Rabbi Nancy Wechsler-Azen
Parashat Tazria/Metzora
April 16 2010
"When is time out, over?"
Why is this my favorite all time Torah portion for this week? Given that the portion deals with skin disease and mold, I had to stretch a little bit this week to get that to be true, but with G-d's help, a window of grace opened, and new insight entered the room of my mind and heart.
Tazria - Metzora deals primarily with a person becoming impure and requiring time outside the "camp" - outside of the community. Whether that time out came due to a woman giving birth, or a man or woman contacting the disease of tza'rat, or even clothing or a house being infected with this plague, time out away from the community was an absolute. The only one who could determine whether an individual was still afflicted with the disease or had been cured was the Cohen ha-Gadol, the High Priest. Only the High Priest could decide based on a series of tests: was the skin still white, was hair growing where the wound had been, was there redness or inflammation? Only if the person passed the tests could re-integration begin.
Even after the physical problem had been resolved, even after being deemed as healed, there was still a ritual needed to complete the experience. Leviticus Chapter 14 tells us what the once afflicted person needed to do, in order to move on.
"G-d spoke to Moses saying, "This shall be the law of the metzora on the day of his or her purification. The person shall be brought to the Kohen, the Kohen shall go forth to the outside of the camp; the Kohen shall look and behold, the tza'rat affliction had been healed. The Kohen shall command and for the person purified, there will be taken two live, clean birds, cedar wood, crimson thread and hyssop. The Kohen shall command and the one bird will be slaughtered into an earthenware vessel over spring water. As for the live bird, the Kohen shall take it with the cedar wood and crimson thread and the hyssop and he shall dip them and the live bird into the blood of the bird that was slaughtered over the spring water. Then he shall sprinkle seven times upon the person being purified from the tza'rat, he shall purify him and the live bird will be set free upon the open field.."
In the 21st century, we no longer have the Kohen Gadol; in fact once the second Temple was destroyed by the Romans in the 1st century, we no longer organized ourselves around a High Priest. The idea of Kohanim, priests, returned to the original ideal expressed in Exodus - that we should all be a mamlechet kohanim, a nation of priests. That means, with regard to judgment of whether someone has done their time long enough, that it is up to regular folks, you and me.
One contemporary test of regular folks taking on the role of priest and deciding whether or not a person has done enough time and could reintegrate back into our camp is Tiger Woods. Let me tell you up front, that I am not a golfer, but I know someone who is - and last weekend, there was the Master's tournament in which Tiger Woods came out of his time out chair and played. Having not played for several months, he played quite well - although he did not win. The question is whether it was enough time away? According to second hand sources, the fact that his wife did not attend, did not watch and was unhappy with his return suggests that, to the person to whom it matters most, he should have been declared not ready to return to the world stage.
Of course, there is tremendous pressure on celebrities from their sponsors to get back into the game, and so, an entire cottage industry cashes in on celebrity shame and raking in revenue based upon apologies designed to enable them to come out of time out as soon as possible.
There was a commercial produced by Nike that attempted to show Tiger had been purified. Tiger Woods looking directly into the camera with the voice over using sound bites of Tiger's deceased father asking the question, "What have you learned?" Turns out, by the way, that the original source of his father's comments was in contrasting how he, the father, operates, compared with Tiger's mother, who is more directive.
Some believe that the resurrection of Tiger's image in order to sell sneakers proves exactly the opposite of the intention of the commercial, that he definitely wasn't ready to re-enter the camp. Unfortunately for us, we don't, and undoubtedly never will have clear universally accepted criteria that tell us when the mistake has been dealt with sufficiently to allow reintegration.
In Judaism, we have a system delineating when a significant period of mourning is complete. A person in mourning has to observe at least a full cycle of the pilgrimage festivals, Passover, Shavuot and Sukkot before re-engaging socially; others say the year is completed once the 11 months have passed and the first Yahrtzeit is observed.
We have no such precise system for forgiveness. We have no such system for believing someone has done enough to warrant getting back into our hearts, and back to our good side.
We have the system of T'shuva; a word meaning "returning" where 1) we acknowledge that we have hurt someone, or made a poor choice, 2) we apologize or make restitution for what we have done and 3) we make a plan ahead of time, so when placed in a similar situation we will make a different choice.
During Yom Kippur, there are more prayers focusing on saying we are sorry, and less on actually forgiving other people. Author Stephen Levine has written about our ability to forgive people and learning to soften the edges so that we can let them back into our hearts. While his practice on this is lengthy, I would like to practice a brief experiment in forgiveness with you, and it will enable you to test your own personal criteria for the length of timeout required for someone to get back into good graces with you. It will not require us to say anything out loud or do anything. Not to worry. But please try this with me.
- Close your eyes for a moment, and allow yourself to create a circled frame. Now invite into that circled frame, slowly, someone who you are unhappy with, angry with, and someone who has violated trust in some way. Allow their image to come to mind. Looking at that person, see if you can find two things that are decent and good about that individual.
- See how allowing that good recognition helps soften the edges. Spend a moment or two recognizing something positive about that person and then gently let them fade away from the circle.
- This next time, allow another person into the frame - another person who you are unhappy with, angry with, someone who has violated trust in some way. Allow their image to come to mind. Looking at that person, see if you can find two things that are decent and good about that individual. See how allowing that good recognition helps soften the edges. Spend a moment or two recognizing something positive about that person and then gently let them fade away from the circle.
- This third and last time, once more create the frame. Slowly you will put your own image into the center of the frame. Looking at your own image, we often see the flaws and mistakes we've made - the places where we have lost patience, made poor choices, used our words unkindly, violated trust. Looking at your own image, find two things that you know are good and decent about yourself.
See how allowing that good recognition softens the edges. Spend a moment or two recognizing something positive about your own soul and then gently let that image fade away from the circle.
Take a breath and when you are ready, open your eyes. Tazria - Metzora is of course about defilements, living outside the camp and finally being judged cured by the High Priest. Tazria-Metzora is about people, all of us, making mistakes, making changes, healing and with integrity, coming out of time out. May we know when to cast out, and when to draw back in, and we say Amen.