From Darkness to Light- Tazria-Metzora 5785

For those keeping score- we’re marking today an aufruf, a birthday, and a yartzeit. If you throw in a bris or baby naming, and a bar or bar mitzvah, we’ll have practically the whole lifecycle. It’s great to be together in community for Shabbatot like these. And community is a major component of what we learn from the Torah this Shabbat.

It seems so simple, but it’s actually a great transformation. In our combined parsha this Shabbat, Tazria-Metzora, we have descriptions of various skin and bodily ailments which render a person “impure” according to the physical standards of the Torah. A person in various states of bodily impurity after being separated from the rest of the community is, thankfully, able to re-enter that community in a state of purity. The person moves from what we may term a “dark”, less than ideal state, to one of “light” in which they return to their whole selves. As the Torah describes, we are all susceptible to this, and we need the support of our community to bear and get through it.

A somewhat similar transformation took place on our calendar earlier this week. As happens every year, both Yom HaZikaron (Israel’s Memorial Day) and Yom Ha’atzma’ut (Israel’s Independence Day) purposely fall on two consecutive days. These two days, along with Yom HaShoah- Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day, which we commemorated last week- constitute, some have said, Israel’s “Secular High Holidays” that practically every Israeli observes in some form or fashion. They each have their own feel, with their own transitional moments. 

First, a bit of background. On both Yom HaShoah and Yom HaZikaron, a siren goes off at mid-morning for about two minutes that can be heard everywhere in Israel, and people observe a moment of silence. On Yom HaShoah this is for the Six Million murdered by the Nazis; on Yom HaZikaron, it’s for all Israeli soldiers and victims of terror who have lost their lives. My brother several years ago was in Israel for both of these days and took a video of what happens during this time. People stand still on the sidewalk in silence and don’t move. Traffic comes to a halt as people get out of their cars on the highway. No buses or trains move, people in office buildings and shops stand up and stop working, soldiers on duty rest their arms and stand at attention, and the whole country remembers as one those whom we’ve collectively lost. There’s more than a few tears shed, understandably.

Both Yom HaShoah and Yom HaZikaron are marked with ceremonies- on Yom HaShoah at Yad Vashem, Israel’s national monument and museum to the Holocaust, and on Yom HaZikaron at Mount Herzl, Israel’s national military cemetery, and elsewhere. Both are days for remembering, and to be with loved ones. On Yom HaShoah it’s been customary to show interviews with survivors on TV along with Holocaust documentaries and, famously, the movie “Schindler’s List” plays every year. There is no “light” entertainment, and public places such as movie theaters and concert halls are closed by law. 

On Yom HaZikaron, it’s customary for the names of each fallen soldier and victim of terror from the time of the Yishuv, the earliest pre-state Jewish settlements in the land of Israel- over 25,000 names at this point- to be screened on national TV for a few seconds over the course of the day. For many of my own Israeli peers, this is their hardest day of the year as they remember close friends and family who they served with in the IDF, or were victims of terror, and are no longer alive.

However, the heaviness of the national mood changes radically at sundown when the flags are raised from half-mast and the celebrations begin for Yom Ha’atzma’ut. Israel’s Independence Day is marked by fireworks, barbecues, and something else I find to be wonderful: the Chidon Tanakh, the international Bible quiz held for middle and high school students which is broadcast on TV and attended by the Prime Minister and the Minister of Education. 

I want to stress that it’s possible to celebrate the miracle that is the modern state of Israel while also acknowledging that that country has very real challenges and problems. This, it should be no surprise, is also how I relate to my own country as an American. To exist in this liminal space of celebration mixed with ambiguity is, I think, what our parshayot this week invites us to do.

To return to the Torah, the metzora– the person afflicted with leprosy- in one sense, is in this limbo. They are in a space between life and death, outside the community but still a part of it. The Torah teaches in Leviticus 13:45:

וְהַצָּר֜וּעַ אֲשֶׁר־בּ֣וֹ הַנֶּ֗גַע בְּגָדָ֞יו יִהְי֤וּ פְרֻמִים֙ וְרֹאשׁוֹ֙ יִהְיֶ֣ה פָר֔וּעַ וְעַל־שָׂפָ֖ם יַעְטֶ֑ה וְטָמֵ֥א ׀ טָמֵ֖א יִקְרָֽא׃

“As for the person with a leprous affection: the clothes shall be rent, the head shall be left bare, and the upper lip shall be covered over; and that person shall call out, “Impure! Impure!”

The following verse teaches that furthermore this person is to dwell apart from the community, outside the camp.

These actions- rending our clothes, baring our heads, and also covering our upper lip- are all customs of mouring as described in the Talmud. We still rend our clothes upon learning of a death, just as Jacob rent his own garment when he thought Joseph was eaten by a wild animal. 

According to the Talmud in tractate Mo’ed Katan, the afflicted person calls out and identifies themselves as impure not only to warn others of the contagion, but also to elicit compassion and prayers on their behalf. It must have been a very humbling experience- one that, understandably, could make a person feel small, weak, insignificant, and pitied. 

However, the purification process for the metzora is similar to another purification ritual with an entirely different purpose- that of the inauguration of the kohanim, the priests, as we read last week in parshat Shemini. There’s a sacrifice that’s brought and an anointing with oil, which is quite symbolic. Anointing with oil is how the prophet Samuel “coronates” Saul and David as the first two kings of Israel, and the psalms describe oil as a sign of health and well-being. Psalm 92, which we recite on Shabbat, reads: “As a wild bull raises up its horn, you raised my head, anointed it with fresh oil.”

It’s a sign of renewed health, and in turning from Yom HaShoah and Yom HaZikaron to Yom Ha’atzma’ut, Israel also displays its health and well-being. The country’s mood goes from the lowest of the low- remembering a time when the world turned our back on us and when we were martyred for who we are- to the highest of highs, celebrating a Jewish state that, for all its flaws, I find endlessly fascinating and in which I can take pride.

So too it should be with our own community. Impurity of any kind, the parsha illustrates, is not permanent. Wrongs can be made right, and blame need not be assigned. The impurity that can come out of our bodies described in the parsha- impure substances as well as impure speech- can be contagious and contaminate others in the community if it’s not checked.

My teacher Rabbi Ebn Leader wrote this week a powerful essay on the relationship between these three Israeli holidays I discussed above, and I feel that his words apply to our parsha as well. He writes:

“Right now, more than ever, we need to rally around the experience of growing and making mistakes—so that we can recognize where fear and inherited trauma bring out our worst selves. We must fight dishonesty. We must help each other—Americans and Israelis—to see our blind spots. We must speak in ways our Jewish siblings can hear. We must be there for one another. 

[He continues]: This is why I believe in chanting Hallel on Yom Ha’atzmaut. When we sing B’tzeit Yisrael miMitzrayim (when Israel left Egypt…) at the start of Hallel, we celebrate the end of our time as guests—welcome or reviled—in others’ lands. 

And when we cry out Ana Hashem hoshi’a na (Please God, save us!) at the end, we acknowledge how far we are from resolving the immense task of living with responsibility wherever we strive to do so.”

In our times of trial and travail, we need each other. In a time of others’ trial and travail, we are needed just the same. The Torah begins with G-d deciding that people should not be alone- it’s one of two instances where something is described in the Torah as lo tov, not good. The world sorely needs more good- let’s be examples to each other in how to do that, with the knowledge that all individuals in our communities are imperfect, and that imperfection can be overcome.