Leviticus Cycle Five Tazria

Tazria

The challenge in Tazria is in all the concealed layers of reality. You think you get it and then you see there’s one more thin sensitive skin that needs to be lifted and explored. And that’s what this parasha is all about, understanding and discerning the layers.

 Layers of what you might ask. Layers of us, of what makes us tick, of the resonance of our words, of our actions way after the fact, layers of us beyond-body, echoes of our deepest creations and failures, our most hidden fears and regrets, our purest God-voice, the tar and spit stuck to our bones.  Because in a parasha seemingly dedicated to yes…childbirth and then leprosy…if we want to make sense of it beyond giant sores and oozing blood we need to dare to rise to what these sores might symbolize.  And then once we are given a symbol, we need to even create a symbol of the symbol.

Here’s an example. The rabbis relate leprosy to lashon harah.  What’s important about our Talmudic rabbis though isn’t always what they say but how they get there. It’s all about process. So if they are going to raise leprosy to lashon harah  our question is this: How can we emulate that process of creating symbol? What would lashon harah itself symbolize? Yes,  I’m being a bit radical here. After all,  isn’t lashon harah enough of an explanation? Rashi himself mentions it. But (with great respect for the rabbis) it illuminates most of the parasha but not all of it.  It doesn’t explain how a leper can be seen as tamay….and how a woman post-childbirth can also be seen as tamay. I mean…before meds maybe she would swear up a storm during childbirth. But I don’t think that would be enough to load her into the same category as a leper.  A woman after all who gives birth is not experiencing a pulsing of negativity out from her core-center. She’s experiencing beauty and creation.

What this means is this:  The layers here go beyond the seeming holy and the seeming un-holy. And so does the idea of tamay. The state of tamay is caused by something that connects both holy and not-so-holy states of being and also necessitates healing. 

And in my opinion…from what I have studied… we are looking at relative balance, imbalance and direction.

The emphasis on balance in Judaism is huge. Inner stability and steadiness is necessary for compassionate action, kind words and walking in God’s path. In other words, as much as it feels (in Torah) that the emphasis is on reaching and maintaining a higher spiritual state, this can’t be accessed without a deep self-understanding and strong core. Rabbi Nachman is well known to have compared life to a very narrow bridge. It takes balance and self-trust to walk the bridge.  If we fall off of on either end,  the truth of the matter remains: We fall off.

But of course, extending this metaphor, there is more to Judaism then just the bridge and the fall. There are states of being in which we are hanging on to the edge with our heels or our hands, tottering. This state-of being in Judaism (I believe) is what is referred to in the state of tamay. 

The state of tamay therefore is a place of either seeming-great holiness or great earth-pain. It’s when we get to the edge of what our bodies can tolerate.  We can’t get any farther from God and still be on (and not in the) earth. We can’t get any closer and still be human.  We’re in about as close to an out-of –body experience as possible. We are walking the edge. The edge of humanity.

And the focus now as we enter two weeks of Tazria/Metzorah is on how, once we are faced with imbalance, we can recognize it, relate with community and those we love and bring ourselves back to center.

Who becomes tamay?  Once again but really getting specific….anyone completely caught up in and rendered half-insane  by any and all physical challenges, emotional/psychological dirt, pseudo-meditations, grieving, past actions they can’t forgive, their own words, the words of others, misguided obsessions, ricocheting emotions, myopic indecision, paralyzing fear, the birthing of  any kind of creation, the pain of others, or any set determination to stay away from the pain of this world for as long as humanely possible.

Well then….yes…we all become tamay.  And we all know it’s not exactly how we want to be when we enter the Promised Land.  But we don’t have to worry about that. Torah saves us from that. This is how: While we are tamay we can’t enter the Promised Land…whether that means the sexual garden of Eden you create with a lover or a sacred and pure connection with God or an honest joining of souls in a worthwhile relationship or a strong and healthy community.  While we are tamay, forget it. We can bang our heads a million time against those gilded doors of the Promised Land but they won’t open.

 So it’s good to look at this carefully.  First, why is tamay so often mistaken for either the unclean or the enlightened?  I think because it feels like there’s a propulsion of energy pushing you out of yourself. Because you are far from human-connection you feel you are with God.  What we need to realize though is that this state of being out of ourselves does not necessarily merge us with divine sustenance. It’s the Preview, let’s say, but certainly not the whole film. And we need to watch the whole film to know the God-story.

Here’s an example. It’s from Chronicles. There was a King. He was a great warrior. He conquered many lands. His name was Uzziah.  He thought he was so great that one day he just entered the temple, took out a pan and began to offer incense on the incense altar. Now, this action is reserved for priests. Not everyone is at that level of holiness. Uzziah though really thought he was. He felt that the level of tamay achieved through continual and successful battle (can you imagine always being around horses trampling, children shrieking, bloody spears, rotten bodies) was the same as a state of holiness. The rabbis say his action was the result of his arrogance. I think there was simply a misunderstanding;  he thought he was spiritual when he wasn’t. Well, when the priests came out to tell him to go he fell into a rage. He really didn’t get it. And then his forehead broke out in leprosy.  And it was clear he was on the edge. And he was isolated.

The lesson: If we think we are right how outrageous the actions we can commit. If we think we are acting in God’s name…if we think we are that close…how disgusting the boils that will appear on our forehead…our third eye… for all to see.

There are many other examples. Romeo and Juliet were certainly tamay. In fact, I could even dare declare that all great plots are driven by one tamay person or the next. People changing jobs, people deep in love, people who feel they are on a more heightened plane than others, people who feel lower than others, people who have fear seething from their cells, people who can’t act with basic and obvious compassion.

So….how many of us aren’t tamay? That’s the real question. Not many of us. We are all experiencing various states of tamay all the time.

This is the good news though. There’s a great line in Torah and it catches me whenever I study Tazria and am becoming over-obsessive (and tamay) with figuring out all the various increments and types of boils and scars and burns and infections. The good news is this: Line 13:13 (Leviticus).

When the priest sees that the leprous discoloration has covered all the skin, he shall declare the person clean. As long as he has turned completely white. He is clean.

To me, this is like a miracle. We can only totter on the edge of the bridge so long. Sooner or later we  get to the very edge of the edge, the complete covering of the leprosy, the absolute state of confusion, the ceiling of the pain when you are in love, the ceiling of pain when you are in mourning, the most disgusting memory of some words you once wrote or said, the absolute nausea when you see those words,  the most hurtful action you know you can possibly commit, the most outrageous self-destructive emotion you can ever entertain, the most polluted layer of smog you can ever breathe-out, the most evasive form of self-denial you have ever bought,  the most self-righteous explanations you can ever find….and you know at that moment like an epiphany like the end of seven days of purification that the only way out is up, that because you are now in a state of healing you are no longer tamay at all. You are clean. You are pointed in the direction of balance. And because you are… this is when you have the absolute proximity to God and the almost prophetic power to heal others.

We can’t force it. On the contrary. We just have to inspect it and be patient and watch it and then one day if it gets extreme enough and you know it…then you will be clean.  And the cleanliness will spread. The movement will be in the direction of God.

As Kabir says: Why should we two ever want to part?  As the river moves itself into the ocean, what is inside me moves inside you.