Introduction to Parashat Hashavua
Yeshivat Har Etzion

PARASHAT TAZRIA

The Seforno and Tzara’at

By Rabbi Yaakov Beasley

A.                INTRODUCTION

Starting with last week’s parsha, the Torah dedicates five chapters to resenting the laws of “Tum’a” and “Tahara” – the laws of purity and impurity.  Last week we opened the discussion with the laws of one-day impurities – utensils that have been exposed to unkosher animals and/or their corpses.  This week and next, we shall study the laws regarding those forms of impurities that require a seven-day process of purification.  A quick glimpse at how the Torah presents these laws of Tum’a and Tahara reveals the following structure:

These parashiyot deal with three main categories of tum’a, presenting specific laws applicable to each. The division of chapters corresponds to this division between the three categories of tum’a:

A.    Chapter 12: the tum’a of a woman who gave birth, her tahara process, and a brief mention of the requirement to circumcise the male newborn.

B.  Chapters 13-14: the tum’a of the metzora (leper) and his tahara process, and the process when the neg’a strikes clothing or buildings.

A1.Chapter 15: forms of ‘sexual’ tum’a - the tum’a resulting from bodily emissions (seminal, prostatic and menstrual) that emanate from the reproductive organs.

We see the chiasm created by these laws, with the laws regarding tzara’at framed by various laws that govern the physical relationship between man and woman.  Next week, we will investigate the rationale behind how the Torah presented the laws of tum’a as they relate to the male-female relationship, and why they are chosen to frame this section.  This week, we shall concentrate on the central axis, the laws of tzara’at.

B.                 MEDICAL OR MYSTICAL

To understand the rationale behind the laws of tzara'at, we must first address the more basic question: what is tzara'at? Is this, as many people assume, the Torah’s description of how to deal with a form of contagious disease[1]?  This is the approach of several medieval Jewish thinkers as well, including the Sefer haHinuch:

One message of this commandment is to teach us to concentrate on how the Divine Providence focuses individually on each human being, and Hashem knows each person’s path …. Therefore, we are told to pay particular attention to this virulent disease, and to consider it as the offspring of sin … (Commandment 168)

On the opposite end of the spectrum, others note that many of the laws that prescribe how tzara’at is acquired preclude a medical understanding:

A bridegroom does not acquire tzara’at … a non-Jew who displays the symptoms of tzara’at does not become pure … someone whose entire body is affected is considered pure.

Finally, the very fact that buildings and clothing may acquire symptoms of ‘infections’ with tzara’at removes any thought that the Torah is describing a purely medical condition.  In the words of the Ramban:

The text speaks of a garment that is infected with tzara'at (VaYikra 13:47). This condition is not at all a natural occurrence and does not typically occur in the world, and so with respect to the plague of the house. Rather, when the people of Israel are whole in their relationship with God, then God's spirit is upon them constantly to preserve their bodies, garments and houses in good repair. When sin or transgression happens with one of them, then a blemish occurs on their flesh, their clothing or their domicile to indicate that God has withdrawn from them. Therefore, the text states, "I shall place the plague of tzara'at upon a house in the land of your inheritance" (14:34), for it truly is God's plague upon that house. (Commentary to 13:47)

According to this approach, tzara’at is totally unrelated to any medical condition, but is an almost magical message that calls attention to spiritual pathology.  For this reason, a sin offering is required.  We treat the metzora as a moral leper, not as a physically sick individual.

Despite this approach, it is impossible to ignore the similarities between the affliction of the body with tzara’at, and with other legitimate medical conditions.  Towards the end of Hilchot Tum’at Tzara'at (16:10), the Rambam notes the fundamental problem in the inclusion of different phenomena under the shared title of "tzara'at":

'Tzara'at' is a shared name that includes many matters that do not resemble one another. For the whitening of human skin is called tzara'at, the loss of some hair of the head or beard is called tzara'at, and the discoloration of garments or houses is called tzara'at.  It is purely as a borrowed term that zara’at is used by the Torah to refer to discoloration of clothing or buildings, and such pathology is not natural …”

It appears from this passage that the Rambam saw even bodily tzara'at not as a single phenomenon, but as a shared name for different phenomena.  However, the primary tzara’at of the outer skin does represent a bona fide condition.   By definition, for a lesion to be declared tzara’at, it must be malignant. If the lesion does not behave destructively, it is not tzara’at:

The discolored lesions that the Torah describes are not in and of themselves tzara’at, but only precursors … and medical texts indeed caution us to view certain dermal conditions as if they were already tumorous.  This is why the verse first states “If a lesion of tzara’at” (13:9), which implies that it is a pre=tzara’at lesion, but not yet tzara’at itself.  Only after the observation with clear clinical conditions does it say, “it is indeed tzara’at!” (13:8).  (End of the commentary of the Ramban to 13:3)

C.                 THE SEFORNO’S UNDERSTANDING

One commentator who combines both understanding of tzara’at above is the Seforno, the famous 15^th century commentator from Italy who also was a doctor:

Note, none of the tzara’at modalities that are medically recognized appear here other than hemorifia, albaram, and the netek.  But the medically catastrophic tzara’at, which we know to be system wide cancers, generally tend to be red or black and are not considered ‘impure’ by the Torah.  Only the four [whitish] discolorations that the Torah lists are seen as representing a form of reproof for sinning, as the Talmud teaches (Berachot 5b) “Whoever suffers one of these four discolorations is the equivalent of the Beit haMikdash’s ‘altar of atonements’.”  Other cancers listed in the medical texts, however, do not originate as ‘altar of atonements’.  They represent either full-scale degeneration … or the result of either improper diet or other environmental factors, and have no connection to the idea of tum’a whatsoever.  (Commentary to 13:2)

According to the Seforno’s understanding, the more ‘catastrophic’ and devastating the disease, the less it relates to tzara’at and tum’a.  What distinguishes tzara’at and tum’a from other diseases is that they reflect the subtle beginning of the process of decay, not the full-fledged aftermath. That tzara’at appears before the full force of the pathology is unleashed on the person is an act of kindness, a veritable ‘altar of atonement’.   As the Ramban notes:

Even when the lesion whitens intensely, if it does not spread, it is pure, for clearly the intensity of the discoloration per se plays no part in the diagnosis … and similarly, even if the lesion’s discoloration diminishes, if it spreads, it is impure … (Commentary to 13:6)

The Seforno portrayal of tzara’at as the beginning of a ‘slippery slope’ provides us with greater insight into the inner workings of evil in general.  At the end of the halacha about tzara’at quoted above, the Rambam described the slow degeneration of the individual who participates in ‘harmless, meaningless gossip’ to engaging in scorn and sarcasm, and from scorn and sarcasm to ultimate blasphemy.  Evil in its full force is not to be overly feared.  Rather, man must beware the subtle border that delineates the boundary between moral and immoral.  Tum’a and tzara’at represent the subtle blurring of physical distinctions that reflect the hidden infiltration of iniquity that lies below the veneer of propriety that covers a person’s behavior.  Through Hashem’s kindness, tzara’at becomes a form of arresting this spiritual degeneration before real ethical malignancy sets in.