Apr 21/07 — Parashat Tazria / Metzora

Commentary by Rabbi Lawrence Pinsker

This week we cover two portions of Torah from the Book of Leviticus. In the first section, we find instructions concerning the return of women back into everyday life following the birth of a child. Nobody knows the reason for these commandments, although there are a lot of guesses. The second part is about an unpleasant and frightening-looking skin disorder incorrectly labeled “leprosy.” Instead of being frightened by it, the priesthood worked to identify the problem and recommend treatment. They also took the smart step of quarantining people who had this type of illness.

They also did something that isn’t always done in modern medicine. They would perform a formal ritual welcoming someone who’d been ill back into the community, allaying superstition-driven fears that those who had been ill were “different” and dangerous.

A vivid example of this occurred several years ago in Toronto. I was asked to officiate at the funeral of a woman who had died of SARS. She was the second Jewish death attributable to SARS. Two weeks earlier, the woman’s husband – who was in hospital for a minor heart problem – had been the first Jewish victim. Most of this couple’s children and grandchildren were also exposed to SARS while visiting their father/grandfather. (A patient in another bed in the same room turned out to be the disease vector.)

The woman’s graveside funeral was attended by hundreds of friends and acquaintances who had been moved by this double tragedy. But despite the fact that the quarantine had already been lifted for those family members at the funeral, no one wanted to come closer to offer comfort to the grieving children and grandchildren. As the funeral concluded, the son collapsed. Instinctively, I reached out and held him. Only then did the crowd break their fear-filled and distant ranks and rush forward to embrace the mourners.

This Shabbat’s prophetic reading – haftarah – takes place during the Aramean army’s siege of Samaria about three thousand years ago. Elisha the Prophet encouraged the Samarians to resist, saying that the Aramean invaders would soon be defeated. The King’s chief advisor, however, mocked Elisha’s assurances.

The story tells of four lepers who decided to go into the camp of the Arameans to ask for food. The lepers, already in quarantine outside the city, had neither food nor protection against the Arameans. Knowing that either they would die of starvation or be killed by enemy soldiers, the lepers took a chance. As the lepers approached the Aramean camp, God caused a sound of chariots and horses. Terrified, the Arameans fled. When the lepers entered, they found it filled with more gold, silver, and food than they could have imagined.

The lepers returned to the city of Samaria and told the guards that the Aramean camp was empty. No one was prepared to believe the news, so the King sent people to investigate. When they confirmed the lepers’ story, many of the Israelites invaded the camp, feasted, and took their pick of Aramean goods.

The Haftarah ends with the King’s advisor – who had made fun of Elisha’s prophecy – being trampled by the Israelites as they raced for their share of the abandoned Aramean food and riches.

What do we learn from this story? First of all, we are shown two contrasting kinds of people. The first is prepared to act and to investigate a situation and the second who sits back and cynically says to the one who acts, “I don’t believe you and I don’t need to check out what you claim to be the facts.” After all, who would have thought that Elisha’s prophecy could come true, given the enormity of the seemingly-invincible Aramean army? Who would accept the word of lepers – the outcasts of Samarian society – that Elisha’s prophecy had indeed come to pass? The Israelites would have stayed locked up in their city and died of starvation and fear.

The lesson seems to be that we must repeatedly verify the things we believe to be true – it is unhealthy and even dangerous to assume nothing has changed. We must be active in the world, rather than passively accepting what is said to us, especially when things appear at their worst. Above all else, we must accept the task formerly the exclusive province of the priesthood and rise above fear to attend to the needs of those who are afflicted with illness. Our ancestors understood that community must be protected from illness afflicting some of its members, but they also knew that there needed to be a formal method for protecting community members from the power of the masses to unfairly stigmatize and exclude individuals.

Shabbat Shalom.