Tazria-Metzora Vol.30 No.31.Qxp Layout 1
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21 April 2018 6 Iyar 5778 Shabbat ends London 8.58pm Jerusalem 7.50pm Volume 30 No. 31 Tazria-Metzora Artscroll p.608 | Haftarah p.1172 Hertz p.460 | Haftarah p.477 Soncino p.674 | Haftarah p.702 In loving memory of David Yochanan ben Moshe Chair of Elijah, Dermbach, Germany. Before 1768. The Israel Museum, Jerusalem "On the eight day, the flesh of his skin shall be circumcised" (Vayikra 12:3). 1 Sidrah Summary: Tazria-Metzora 1st Aliya (Kohen) – Vayikra 12:1-23 bundle – sprinkle its blood seven times on the After childbirth, a lady would wait several weeks metzora. The metzora would also bring three before bringing an elevation offering (olah) and a animal offerings and three meal offerings. sin offering (chatat). Question: What types of animals did the metzora God told Moshe and Aharon that someone whose bring as offerings? (14:10) Answer on bottom of skin appeared to indicate a particular type of skin page 6. disease (tzara’at) would have to show the blemish 5th Aliya (Chamishi) – 14:21-32 to a Kohen (see p.4 article). The Kohen would A metzora who could not afford three animal evaluate and decide if the affliction was clearly offerings could instead bring one animal offering, tzara’at, thus rendering the person impure (tameh). one meal offering and two birds. If the case was unclear, the Kohen would quarantine the person for seven days, after which the Kohen 6th Aliya (Shishi) – 14:33-15:15 would re-inspect the afflicted area and declare Tzara’at also affected houses. The house owner whether the person was tameh or tahor (pure). would report the suspicious signs to a Kohen. The house would be evacuated before the 2nd Aliya (Levi) – 13:24-39 Kohen’s arrival. If the Kohen saw a deep green or It was also possible for tzara’at to develop from a deep red ‘affliction’, he would order the house to burn. Tzara’at could erupt on the scalp or on the be sealed off for a week. He would then re- beard area, causing a loss of hair. inspect the house. If the affliction had spread, the 3rd Aliya (Shlishi) – 13:40-54 affected stones would be removed and replaced. If the affliction nevertheless returned, the house A slightly different form of tzara’at is detailed, would be demolished. However, if replacing the which caused a more substantial loss of hair. A stones solved the problem, the Kohen would metzora (one who has been contaminated with declare the house tahor (pure). tzara’at) was sent outside of the camp and had to tear his/her garments (see p.3 article). Tzara’at The Torah lists specific discharges that would could also infect clothing. A suspected garment cause a man to be considered tameh, and details was set apart before the Kohen made a ruling the purification procedure. about whether it was tameh. If it was declared 7th Aliya (Shevi’i) – 15:16-33 tameh, the garment was burnt. A similar set of laws is listed for a lady who has Point to Consider: Why did the metzora (the specific discharges. The laws of Family Purity are person with one of these afflictions) have to call also listed. out “contaminated, contaminated”? (see 13:45 with Rashi) Haftarah From the Book of Melachim (Kings II), the 4th Aliya (Revi’i) – 13:55-14:20 haftarah is set upon the background of the long The Torah details the process through which a siege and ensuing famine of the city of Shomron metzora would be purified after the period of (Samaria) by the King of Aram. Four metzora’im isolation and the healing of the affliction. This were put outside the city gates because of their involved a Kohen taking two birds, cedar wood, a affliction. They discovered and reported that the crimson thread and hyssop grass. The Kohen Arameans had actually left their camp, which would slaughter one of the birds and – using the allowed the Israelites to plunder the camp and wood, thread and hyssop grass together in a thus end their famine. United Synagogue Daf Hashavua Produced by US Living & Learning together with the Rabbinical Council of the United Synagogue Editor: Rabbi Chaim Gross Editor-in-Chief: Rabbi Baruch Davis Editorial Team: Ilana Epstein, Michael Laitner, Sharon Radley Available also via email US website www.theus.org.uk ©United Synagogue To sponsor Daf Hashavua please contact Loraine Young on 020 8343 5653, or [email protected] If you have any comments or questions regarding Daf Hashavua please email [email protected] 2 A Loving Warning System by Rabbi Menachem Salasnik, Living & Learning Israel Educator This week's double sidrah should be terrible? Rabbi Naftali Zvi Yehuda deals mainly with tzara'at – Berlin (d. 1893) explains that if a person has been an affliction that is often