Consciousness.
Tazria also presents the date for celebrating the beginning of a new year. When we are clean we can enter the Sanctuary and get the added ability to enjoy Gd’s Presence that the Harmonious Nature of the Sanctuary provides. Similarly, new year provides such an opportunity since it is an opportunity to let go any troubles, any blemishes, that might have been veiling our experience of Gd’s Presence.
Oddly, a woman is considered unclean for some time after she gives birth: I say, “oddly” because considering the holiness of giving birth, we might expect that a new mother would be particularly clean and therefore most able to perceive Gd’s Presence and most welcome to enter the Sanctuary.
Necheima Grossman on chabad.org suggests an explanation: Gd has commanded that a person who touches a dead body is ritually impure; when a woman is carrying her fetus in the womb, she is extra pure – she has two lives. When the child is born, she has only one life inside herself, and so there is, in a sense, a loss of life. So she needs a bit of time and some ritual to feel fully alive again inside herself and not dependent upon her child outside herself to feel fully alive.
In other areas of our lives – for example, working on some extended project for work, home, service to community – there would certainly be the desire to celebrate when the project is complete but there might also be a feeling of loss, a feeling of emptiness because we no longer have the joy of hope to finish, a hope that can connect us to Gd’s Presence, through the silent prayer “Gd, please help!” We have, instead, the joy of fulfillment, but perhaps some loss of the feeling that we need Gd and therefore less attention to the various spiritual practices that we do to connect to Gd.
Hopefully, we don’t have much of a loss, and we don’t have much time before we return to the perspective that what matters most in our life is not the fulfillment of any particular project, even childbirth, but deepening our connection with Gd, restoring our awareness to Fullness, to the experience of Oneness, Wholeness.
From my experiences with members of our congregation, readers of our newsletter, I am confident that we do maintain perspective, that every moment is a new year, our practices, experiences and purity keeps rising and with it, our restoration of Full Awareness, Full Awareness that All is One, and One is Joy and Love, our Essential Nature.
Baruch HaShem