This week, Neima Novetsky discusses Parashat Tazria-Metzora in “The Woman who has Given Birth.”
Shabbat shalom!
[Pardes from Jerusalem Podcast] Tazria-Metzora 5773: The Woman who has Given Birth
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Tag Archives: Parshat Metzora
[PCJE Dvar Torah] Tongue Parmesan – by AdAm Mayer
I was sitting in the chadar ochel (dining hall) during lunch yesterday with a number of Pardes students, and Zvi Hirschfield turns around from the next table and decides to poll our small group: “Lashon Hara –an aveira [sin] or just good advice?” As to be expected from any gathering of Pardes students, there was a wide variety of answers and explanations.
[Lashon hara is spreading gossip, talking about people who are not present, spreading the feathers from the pillow – as the story goes- etc.]
Of course everyone seemed to know that it was (more or less) something to avoid, but to what lengths will I go to avoid it? Continue reading
[Pardes from Jerusalem Podcast] Tazria-Metzora 5766
In this week’s podcast, we travel back to 2006 to hear Rav Meir speak about ritual impurity and the host of laws described in the doube-parsha in connection to it.
תזריע–מצורע
This week’s double parsha is some of the densest and hardest-to-apply material in the Torah, in dealing with seemingly endless details of various bodily ailments and skin maladies. In trying to find a window into some of the meaning that these chapters might hold for us today, I think it might be helpful to consider that these laws seem out of place, as immediately following these parshiyot the text returns to the story at hand, namely the death of two of Aharon’s sons (detailed originally in 10:1-3). So why are these laws placed here, right after Aharon has tragically lost two of those closest to him? The Rashbam, in trying to explain why Nadav and Avihu were killed for offering fire before Hashem on the day of consecrating the Mishkan (Tabernacle), says that it is because they spoiled the special nature of the miracle that was to be shown to the Israelites that day. Hashem ordered Moshe as He did so that all of the Israelites could know without a doubt that the fire that consumed the sacrifices offered on that first day of Mishkan service came from Hashem, unlike every other day of sacrificial service where a priest did offer the fire. It was not that Hashem was specifically against a creative offering in the temple (at least, it is not clear that Hashem would be against such an offering from this section), but rather that by offering fire, Aharon’s sons made this first day of service in the Mishkan just like every other. So are these laws meant as a reprieve for Aharon, as a way of grieving while still actively dealing with the laws, if only in a routinized fashion (and the parshiyot do tend to induce a certain repetitive numbness)? Are they meant to imply that the Rashbam is wrong, and that the sons of Aharon were in fact impure in one of the ways detailed here, and were killed because they came before Hashem in an impure state?
Why break away from
Aharon’s grieving process
To speak of disease?
מצורע
This weeks parsha largely continues the topic of last weeks: ritual impurity due to the affliction of tzara’at. This week it extends to the case of tzara’at showing up on a house or clothes, and the resultant procedures of cleansing the clothes, or demolishing the house.
A house, or body
הוא טמא עד הערב
Marked for seclusion
מצרע, metsora
in this week’s parshat metsora, we continue to delve in-depth into the procedure of ridding a leprous person of his eruptive affections. after reading pages and pages of how to determine whether a person is unclean and therefore off-limits to society, i was bewildered when i arrived to the conundrum of how to detect a leprous house. yes. a house suffering from a eruptive affection seemingly similarly to that of a person if we’re to judge by the consistent word choice נגע צרעת used in both circumstances. of course, the symptoms manifest differently in leprous houses. look out for reddish or greenish streeks that run deep into the walls (forget the tell-tale white and red streaks commonly associated with leprous people).
aside from the amusing vision of a poor, afflicted house covered with scaly paint flakes, angry boils, and sickly streaks, i wonder how this diseased condition can be common both to walls and humans alike. i’m convinced that those unfortunate walls caught the leprous bug from a few contagious people living within the house. for me, there is something powerful about the idea that we as human beings can visibly affect the world around us. our emotional health both influences our body, manifested in our external apperance, and even reaches to the walls of the homes within which we live. i want to believe that a person who strives to do good in the world and brings warmth to others radiates a light that is actually visible in his skin, in his body, and in his home.
the Torah suggests when curing leprous walls, one first turn to the nearest cohen for diagnosis and then if need be, cast the stones somewhere far away and scrape the house of all its insides. however, perhaps before scrapping the whole house, we might first turn inwards and see if remedying ourselves might in turn remedy the ailing walls around us.
dripping with sickness,
sins fester deepen within walls,
until they surface.
may we put forth good energy into our surroundings that only betters the world around us,
avi