S.A.L.T. – PARASHAT TAZRIA-METZORA

By Rav David Silverberg

Motzaei

            Parashat Metzora begins by outlining the procedure by which a metzora (person stricken with tzara’at, a bodily infection resembling leprosy) regains his status of ritual purity and thus becomes allowed to reenter his city and the Beit Ha-mikdash.  This process of purification concludes with the metzora’s offering of a special sacrifice, consisting of three sheep, flour and oil.  In the case of an underprivileged individual, who cannot afford such an expensive offering, the Torah allows him to offer a sacrifice consisting of one sheep, two birds, flour and oil (14:21-22).

            The metzora’s offering marks the third instance in the Torah where different standards of sacrifices are assigned for people of different financial capabilities.  In Parashat Vayikra (chapter 5), the Torah discusses the korban oleh ve-yoreid sacrifice which requires the violator of certain sins to bring a sheep or goat as an atonement offering.  One who cannot afford this sacrifice must bring two birds, and if a violator cannot even afford two birds, then he would bring flour as his offering.  Similarly, in the beginning of Parashat Tazria, the Torah assigns different standards of sacrifice for the offering of a yoledet (woman after childbirth).  The standard obligation requires offering a sheep and a bird, but a woman who cannot afford this offering brings instead two birds (12:6-8).

            Netziv, in his Ha’amek Davar (to 14:21), notes a subtle distinction in the Torah’s formulation in these different contexts.  In describing the individual’s financial constraints in the cases of the korban oleh ve-yoreid and the yoledet, the Torah speaks in the future tense: “But if his hand will not suffice for sheep” (5:7); “And if his hand will not be able to acquire two pigeons” (5:11); “But if her hand will not come upon enough for a sheep” (12:8).  In all these instances, the Torah describes an individual who will be unable to afford the ideal sacrifice (“ve-im lo tagi’a yado”; “ve-im lo tasig yado”; “ve-im lo timtza yadah”).  However, in the case of a metzora, the Torah speaks of an individual who cannot afford the sacrifice in the present: “But if he is indigent, and his hand cannot acquire” (“ve-ein yado maseget” – 14:21).

            Netziv explains this distinction by noting the difference in the scheduling of these sacrifices.  Generally speaking, a person who became obligated to bring a sacrifice, for whatever reason, did not offer the sacrifice immediately.  Given the difficulty of long-distance travel in ancient times, people would generally delay their mandatory offerings until the next regel (pilgrimage festival), when they would in any event travel to Jerusalem for the festival.  Often, people would designate the animal or animals for their sacrifice weeks or months in advance of their pilgrimage to the Mikdash.  A metzora, however, would bring his sacrifice as soon as possible after the disappearance of the nega (infection) on his skin.  Before bringing his sacrifice, the metzora was forbidden from resuming marital relations with his wife, and, according to some opinions, he was forbidden from entering his home (see Negaim 14:2).  He was therefore urged to promptly travel to Jerusalem and bring his offering, so that he could resume normal family life as quickly as possible.

            This distinction, Netziv claims, easily explains the different formulations used by the Torah in the different contexts.  In most cases, when the individual would designate his animals well before his pilgrimage, he would have to assess his foreseeable financial status at the time of the pilgrimage.  If he is currently poor, but he anticipates an improvement in his condition before the next regel, then he must set aside an expensive offering, despite his current state of hardship, because he will no longer be poor at the time he brings his offering.  The Torah therefore describes a person who “will be unable” – in the future – to bring the highest standard offering.  In most cases, it is the individual’s future status – not his current status – that determines which offering he must bring.  In the case of a metzora, however, the determining factor is his current financial status.  Since the metzora brings his offering immediately upon recovering from his infection, his sacrifice is determined based upon his current standing, and the Torah therefore employs the present tense in describing the plight of the underprivileged metzora.

