|
|
April 8, 2005/Adar II 28 5765, Volume 57, No. 32
Disease and the spirit
Torah study
STACY K. OFFNER
Parsha Tazria, Leviticus 12:1-13.59
When a person has on the skin of his body a swelling, a rash, or a discoloration, and it develops into a scaly affection on the skin of the body, it shall be reported to Aaron the priest or to one of his sons, the priests. ... If hair in the affected patch has turned white and the affection appears to be deeper than the skin of the body ... the priest ... shall pronounce the person impure. On the seventh day the priest shall again conduct an examination: and if the affection has faded and has not spread on the skin, the priest shall pronounce the person pure (Leviticus 13:1-6).
The words of our Torah portion are most frightening. They are frightening for the ways in which we identify: the experience is too familiar. They are also frightening because we do not identify: The description of the scaly affections and the priests is archaic.
First, the familiar: Who among you has not noticed something strange on your body? You are brushing your teeth, when you glance in the mirror and see a small spot on your face, or a mole or a rash or a lump. You think the worst. Then you counsel yourself: "Don't be silly. It's probably been there all my life and I just never noticed it before."
Then you get scared again. You call the doctor, who takes a biopsy. You wait. You pray. You can taste the relief (tinged with embarrassment that you made such a big deal over nothing) when your doctor pronounces that miraculous word: "clean." And you get dizzy at the prospect of a different scenario that might have emerged, in which your doctor uttered the horrid verdict: "unclean!"
Each of the parashiyot has a reputation among bar and bat mitzvah students. Every parsha is meaningful, I teach our 13-year-olds, and there is no such thing as a "better" or "worse" portion. But the b'nai mitzvah students who have Parsha Tazria feel that they are in a special club. They joke that of all the Torah's portions, theirs is "the worst." Perhaps it is because of our societal discomfort with talking about the details of personal matters. Bodily emissions and unusual discoloration of fluids do not seem, they say, to be topics appropriate for public discussion from the bimah.
In biblical days, the priest was called upon to assess skin diseases. Did the priest have a medical background or was he called upon strictly for his ritual expertise? W. Gunther Plaut, in "The Torah: A Modern Commentary, Revised Edition," writes: "As portrayed in Leviticus, the Israelite priest is not a physician. His role is entirely ritualistic; he does not attempt to cure tzara-at." Baruch Levine, editor of the Jewish Publication Society "Torah Commentary: Leviticus," writes that the priest "combined medical and ritual procedures."
These differences of interpretation among scholars remind us that our health is based on a closely interwoven web of medical and spiritual needs. It is not a coincidence that many of the great rabbis, Moses Maimonides among them, were both rabbis and physicians. Priests and doctors were both referred to as healers.
When we are ill, we want to use all our resources to aid us in healing. We want the best medical care. At the same time, the "Mi Shebeirach" that is recited for us in the synagogue goes a long way to bolster the spirit and help us on a path toward wellness.
Whether the pronouncement is "clean" or "unclean" is not in our hands. And yet we are guided. Like the priests of old who had careful prescriptions for those who were ill, we are helped by our doctors, our rabbis, and our communities as we move forward in a continual dance between sickness and health.
Stacy K. Offner is the rabbi of Shir Tikvah, Minneapolis. Torat Chayim of the Union of Reform Judaism is at www.urj.org/torah.
|
|
