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April 16, 1999/30 Nisan 5759, Vol. 51, No. 29
Life's rewards, punishments not always readily apparent
Torah Study
RABBI ISMAR SCHORSCH
Leviticus 12:1 - 15:33/ Tazria-Metzora
In a third-century midrash (commentary), Resh Lakish writes that the biblical term for leprosy, metzora, as found at Leviticus 14:1, is a compressed form of the rabbinic term for slandering, motzi shemra - literally, to give someone a bad name.
But the common term for leprosy throughout the Torah is tzara'at (see Leviticus 13:2, 3 and 8). What induces Resh Lakish to read the odd noun choice metzora as motzi shemra is, in part, Miriam's fate: After joining Aaron in denouncing their brother, Moses, for taking a foreign wife, Miriam falls ill with leprosy (Numbers 12:1-13). The narrative identifies the disease as punishment for slander. Aaron beseeches Moses to effect healing for their sister. Moses accedes with a terse prayer, restoring Miriam to health.
To shift the focus of the text from the physical realm to the spiritual is to open up expanses of new meaning, to make it relevant to our time and day.
The Talmud explains the exclusion and isolation of a leper as appropriate for someone who slanders. The Torah portion reads: "He shall be unclean as long as the disease is on him. Being unclean, he shall dwell apart; his dwelling shall be outside the camp" (Leviticus 13:46). The two-fold fate - exclusion from community and isolation from others - corresponds to how slander can sever relationships.
To ground illness in morality is to diminish the chaos of human existence. God governs by the principle of reward and punishment. Rabbi Shimon ben Yohai asserted that at Mount Sinai, when the people of Israel accepted God's covenant wholeheartedly, they knew neither disease nor deformity.
Yet at Numbers 5:2, God instructs Moses "to remove from camp anyone with an eruption or a discharge." What can explain these sudden infirmities? Rabbi Hoshiah writes that after Sinai, the Israelites repeatedly spoke ill of their leaders (Vayikra Rabba 18:4). An anonymous midrash claims that skin diseases spring from commission of any of the 10 cardinal sins, including idolatry, sexual perversity, murder, blasphemy, theft, arrogance, slander and greed (Vayikra Rabba 17:3).
What God decrees, God can nullify. Like Job, who curses the day he was born, when we are distressed we turn to God for relief.
In the weekday amida (silent devotion), we ask God to heal us or those we love. Birkhat holim (the prayer for the sick) is the eighth berakha of the amida, a reminder of the healing that attends circumcision as a rite of passage on the eighth day of life, also which is stipulated in this week's Torah portion.
Yet in real life, there is no evident correlation between health and virtue, or sickness and vice. Suffering prevails with a vengeance. The Book of Job warns against any theology that shrinks the grandeur and sublimity of God for human comfort. At the end of his protest, Job is given a single assurance, that moral order does exist even if we can't begin to comprehend it.
The rabbis take refuge in the conviction that life does not end at death and that the injustice that stains human history will be rectified beyond the grave by God directly. The incompleteness of creation, though, rouses the rabbis to explain that humanity becomes God's partner in perfecting it. By striving to improve the human condition, we attain individual salvation.
We are not to rely on prayer alone. Our responsibility includes not only visiting the sick, but also healing them. The Talmud explicitly forbids a scholar from residing in a town that has no physician (B.T. Sanhedrin 17b). By the Middle Ages, it had become customary for a Jewish community to provide its residents with a certified physician and a hospital. Jewish law sanctioned health care for all as a communal obligation, a standard yet to be attained in the United States.
Indeed, much of the richness of this week's portion lies in the lessons it offers for the days to come.
Rabbi Ismar Schorsch is chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. Other commentaries may be found on the Internet, at www.jtsa.edu/pubs/schorsch.
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