Leviticus Cycle Two Tazria Metzorah 12:1 to 15:33

Tazria/Metzorah

Leprosy. What could it possibly teach us in a world of modern communication, airplanes, five lane highways, war, medicine, cancer, heart disease, organic fruits and vegetables, yoga? Why are two whole parshas devoted to it? In the Talmud (15b) we read that if metzorah is split into three parts…motzi shem ra…it becomes the law for he who brings up an evil name. This is quite different than the law for he who has a lesion. In other words, it’s all about our words.

No doubt, our words can inflict brutal sores. Our lack of self restraint can destroy. The wrong comment can split families, lovers, friends. Such comments can feed into animosity between communities, countries, lead to war, spiritual and physical death. Too much cannot be said about the power of words. The evil name though is rarely intended as evil. It is mistaken as well meaning and often supported by a base form of subjective honesty that conflicts with love-honesty, the highest form. More often than not, words slip out. They aren’t intended to hurt but they do. And just like a lesion on the skin can be a symptom…leshon harah is a symptom of a much deeper illness. And just like we don’t cure leprosy by only looking at the lesion, we don’t cure lashon harah by only looking at the words. We need to heal ourselves from both the outside-in and the inside-out.

So then, once again, what is leprosy in Torah? It is the oozing darkness that is being pushed out from our hearts to our skin. It seeps from our pours when we least expect it. It works in ways beyond our vision, our understanding. It manifests itself in the tiny frightening sounds we make as we move from the radiance of God to the mundane…in the cries of despair from our human forms as we try to carry the beauty of nothingness into the world. This ego-swelling is what comes out of us, the anger, the fear, when we are in more pain then we can describe simply because we are getting closer, not farther from God. They are the sores and blisters that show up on our skin when we think we are doing everything right but are too close to see what we have done wrong. The true pain, the true cause, stems from our very condition, our very reason for being here. God after all, wants us to magnify His radiance. And if in so doing, we see how hard it is…we see the illness…then what do we do with it? How do we keep ourselves clean? How do we keep that illness apart from the people we love who we must bless? How do we discern the darkness and be in the sparks flowing from the fountain of purity? How do we pull back when we, ourselves, feel leprous?

I don’t know any answers here.

Tazria begins with (and infers) conception though so let’s look at that. There, massive light is brought into the world in the form of another human being in the midst of impurities. That being, whether human or a massive folding of divine sparks, is accompanied by darkness as well. And that’s the pain we feel as we come down the mountain. It’s what transforms the purity of the transmission into an incoherent mass of jumbled sounds. It’s the pain that Miriam feels as she attempts to bring the beauty of the divine to the people. The more beauty, the greater the shock of this world, the greater the potential illness, the more tiny scabs and lesions, the greater the burden and the blessing.

But wait. Blessing? Lepracy a blessing? Rashi says that the word behareth is the same used in Job (37:21) to refer to bright spots of cloud in the sky. This means that even the darkness that we receive so unknowingly is also a gift. After all, without darkness how could we be given the chance to cut it away from our hearts, reach for the heightened glory? Our working together, our time, our focus, our praying for each other, our seclusion, our vision..these are all holy actions jump started by the very presence of evil. The problem though is feeling holy around stuff that’s so disgusting. It’s hard being so spiritual when we are hurting.

This is where Proverbs can help. There we read: The mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life. Ah, we are right back to the teachings of our rabbis. Here, we learn that while we are doing the eternal inner searching we are best off acting as if it is done. We must be gentle with ourselves and heal the symptoms…the words… as we continue the powerful work with diligence.

So, may we honor Torah. May we respect our teachers. May we help each other with love and caring. May we refuse to accept evil in our words. And as our minds and souls discern and cut off the darkness, may our hearts open to the fountains of life and the radiance of God.