Parshiot Tazria and Metzora: Tzara'at Takes Over

By Adina Steiner ('24)

his week’s Parshiot, Tazria and Metzora, discuss many important topics, one of which being the purification of tzara'at Tzara'at is a skin condition commonly compared to leprosy, but they are not the same thing. Tzara'at has no biological cause, rather it appears entirely due to someone’s behavior.

Specifically, tzara'at appears when someone speaks lashon hara about another person. We learn in perek 13 pasuk 44 that when someone has tzara'at, they are impure:”

,” meaning, “he is a leprous man; he is impure. The priest shall pronounce him impure; he has the affection on his head.”

In the Gemara when it discusses tzara'at, we see that it compares three different types of people: someone with tzara'at, a mourner, and someone who has been excommunicated. The Gemara asks the same questions about each of these groups of people concerning if each of them can wear shoes, if each can wear tefillin, and even if you can say hello to them. When you compare things, it shows that they are similar. It’s easy to see how someone with tzara'at and an excommunicated person can be similar, as they are both separated from the community, but why do we compare these groups of people with a mourner?

One answer Rabbi Fohrman gives is that it could be because someone with tzara'at shares many similarities as someone who is dead, since he has the impurity status as a dead person. We see textual proof of this when Aharon referred to his sister, Miriam, when she got tzara'at as a dead person. However, this answer doesn’t answer the question because a mourner is someone who is sorrowful because of someone else’s death, and the person with tzara'at is inflicted themself. If this answer was the case, then we’d be comparing the person with tzara'at to the dead person, not the mourner, so how do these two people connect?

The truth is, while a mourner only mourns one person, there is someone else who mourns everyone: the dead person. A dead person is the ultimate mourner, because while someone mourning someone else only loses one person, the dead person loses everyone. This is where we see the connection between a mourner and someone with tzara'at. We are comparing the person with tzara'at not with someone who just mourns one person, but someone who mourns everyone: the ultimate mourner, the dead. Just like them, someone with tzara'at is sent from the camp and they are separated from everyone. It’s as if they are, for a short period of time, mourning all their connections with another person. We also learn that when someone is separated from the camp because they have tzara'at, a Kohen comes and checks if they are ready to return to the camp. How can this be if a Kohen is not allowed to become impure? If a Kohen is impure, then they can’t do any work in the Mishkan, so why are they allowed to greet the person with tzara'at? We see from this how important it is to include people. The person with tzara'at is separated from everyone, to the point where they are mourning their relationships while they are outside of the camp. But still, the Kohen goes to the person, even though they are impure, to bring them back. This sort of commitment to friendship and including others should carry over into our life, and we too should make an effort to include everyone we can.