This is a powerful portion but not a particularly lightweight teaching. If you wish to dig more deeply into cleaning up spiritual clutter, then please read on!
Tazria-Metzora, this week's Torah portion, deal extensively with three terms that require cleaning up: tzara'at, metzora, and nega (plural negaim). The word tzara'at is customarily translated as "leprosy,” but that translation is not in keeping with rabbinic tradition. Leprosy is a disease caused by objective physical phenomena. Tzara'at, as our Sages tell us, is a disease that came from G-d as a direct consequence of various transgressions. Our Sages also tell us that nowadays there is no tzara'at. This disease could only serve its purpose when it could impel a person to repent. One who suffers from tzara'at is called a metzora; a metzora is generally and incorrectly translated as a leper. The word nega is usually translated as "a plague.” It is used in the Torah to denote an outbreak of some kind in one's body, clothes, or house.
The Torah is rarely subtle. Rather, its pedagogy teaches with big, broad strokes and vivid color. Tazria-Metzora refers to unpleasant consequences that affect individuals, their clothes, and ultimate their homes. The plague begins small and potentially ruins lives. Often metzora is divided into two words, motzi ra, denoting that the real sin was that the individual drew out negativity through speech. The sin was gossip, whose consequences can tear apart the very fabric of one's life. Gratefully, there is a cure—and that cure is T'shuva. T'shuva in this case requires three things: 1) acknowledging there is a problem; 2) asking for forgiveness from those we have hurt through our words; 3) making a plan that will keep us from repeating the behavior in the future.
The Chofetz Chaim, a wonderful 19th century Polish rabbi, spent much of his life writing books exclusively about the perils of gossip: slander and shaming both subtle and overt. So cruel can be the power of unkind speech behind another's back that it is said that Rabbi Akiba's tens of thousands of students contracted a plague and died because of unkind speech. Because of the plague that took their lives, the period of counting omer from the second day of Pesach until Shavuot is a somber time, remembering the tragedy that comes to human relations through thoughtless words. Only on the 33rd day of the Omer, known as Lag B'Omer, was there a break in the devastation, and for that one day, the somber tone of the season breaks. Only on that day do Jews traditionally get a haircut, listen to live music, or get married. Unfortunately, after that 33rd day, the consequences of evil speech return, and we return as well to the somber counting of the Omer.
Everyone makes mistakes; it seems to be part of the human condition. The Talmud tells us that if a person commits a sin once and then a second time, he or she comes to think of that particular action as permissible, What happens, asked Rabbi Salanter, well known for spiritual ethics, if a person commits the same sin a third time? By then, that person comes to regard the sin as a mitzvah, a positive commandment. Slander and gossip become so justified in our minds that to be silent or walk away from gossip seems the wrong choice to make!
Rabbi Salanter taught that "the reason a person who finds fault with others is committing a sin is because he or she should have used that time to look into the mirror.” Tazria-Metzora calls out to us from the past to pay attention to the words we say and put more energy into seeing the good in everyone around us.
Shalom,
Rabbis Nancy and David