Sunday

            In the opening section of Parashat Metzora, we read of the two-stage process whereby a metzora regains his status of ritual purity.  The first stage takes place outside the metzora’s city, and entails a ritual involving two birds, one which is slaughtered and another which is dipped in the other’s blood and subsequently set free.  After this ritual, the metzora is to wash his clothing, bathe and remove all his hair, at which point he is permitted to reenter his city.  Even at this stage, however, he is forbidden from entering his home (14:8; there is some discussion as to whether he is barred from his home, or simply forbidden from engaging in marital relations).  The metzora fully regains his status of ritual purity only a week later, after he completes the second stage of the purification process, which entails the offering of a special sacrifice.

            The Minchat Chinukh (173) raises the question of whether a metzora during the seven-day interim stage may tread upon Har Ha-bayit (the Temple Mount).  A basic rule establishes three different levels of ritual impurity that bar individuals from certain sacred domains.  A metzora (who has not yet begun the purification process) is barred from all walled cities in Eretz Yisrael.  People who have become tamei as a result of bodily emissions (such as menstruation or semenal emissions) may enter Jerusalem and other cities, but are barred from the Temple Mount.  Those who have become tamei through contact with a corpse or animal carcass are allowed on the Temple Mount but may not enter the area of the Beit Ha-mikdash.  With regard to a metzora who has completed the first of the two stages of purification, the Mishna (Negaim 14:2) rules that he is allowed into Jerusalem (and certainly other walled cities).  The implication of this ruling is that he is allowed into the city, but not onto the Temple Mount.  This is, indeed, the Minchat Chinukh’s initial impression.  However, he proceeds to cite a comment by Tosefot (Pesachim 67b) that a metzora during the seven-day interim stage is permitted even on Har Ha-bayit.  Tosefot draw proof to this position from the Mishna’s comment (there in Negaim) that a metzora during this period has a similar status as a temei sheretz – one who became impure through contact with a carcass.  Such an individual, as mentioned, is barred only from the Beit Ha-mikdash, and Tosefot thus conclude that a metzora during this interim stage is likewise permitted on the Temple Mount so long as he avoids the area of the Temple.  (It should be noted that the actual text of the Mishna in Negaim reads, “metamei ke-sheretz,” which means that the metzora during this interim stage transmits impurity like a carcass.  Before he begins his purification process, a metzora – like a human corpse – transmits tum’a simply through his presence; if he enters a home, all people and utensils in the home are rendered impure.  After completing the first stage of purification, however, he transmits tum’a only through direct contact, like an animal carcass, and not by his presence in a building.)

            The issue underling this question, it would appear, relates to the nature of the metzora’s status of impurity at this point in the process.  While it is clear that his status at this point is less stringent than his previous status of tzara’at, as he is allowed to enter Jerusalem and other walled cities, it is unclear how or if his status at this point is related to his previous status.  One possibility is that he is still classified under the category of tum’at tzara’at, but the practical implications of his status have changed now that he has completed the first stage of purification.  According to this perspective, he does not actually change statuses after the first stage; rather, the restrictions simply begin to ease as he proceeds through the process of purification.  Alternatively, however, we might say that upon completing the first stage, the metzora is divested of his previous status of tum’at tzara’at.  He has now assumed an entirely different status, which allows him to enter walled cities while forbidding him from entering the Temple or reentering his home.

If we view the metzora at this stage as still possessing his original status of tum’at tzara’at, albeit in a mitigated form, then we would likely adopt a stricter stance.  Although the Torah allows him at this stage to enter walled cities, he is still, essentially, a metzora, and is therefore barred from the Temple Mount.  If, however, he has been divested of his metzora status, and assumes an entirely new status of tum’a, then we can conceive of Tosefot’s comparison of the metzora to a temei sheretz, in which case he would be allowed to walk upon the Temple Mount.

