Dvar Torah – Parashat Metzorah | Rabbis For Human Rights

Dvar Torah – Parashat Metzorah

By Rabbis for Human Rights on July 8, 2007 - כ"ב תמוז תשס"ז

Leviticus chapter 14 describes the lengthy process of recovery and ‘purification’ of the leper. At the final stage, when the former leper is already allowed to rejoin his or her family and return to normal life within the community, he is expected to offer 3 types of sacrifices: The Hatat (purification/cleansing offering), the Asham (guilt/sin offering), and the ‘Olah (burnt offering, a sacrifices which is burnt completely, and no part of it is eaten by humans). Ab initio, the three sacrifices should be lambs, but if this is too costly, two of the three may be substituted by doves of pigeons.

Why should the leper offer cleansing and sin offerings? What is he guilty of?

It is well known that oral tradition ascribes to the leper the sin of ‘evil tongue’ (gossip and slander). This is based on the story of Miriam, who suffered leprosy for a week after speaking badly about her brother, Moses (Numbers 12) and the similar sounds of the words/terms ‘metzora’ (leper) and Motzi shem Ra (slanderer)

However, nowhere in biblical or oral tradition does it say that every leper is, by definition, guilty of ‘evil tongue’. Hence, Prof. Zeev Falk, z”l, offered a different explanation:

Whether the leper is guilty of any social-moral sin or not, he must be quarantined merely for the reason that his disease is contagious. The very fact that he/she is sent away from any public place of dwelling or gathering, implies that the sacrifices which the priests offer for public expiation (or cleansing) are not cleansing him. Since these are offered on a regular basis, on the beginning of each new (lunar) month, and on each festival (See Numbers, ch.28) it is very likely that the leper “missed” being ‘atoned for’ when he was ‘out of the Israelite camp’

Falk explains that the very ‘isolation’ of the leper from the Israelite camp means that at the time sacrifices by the public did not atone for all. In his book, “Ad Tomam” Professor Falk writes, “It is the fate of all the impure that were expelled from the collective and therefore did not achieve purification and atonement along with the collectie..From this we learn the importance of the collective, “Do not separate yourself from the community.”

Seeing that we live in a time in which prayer, the service of the heart, replaces the sacrificial cult, it is important to emphasize that God hears individual prayers, but that there is a preference for public prayer. We see this in the teachings of the sages, such as the Midrash, (Brakhot 6a) on the verse, God stands in the divine assembly.” (Psalms 82:1)

Shabbat Shalom

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