Parashat Tazria / Metzora

Parashat Tazria / Metzora

Iyar 6, 5772 ~ April 28, 2012

by Eugene Vorobeychik

The laws of tzarat (typically, and, it seems, inaccurately, translated as leprocy) are among the more puzzling.  First, there is the tzarat of the body, which seems like a skin disease.  The kohen diagnoses the disease, which renders one impure, and isolates the ill person from the rest.  So far, it has all the trappings of an infectious disease, but then comes the kicker: if the entire body is "infected", the person is rendered pure! But, this is only a part of the fun.  As it happens, there is also the "leprocy" of clothes, and of the house.  Again, one may, perhaps, argue that these contract an infectious disease, but then there is the following puzzle: one is enjoined to remove the furniture from the house before (!) the kohen gets there to diagnose the disease.  If we were truly concerned about an infection, surely we should be stringent about the items that may have contracted it in the house!

These points are not originally mine; they were made by R. David Hoffman in an attempt to cast doubt on the typical rational explanations of tzarat, such as that of an infectious disease in need of quarantine, which have been advanced by other commentators.

A midrash offers another explanation for tzarat: it is, the chazal posit, a contraction of two words that mean tale bearing.  Just as Miriam was stricken by the disease for belittling Moshe, a person stricken with tzarat is punished for speaking ill of another.  Other sources suggest that tzarat is a punishment for a series of other sins as well, such as robbery, pride, and greed.  In a nutshell, tzarat is a supernatural phenomenon, a miraculous sign for a person to mend their ways.

But why this particular sign, of all others?  Wouldn't it be easier for God to tell a person directly of the trasgression?  But easy is not the point: easy lessons rarely stick.  The Torah, therefore, prescribes a deeply symbolic, meaningful lesson. Rabbi S. R. Hirsch puts it as follows:

"...the whole person who, instead of using organs which are given to him for obtaining and practicing modesty, truth, for doing good and justice, spreading kindness, truth, and peace, has made himself the bearer and spreader of the very opposite of all these, and has shown himself as the object of hate and abomination of God, Who, accordingly, sends him the mark of His deep displeasure..."

Besides the symbolic significance, there is also experiential significance, as stated in Arakhin:

"Joshua b. Levi said: Why did the Torah prescribe for the metzora (leper) the special penalty of isolation outside the camp?  Because he separated a husband from his wife and a man from his fellow [by speaking lashon harah], let him be separated and 'dwell alone'."

I would suggest that there is another lesson in the punishment meeted out to the metzora.  Our lives are full of uncertainty, and there is often a need to create a perception of control.  The sins for which the metzora is punished can be viewed as particular pathological manifestations of an attempt to control the world around us: for example, lashon hara is an attempt to have control over the events surrounding others through narratives about them, and greed is an attempt to control our livelihood.  The punishment, therefore, is to take away control from the metzora over such basic things as where he dwells, and when he can reenter the social life, and place it entirely in the hands of another.  Just as Egypt became the experiential paradigm for many of the laws governing the relationships between people, tzarat, and halachot surrounding it, becomes the experiential basis for repentance.