(Based on Rav Binyamin Sorotzkin’s analysis in his Nachalat Binyamin on Masekhet Negaim, 14:2)

Monday

            For the haftara for Parashat Metzora we read the narrative in Sefer Melakhim II (chapter 7) of the deadly siege upon the city of Shomron, capital of the Northern Kingdom, during the time of the prophet Elisha.  Four metzora’im (people stricken with tzara’at, a skin discoloration that renders a person ritually impure) were quarantined outside the city walls, and, facing the threat of starvation, decided to surrender to the enemy Aramean soldiers.  To their astonishment, the enemy camp had been abandoned, with all the provisions left behind.  It turns out that God had created the sound of foreign armies to frighten the Aramean troops, and they fled, thus sparing the besieged Israelite city.

            Several Acharonim addressed the question of why the four metzora’im were quarantined outside the city of Shomron.  While it is true that the Torah requires metzora’im to live outside their city (Vayikra 13:46), this refers only to cities that were walled at the time when Benei Yisrael captured the Land of Israel under Yehoshua.  The city of Shomron, as we read in Sefer Melakhim I (16:24), was built much later, by the king Omri (father of King Achav).  Seemingly, then, the metzora’im were not required to live outside the city, and the question arises as to why they were stationed outside the city walls.

            Numerous answers have been suggested (several of which were discussed in our S.A.L.T. series of a number of years ago).  Rav Yehonatan Eibshitz, in his Ahavat Yehonatan, claimed that the four metzora’im were afflicted not with halakhic tzara’at, as described by the Torah in Parashat Tazria, but rather with an infectious skin disease.  They were banished from the city not for halakhic reasons, but rather as a health measure, to protect the spreading of the illness.  Rav Yaakov Mecklenberg, in his Ha-ketav Ve-ha’kabbala (Vayikra 14:40), simply dismissed the assumption that metzora’im are barred only from cities that were walled at the time of the Israelite conquest of Canaan. He notes that the Mishna in Masekhet Keilim (1:7) which establishes this halakha mentions “walled cities,” without limiting the rule to cities that were walled in Yehoshua’s time.  The Rambam, too, makes no mention of such a restriction in codifying this halakha (Hilkhot Beit Ha-bechira 7:13, Hilkhot Tum’at Tzara’at 10:7).  A different answer was suggested by Rav Yaakov Ettlinger (Binyan Tziyon, vol. 2, 60:3) and the Meshekh Chokhma (end of Parashat Metzora), who claimed that the government of the Northern Kingdom treated its capital city like Jerusalem as part of its effort to establish itself as the true Israelite kingdom.  Therefore, metzora’im were barred from Shomron just as they were barred from Jerusalem, despite the fact that this was not necessary according to Halakha.

            Rav Yona Imanuel, in a comprehensive article on this subject published in the journal Hama’ayan (Nissan, 5754), suggested a surprisingly simple answer.  Even if the metzora’s banishment from a certain city is not halakhically mandated, it is still a practical necessity.  The laws of tum’a that apply to a metzora are especially strict.  Essentially, a metzora’s ability to transmit tum’a is equal to that of a human corpse.  (When the Sages famously commented that a metzora is considered “dead,” they likely referred not only to the misfortune of his condition, but also to the clear halakhic parallel that exists between a metzora and a human corpse.)  A metzora imparts tum’a to other people and utensils not only through direct contact, but even through his presence in the same building.  And even if a metzora stands under a tree, any people or utensils situated under the tree at that time are rendered impure.  (For a summary of these halakhot, see Rambam, Hilkhot Tum’at Tzara’at 10:11-12.)  In fact, in a certain sense, the gravity of a metzora’s status with respect to tum’a exceeds that of a corpse.  The halakhic effects of a corpse are limited by virtue of its inability to move independently.  A metzora, however, could spread tum’a throughout the city as he wishes if he is allowed to move about freely.  It therefore stands to reason that as a matter of policy, cities and communities would not allow metzora’im in their midst during their period of ritual impurity, in order to prevent the transmission of tum’a.  Hence, even if the four metzora’im were not technically forbidden from entering the city of Shomron, we may reasonably assume that the city’s officials required metzora’im to remain outside the city’s walls due to practical concerns.

