Parashat Tazria – 5782
Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz, Rabbi of the Western Wall and Holy Sites
Parashat Tazri’a deals extensively with tzara’at (a progressive skin disease that can take on many forms). When the Temple stood, a person afflicted with tzara’at would come to the kohen (priest) who would determine if the affliction was pure or impure. If it was determined to be impure, the afflicted person would remain outside the camp until enough time passed for him to be pure.
The Talmud reveals that the affliction of tzara’at we learn about in our parasha came as punishment for speaking lashon haraI (slander or libel) about another person:
Reish Lakish says: What is that which is written: “This shall be the law of the leper (metzora)?” This means that this shall be the law of a defamer (motzi shem ra).
(Arachin 15B)
This saying of Reish Lakish’s joins those of Chazal who added a different layer to our ordinary understanding of tzara’at. While in the ancient world, tzara’at was a known disease, according to our sages, it was not a natural phenomenon or bodily impurity, but rather it appeared as punishment for speaking ill of others.
The Talmud continues to explain that someone who slanders is punished with tzara’at because he separates people, therefore he should be separated from people.
The Ba’al Shem Tov reveals another layer in the relationship between the sin – lashon hara, and the punishment – tzara’at.
A person who guards their tongue shows that he is good to the core. However, a person who speaks maliciously about others reveals that there is evil inside him. That evil is so strong that it causes him to let it out in the form of speaking badly of others. There are those who are physically sick and those who are spiritually sick. The person who speaks badly of others reveals that his soul is ill. It is so full of evil that it leaks out.
A person who sees the shortcomings in others actually is seeing the shortcomings in himself, but since he cannot admit to them, he seemingly identifies them in someone else. Based on this, it is clear that someone who speaks badly of someone else is revealing his own evil. Therefore, this inner flaw manifests itself as a physical affliction – tzara’at.
Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch (rabbi of Frankfort and one of the greatest Jewish thinkers of his generation, 1808 – 1888) explained the sin and punishment in a different way. The skin is where the person comes in contact with the outside world. Whoever has a problematic and faulty encounter with the outside world, and instead of seeing the good around him, keeps focusing on the bad, becomes afflicted with tzara’at – rot that spreads through the body.
What kind of repair does the Torah suggest for someone who sinned in lashon hara? How can a person be cured of tzara’at?
If a man has…on the skin of his flesh, and it forms a lesion of tzara’at on the skin of his flesh, he shall be brought to Aaron the kohen… The kohen shall look at the lesion… the kohen shall quarantine the [person with the] lesion… the kohen shall pronounce him clean… The kohen shall pronounce him unclean…
(Leviticus 13, 2-8)
The kohen is the one who diagnoses tzara’at and is the only one who can cure it. Usually, when someone suffers from an illness, it is a doctor who cures it. The fact that tzara’at was both diagnosed and treated by a kohen teaches us that it was a somatic/spiritual illness. It manifested itself physically in the body, but it was a spiritual person who treated it.
The kohens, the sons of Aaron who loved peace and pursued peace, were noted for using the power of speech positively. Therefore, a person who used his power of speech detrimentally by speaking badly of others is forced to meet the kohen in order to learn from him what is allowed and what is forbidden in speech, what is constructive and what is destructive, and from that to learn to use the power of speech in a positive and constructive manner.
