Weekly Torah Lesson
Parasha: Metzora “Infected one”
Torah: VaYikra 14:1 – 15:33
** Before we get into the body of this lesson, I want to point out that the ‘metzorah’ has been mis-translated ‘leper’ in many translations of the Scriptures. In fact, the ‘metzorah’ (afflicted one) is showing a physical condition that is called ‘tzaraat’ which is the outward manifestation of a spiritual condition brought on by ‘gossip’. Leprosy is a chronic infection that produces sores on the skin. It is a physical malady.
“VaYikra 14:1 And Avinu spoke to Moshe, saying, 2 This shall be the law of the metzora in the day of his cleansing: He shall be brought to the priest: 3 And the priest shall go forth out of the camp; and the priest shall look, and, behold, if the plague of tzaraat be healed in the metzora; 4 Then shall the priest command to take for him that is to be cleansed two birds alive and clean, and cedar wood, and scarlet, and hyssop: 5 And the priest shall command that one of the birds be killed in an earthen vessel over running water: 6 As for the living bird, he shall take it, and the cedar wood, and the scarlet, and the hyssop, and shall dip them and the living bird in the blood of the bird that was killed over the running water: 7 And he shall sprinkle on him that is to be cleansed from the tzaraat seven times, and shall pronounce him clean, and shall let the living bird loose into the open field. 8 And he that is to be cleansed shall wash his clothes, and shave off all his hair, and wash himself in water, that he may be clean: and after that he shall come into the camp, and shall tarry abroad out of his tent seven days. 9 But it shall be on the seventh day, that he shall shave all his hair off his head and his beard and his eyebrows, even all his hair he shall shave off: and he shall wash his clothes, also he shall wash his flesh in water, and he shall be clean.
People who gossip use language, the tool for bonding, to disparage people and destroy bonds. Instead of communicating to connect, they communicate to corrupt. It isn’t only a crime against another, it is a crime against language—humanity’s core gift. When language is corrupted, all communication ceases. All bonding ceases. All self-discovery ceases and all connections cease.
This isn’t merely a crime against one person. It is a crime against humanity. And the harshness of the crime lies in the fact that it isn’t immediately apparent. On the surface, gossip sounds and feels like communication. It has all the hallmarks of language. There are letters, words, and ideas. There are groups of people who seem to bond over the enjoyable morsel of gossip.
But under the surface, none of these exist. The bonding is artificial because those who seem to celebrate the gossiper secretly vow not to trust him or her. They know that the gossiper can never be entrusted with their vulnerabilities. Language is about sharing ourselves with others, but no one will share with a gossiper. It feels like the gossiper is connecting through gossip, but gossip actually destroys those connections.
Similarly, it sounds as if the gossiper uses language to communicate, but this isn’t language. It sounds like it contains letters, words, and ideas, but it is twitter not language. Language begins with ideas that find expression in sentences that are strung together by words and are expressed through letters. Gossip is a collection of letters that form words that string together sentences. But it doesn’t lead to communication. It doesn’t lead to bonding. And if it doesn’t lead to bonding, it isn’t language. It’s just noise. It is twitter.
Dispatch the Bird
In biblical days, when people gossiped, they were afflicted with a skin condition called Tzaraat. After the Tzaraat faded, the Metzora was required to take two identical birds, slaughter one and dispatch the other to fly across the fields. Seven days later, the Metzora would bring more conventional offerings to atone for the sins that led to the Tzaraat.
What is the purpose of this unusual and in fact unique ritual? Why the birds, why two birds, and why slaughter one and send the other away?
By now, you might already suspect where I am going with this. The Metzora was afflicted because of gossip. Gossip is a crime against language because we use consonants and vowels to achieve the very opposite of what language is meant to achieve. Instead of bonding, the Metzora distances. Instead of communicating, the Metzora tweets.
The process of repentance requires that the Metzora contemplate the sin and identify where he went wrong. Precisely because gossip looks like communicating, it is important to identify precisely how it differs from language.
To this end, the Metzora takes two identical birds and slaughters one. As the bird is slaughtered, the Metzora contemplates that he used language to slaughter friendships and relationships, to destroy reputations and people, rather than to bond and to communicate.
As the second bird is dispatched to fly across the fields over distant horizons, the Metzora contemplates that true communication, proper use of language, entails the sharing not only of ideas but of one’s very self. On the deepest level, language enables us to convey our subconscious thoughts, ideas that even we were not aware we had. Language enables us to convey our very selves. Language is the medium for all relationships and in a relationship two people fuse. The medium for such fusion is language.
Language is meant to help us convey aspects of ourselves that are beyond even our recognition like the bird who flies away to a place that is beyond our field of vision. This realization enables the Metzora to repent for his devastating abuse of language—his crime against humanity. He was then repatriated into the community and invited to converse. Now that he knew how to use language, he was meant to begin his journey on the road of communication. We don’t have Tzaraat today, but we still have language, and we still have gossip, and the road is still open for repentance.
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