Tuesday

            Parashat Metzora begins by describing the process by which a metzora regains his status of tahara and thus becomes allowed to once again enter his city.  The first stage of the process is a ritual performed outside the city, which involves two birds, one of which is slaughtered over water, while the other – together with a piece of cedar wood, a crimson string, and a hyssop branch – is dipped into the blood and water.  The kohen then sprinkles the blood onto the metzora, thus completing the first stage of the metzora’s purification process.

            This ritual brings to mind the procedure outlined later in the Torah, in Sefer Bamidbar (chapter 19), for the preparation of the para aduma waters.  The waters are prepared by burning the slaughtered red heifer together with a piece of cedar wood, a hyssop branch, and a crimson string, and water is then poured over the ashes. Both rituals entail slaughtering (of a bird or a cow) and the combination of cedar, hyssop and red string.  Additionally, both contexts feature sprinkling as part of a purification process: the blood and water are sprinkled on the metzora, and the para aduma waters are sprinkled on individuals or utensils that became tamei through contact with a human corpse.

            The connection between the metzora and the para aduma becomes perfectly clear in light of the familiar association between tzara’at and death.  When Miriam was stricken with tzara’at, Aharon begged Moshe to pray on her behalf, “lest she be like a dead person” (Bamidbar 12:12).  And the laws that apply to a metzora – such as the requirement to rend his garments and to let his hair grow (13:45) – correspond to the traditional mourning practices.  Indeed, Chazal famously commented that a metzora is akin to a dead person.  It comes as no surprise, then, that the process of the metzora’s purification resembles the process of purification required of somebody who came in contact with a human corpse.  A metzora is considered to have encountered – or perhaps even experienced – death, and he “recovers” from this experience in a manner resembling the process whereby one is purified after direct exposure to death.

            Rav Amnon Bazak further developed this parallel by noting the role of “mayim chayim” – water from a live spring – in both contexts.  The bird in the metzora’s purification ritual is slaughtered specifically over “mayim chayim” (14:5), and the ashes of the para aduma are mixed with “mayim chayim” (Bamidbar 19:17).  Both rituals, then, combine the theme of death – the slaughtering of a bird or cow – with the theme of life, as symbolized by the “living waters” taken from a fountain.

            It would appear that a live water spring represents the polar opposite of death, the permanent termination of life.  The notion of human mortality gives a “linear” perspective on life, whereby there is a definite beginning and end.  A water spring is constant and self-perpetuating.  It represents the diametric opposite of death, as its waters are constantly reproduced.  There is no beginning or end; the waters continue to pour forth indefinitely.

            The process of purification from “death” – from tzara’at and from tum’at meit – includes both the theme of death – slaughtering – as well as the theme of eternal life – “mayim chayim.”  This combination is perhaps intended to instruct that although we cannot escape the encounter with death, we can – and must endeavor to – include in our lives the vitality and vigor represented by the “mayim chayim,” the perpetual flow of water from a fountain.  Despite the sorrow, grief and anguish that is so often part of the realities of life, a life of “tahara” requires us to incorporate the joy, optimism and energy of “mayim chayim” in everything that we do.

Wednesday

            Parashat Tazria discusses the laws relevant to tzara’at ha-guf, the manifestation of tzara’at on a person’s body.  It emerges from the Torah’s discussion that there are two different statuses that a person could obtain as a result of a tzara’at skin infection.  Under certain circumstances, an individual is conclusively determined to have been affected by tzara’at.  Such an individual, besides transmitting tum’a through contact and through his presence in a building, must live in isolation and observe certain mourning practices, as outlined by the Torah (13:45-46).  A person who is definitively determined to have been stricken with tzara’at is referred to as a “muchlat.”

