Tazria / Metzora.

This week, in addition to it being Rosh Chodesh Iyyar (new month), we
read the double Torah portion of Tazria / Metzora.

In our 2nd triennial year, we read Lev 13:40 - 14:32, dealing with
some of the niceties of skin diseases ("leprosy"). We see that not
only can a person become infected, but his clothes can, as well, or
even simply a piece of fabric. We also see the rules governing an
elaborate series of rituals performed *after the leper has been
cured." He doesn't immediately return to his job and his family, but
he must accomplish a ceremony ridding him of the impurity.

Strangely enough, there is a detail in the torah that seems crazy:

After the person is diagnosed by the kohen to have the disease, he
himself (the leper) has the responsibility to cover his mustache area
with fabric and to call out "tamei, tamei - impure, inpure."

How different this is than the world in which we live. Rather than
announcing that which afflicts us (or even those we love), we whisper
the word "cancer" or "leukemia" or whatever, as if by not naming it,
a disease will simply disappear.

The Torah teaches us that infections and epidemics need to be named
and proclaimed. The diagnosis must be shared in order to be overcome
and cured. Whether the disease is biological, social or
psychological, the true process of curing or healing requires
admitting and acknowledging that a problem exists, and calling it by
its name. Rather than bringing it into existence, naming a disease is
the first step required in countering it, in creating an "anti-venom"
for what ails us.

Placing the responsibility for beginning the cure in the hands of the
one who is afflicted is not an added burden, but rather sends the
message that the principal person responsible for a person's healing
is the sufferer himself.

In this era of the disease of poverty that jumps from company to
company and infects so many around us, how wonderful it is to know
that the afflicted (even if they did not give themselves the
sickness) hold the keys to the cure in their very own hands! There
can be no greater empowerment than this.

Shabbat Shalom

R' David Bockman
Croton Jewish Center

< Prev		Next >