Rabbi Mati Kirschenbaum
As a student rabbi, once a month I visited a small Jewish community in Germany. My responsibilities there included leading Sunday school activities for children. One day, a week before my next scheduled visit, the chair of the community sent me an email. She suggested that I could liven things up at the Sunday school by acting out this week’s Torah portion. I wrote back that this might not be the best idea as many Torah portions are legal codes which have no narrative to play-out. Still, the chair insisted. Finally, I acceded to her decisive requests and forwarded her a short summary of this week’s double Torah portion, Tazria-Metzora. After a few hours, I received the following reply: ‘This parasha is all about skin diseases and the plague in the house! I don’t think we want our children to act it out.’ To my relief, this put an end to the idea of our ‘parsha theatre’.
Indeed, Tazria-Metzora is not the easiest fragment of Torah to read. It focuses on ways of cleaning individuals and places from ritual impurity. The discussed cases of impurity range from individuals afflicted with skin disease, through houses where there has been an eruptive plague on the wall, to individuals who experienced a genital discharge.
I think we can all agree that these topics don’t sound particularly appetizing. What is more, as Progressive Jews, we find it difficult to relate to them. It is because our movement has decided that the concept of ritual impurity is outdated. This decision was predicated on its exclusionary character. Progressive Jews struggled with the idea that anyone could be excluded from participation in communal life based on their physical characteristics. Progressive opposition was strongest when it came to arguing against the laws of niddah. Progressive Judaism often views these rules, which stipulate impurity of menstruating women, as a patriarchal form of control over the female body. As such, our movement stands in opposition to ultra orthodox Judaism, which regards the laws of monitoring of menstrual cycles as the cornerstone of so-called ‘family purity’. It is important to note that such ‘family purity’ is achieved by subjecting women to invasive examination and control of their bodily functions.
As we just saw, the laws of niddah, regulated family life mostly at the expense of women.
Yet our portion also contains a law which, at times, would have an even further-reaching impact on family well-being. I refer here to the law that dealt with the case of eruptive plague in the house, described in Leviticus 14.
“When you enter the land of Canaan that I give you as a possession, and I inflict an eruptive plague upon a house in the land you possess, the owner of the house shall come and tell the priest, saying, ‘Something like a plague has appeared upon my house.’” (Leviticus 14:34-35)
Following such notification, the priest ordered the family residing in the building to leave their home. Once they did, the priest inspected the house. If he discovered a plague, the priest ordered the house to be closed for seven days. On the seventh day the priest inspected the house again. If the plague did not abate, the stones where it appeared were to be replaced and the house was to be replastered. From this moment onwards, the house was carefully observed. If the plague were to appear there once again, it was to be torn down.
At the pshat (literal) level, these verses describe an ancient form of sanitary control, aimed at preservation of family purity during an outbreak of an eruptive plague in a house. Yet, on a deeper level, it proposes a framework for communal living in the Land of Israel. This framework shall become evident when we explore the context in which this law was applied.
First, we should notice that the Eternal itself inflicts this plague. Major commentators (Nachmanides and Ibn Ezra) state that this simply means that it is not a natural occurrence. However, this does not explain God’s reason to afflict the Israelites who just entered the promised land. Such an explanation was proposed by Rabbi Abraham Azulai (1570-1643), Moroccan-born Kabbalist who later settled in Hebron. In his work Ba’ale Berit Abraham Azulai explains that the eruptive plague was a punishment for Israelites who did not behave kindly towards their neighbors.
Second, the disruptive eruptive plague can be inflicted upon the Israelites immediately after they entered the land of Canaan. The Eternal did not wait for the Israelites to secure their borders. As soon as their houses were built, they could have been subjected to plague.
Third, the inhabitants of the houses immediately reported the emergence of eruptive plague in their homes to the priest. If we accept Rabbi Azulai’s explanation that this plague was a punishment for unkind behavior, the act of informing the priest about its appearance takes on a new meaning. It is a public admittance of the household’s shortcomings, of its members’ lack of empathy towards their neighbors.
This coming week we shall celebrate 75 years of Israeli independence. Within one lifetime, Israel has become an important technological, economical and military player on the international stage. Even more importantly, it provided a safe haven for Jews fleeing persecution and poverty persistent in many countries. Millions of Jews built homes in the ancient homeland of our people.
These are truly remarkable achievements that should be saluted. Still, when we celebrate our Homeland, we must not forget that the new homes of ancient Israelites were affected by plague caused by their indifference and unkindness. Today’s Israeli society is more divided than ever before; the plague that once affected buildings now spread among people who live and work in them.
Our parasha warns us that the plague can be contained if the dwellers of Israel act immediately; one cannot wait for a better, peaceful time. What is more, everyone must be ready to examine their deeds and openly acknowledge their faults. Only if all who live in Israel are committed to putting their houses in order, can the society get rid of the plague.
In the current political climate the removal of the plague of factional hostility in Israel seems elusive at best. Having said that, I encourage you not to give up hope. Recent mass demonstrations in defense of democracy in Israel have proven that a high proportion of Israelis committed to fighting the plague of exclusionary, radical nationalism. I hope and pray their actions become foundation stones upon which plague-free homes – and Homeland – are built. Ken Yehi Ratzon – may this be Divine will! Chag haAtzmaut Sameach!
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