In other situations, however, the Torah instructs the kohen to “close off the affection” for a seven-day period, and then reexamine the discoloration to see if it has spread.  This means either that the individual in question must remain in one place throughout these seven days (Rashi, Vayikra Rabba 18:5), or that the kohen draws a mark around the infected area so that he can later determine whether it has spread (Moshav Zekeinim, and Peirush Ha-Tur citing the Rosh).  A person observing this “waiting period” (called “hesger”) is commonly referred to as a “musgar.”  After the period of hesger, as mentioned, the kohen reexamines the discoloration, and it is has spread, the individual is declared a muchlat.

Although both a musgar and a muchlat are deemed temei’im, their statuses differ significantly from one another.  Firstly, the musgar is allowed to (and perhaps even required to) remain in his home, and is not banished from the city.  He is also not required to observe the mourning practices imposed upon a muchlat.  Moreover, in the case of a musgar, if the kohen sees after the period of hesger that the infection has not spread, the musgar has to simply wash his clothes and bathe, and he then becomes tahor.  This is in contrast to the muchlat, who must undergo the lengthy process outlined in the first section of Parashat Metzora to regain his status of ritual purity.  (See Megila 8b.) 

Rav Yechezkel Levenstein (cited in Yad Yechezkel) detected within this distinction between a musgar and a muchlat a reminder of the importance of not delaying repentance.  Tzara’at infections resulting in either status are the result of wrongdoing; even if a musgar never reaches the stage of muchlat, his experience is nevertheless presumed to be the result of his sins.  The severity of the laws applicable to the muchlat indicates a higher level of guilt incurred by virtue of his failure to repent during the “warning” stage of hesger.  He endures stricter measures because in addition to the original sins for which he was stricken with the infection, he bears guilt also for his indifference and refusal to change.  Rav Yechezkel makes reference in this context to the famous comments of Rabbenu Yona toward the beginning of Sha’arei Teshuva describing the severity of failing to repent.  One who delays repentance squanders the opportunity presented to him by God, rejecting a special gift lovingly offered by the Almighty to repair the strained relationship with his Creator.  The burden of his sin then weighs down many times more heavily upon him, in light of his refusal to perform teshuva.

From this perspective, the stage of musgar is instituted as a “warning period” intended to alert the affected individual of his guilt, and to call upon him to seize the opportunity to repent before his guilt becomes too great to bear.  It warns that spiritual ills, like physical ailments, must be treated as soon as they are detected, and delaying this process could result in grave consequences.

Thursday

            The Gemara states in Masekhet Arakhin (15b), “Whoever speaks lashon ha-ra [negative speech about other people] – the Almighty says [about him], ‘He and I cannot reside [together] in the world!’”  The simple explanation of this passage is that the Almighty deems the sin of lashon ha-ra so abhorrent that He cannot tolerate, as it were, living in the same world as an individual who indulges in gossip or slander.  Lashon ha-ra is not merely a religious offense; it is offensive.  It is a repulsive activity that drives the divine presence away from Am Yisrael.

            Rav Menachem Bentzion Zaks, in his Menachem Tziyon, suggests an additional insight into the Gemara’s comment.  Very often, hostility and venom towards fellow Jews are disguised under the mask of religious altruism.  People feel justified in disseminating false or offensive information about other individuals or groups of Jews because they see themselves as waging God’s battles by defending the Torah, its values and ideals.  Very often, lashon ha-ra can easily be transformed in people’s minds from a grave Torah prohibition to a lofty mitzva, to an expression of idealistic fervor and spiritual heroism.  It becomes perceived as part of the ammunition used by God’s self-proclaimed warriors in their holy struggle against His “enemies.”

            God therefore says about those who insult other Jews under the guise of valiant religious heroism, “He and I cannot reside together in the world.”  He does not allow His Name to be associated with lashon ha-ra, with campaigns that seek to malign and defame fellow members of Am Yisrael.  In effect, God says, “Do not speak lashon ha-ra in My Name.”