through so much, their house has been knocked falsely translated as leprosy. down, their furniture and clothes burnt, they have The Talmud says that the spots on their body and have been quarantined main reason people in and yet they still haven't internalised the Biblical times would contract message to improve, even as the lesion tzara'at was due to lashon continues to spread throughout their whole body, hara – negative speech. they have demonstrated that they are not interested in learning from the experience. Once The Rambam (Maimonides d. 1204) describes that is the case, there is no longer any point in the progression of this spiritual disease: "These them being 'impure'. diseases were not natural occurrences but were miraculous signs to the Jewish people to warn It is possible to suggest that nowadays tzara'at them against speaking lashon hara. The walls of warnings might be ignored and therefore there is the speaker's house would first be afflicted. no point in having the system at all. A person If they changed their behaviour, the lesions would may get a spot but would put it down to disappear, but if they persisted, the lesions would coincidence, or they may say "I can't change", start to appear on their furniture. If they repented, or "everyone else has these spots, it isn't the lesions would disappear; but if not, the embarrassing anymore". They may also resent it, furniture would be burnt and the lesions would rather than appreciate its constructive purpose. 'spread' to their clothing. If they desisted from negative speech, their clothing would be Yet this does not mean that all hope for 'healed,' but if not the tzara'at would start to improvement has been lost. If we can, at least appear on their own skin and they would then be on an individual basis, demonstrate the desire forced to reside alone where they could no longer to take control of our speech and to look out be involved with lashon hara". for God’s guiding hand, even when it is apparently dressed up as coincidence – such as It is clear from the Rambam’s description that the time when you were just about to share a tzara'at was less a punishment and more akin to really juicy piece of gossip, then something came a series of warnings, that the person was up and the listener had to go (!) – we may be heading in the wrong spiritual direction. The final surprised to detect the positive guidance that we stage, where the person dwelled alone outside are subtly receiving. the city, forced the transgressor to contemplate what had brought them to that point. If this 'disease' was essentially a means to help us improve, why don't we have it nowadays? Would it not be helpful if we got a gentle early reminder, for example a tiny white spot on the wall, if we said something inappropriate? One of the apparently paradoxical laws of tzara'at is that if it spreads over the whole body, from head to toe, the person becomes pure again! Surely if one spot is bad, the whole body In memory of Devorah Bat Avraham 3 Solutions in the Sidrah: Language of the Moon Landings by Rabbi Yoni Birnbaum, Hadley Wood Jewish Community In 1969, in advance of the lengthy exposition of these laws is to impress first moon landings, Apollo upon us the importance of not speaking ill about 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong others. and Buzz Aldrin spent months training in a desert in the western United States. Yet, based on the humorous moon-landings According to legend, they story, a deeper message regarding the power of were approached one day by speech is also conveyed through these laws. a local elderly Native-American. He asked them Only a Kohen can declare whether an affliction is what they were doing, and they explained that pure or impure. No-one else is able to perform they were training for an expedition to the moon. this task. Even if the person is clearly afflicted, he The man thought for a few moments and then or she is not subject to the complex process of asked if they could do him a favour. He explained purification until the Kohen has viewed the that his tribe worshipped the moon spirits and afflicted area and declared its status. that he wanted to convey an important message to the spirits. Ostensibly, anyone knowledgeable in these laws should be able to fulfil this task, declaring the The astronauts replied that they would be happy same phrases used by the Kohen. Yet the very to convey the message. The man then said a same words which, when pronounced by the sentence in a language that they could not Kohen, have the power to change the status of understand, and asked them to repeat it until an individual from ritually pure to impure, are they had memorised it correctly.