            One of the laws that apply to a metzora, to an individual stricken with tzara’at, which Chazal explained as a punishment for lashon ha-ra, is the requirement to publicly announce his status (“ve-tamei tamei yikra” – Vayikra 13:45).  As Rav Zaks noted, the Torah requires the gossiper to remove his mask, to come out from behind the veneer of piety and altruism from where he launched his assault on his fellow’s (or fellows’) reputation.  He must announce to one and all, “I am impure,” acknowledging that he is not the religious hero, the great defender of God, whom he had portrayed himself to be.

            Throughout the Torah’s discussion of tzara’at, it is the kohanim who oversee the process of determining the status of the discoloration and the process of the metzora’s purification.  They are God’s real “warriors,” the ones assigned the task of leading and guiding His nation.  And they fill this role by following the example of their ancestor, Aharon, the “lover of peace and pursuer of peace, who loved people and drew them close to Torah.”  The metzora is led throughout this process by the kohanim, and learns that the true servants of God respect, love and cherish His children, and do not speak insultingly about them, even for so-called “altruistic” purposes.

Friday

            The opening section of Parashat Metzora outlines the procedure by which a metzora regains his previous status of ritual purity.  This procedure requires a ritual involving two birds, one of which is slaughtered, and the other is dipped in the blood of the first and subsequently set free.

            Torat Kohanim (to 14:53) and the Mishna in Masekhet Negaim (14:1) comment that the birds used for this ritual must be of the kind called “deror.”  The Gemara in Masekhet Shabbat (106b) identifies the “deror” bird as one which does not accept any “authority” (“she-eina mekablet marut”), meaning, it cannot be tamed.  It will always want to live out in the wild, and will never accept the constraints of domestication.  A number of commentators explain that as the word “deror” means “freedom,” Chazal used this term to describe species of birds that cannot be tamed.

            The significance of this requirement likely relates to the broader symbolism of birds in the context of the metzora’s purification.  As Rashi (14:4) famously cites from the Gemara in Masekhet Arakhin (16b), the involvement of birds served to allude to the sin of gossip, which was generally the cause of tzara’at infections.  Rashi writes that birds “always chatter in a loud chirp,” symbolizing the chatter of the metzora that led to his condition.  In light of the requirement to use “deror” birds, it would seem that this ritual seeks to emphasize the lack of restraint, the reckless and uncontrolled speech that characterizes the gossiper.  The metzora is compared to a bird because of the constancy with which birds chirp, and the free, undisciplined and unrestrained existence which they enjoy.  As he prepares to leave his place of quarantine, rejoin society and resume social relations, the metzora is shown that the faculty of speech must be used with care and discretion, that not everything that could be said should be said.  He is taught that a person who freely “flies” about telling everything he knows about other people is no different than a bird, which lives a free, unrestrained existence and makes constant noise.  As Rav Shimshon Raphael Hirsch writes (commenting on 14:8):

The character of the most completely unsociable being as represented by the tzipor deror at once springs to one’s mind as the opposite contrast to what is demanded for reentrance into the social life of the community.  It is the contrast of the animals of the “field” to the humans of the “city.”

            This message likely underlies the different fates of the two birds in this ritual.  As mentioned, one bird is slaughtered (and, according to oral tradition, buried there at the site – Rambam, Hilkhot Tum’at Tzara’at 11:1), and the other is sent toward the fields outside the city (“al penei ha-sadeh” – 14:7).  Rav Hirsch viewed the slaughtering of the first bird as symbolic of “the energetic subjection of the wild untrammeled animal life under the sharp control of the morally strong human will.”  The ritual of the two birds demonstrates that there are only two options when it comes to a person’s involvement in social relations: to “slaughter” the quality of unrestrained speech, or to fly freely away from the city.  People who wish to live as a member of society, to enjoy the benefits of social involvement, the companionship of friends and the support of a community, must take control of their faculty of speech, and exercise discipline and restraint in their social interactions to avoid the destructive effects of gossip.  Otherwise, they must “fly” far away from the city, and live in the kind of solitude and isolation required of the metzora.