Some Thoughts on Tzara’at
A metzorah is a person who is afflicted with tzara’at, a skin condition with specific physical symptoms. It causes the skin to become scaly in patches that are more than skin deep. The hair in those patches turns white. The typical English translation of tzara’at as “leprosy” is incorrect and unfortunate. The condition is not similar to leprosy as we know it. The typical English translation arose from the use of a Greek word that sounds similar to leprosy in an early Greek translation. The English translators were influenced by that similarity. There is no known medical condition that can afflict both humans and inanimate objects like houses, clothing, and furniture. While the condition is physical, it does not have a physical cause and is not contagious.
Tzara’at is a primary source of ritual impurity, in the same category as a corpse. “It is particularly severe in that it imparts ritual impurity to objects in the same enclosure with it, like impurity imparted by a corpse.”[1] That a physical condition created by an apparently non-physical cause creates ritual impurity of the same degree as a corpse underscores its seriousness.
Chapter 14 of Leviticus assumes that a person has been found to be afflicted with tzara’at and has been isolated outside the camp as is required. (The procedure for determining that a person has the affliction is in Parashat Tazria.) The issues addressed in Parashat Metzorah include how the person is determined to be cured of the condition, how he becomes ritually purified, how he re-enters the camp, the sacrifices he is to bring after his return, and the final confirmation of his purification.
The text does not discuss how the metzorah has contracted tzara’at or how he is cured of it. It assumes that he contracted it, has been isolated outside the camp, and has been cured. News of the cure is then sent to a priest who then comes outside the camp and examines the person. If the priest finds that the person has, in fact, been cured; that is, that the physical symptoms have disappeared; the process of purification and re-entry begins.
Several issues arise in the accounts of purification, re-entry, and restoration.
- How do we know that the affliction is not a typically contagious disease?
The commentators offer a variety of reasons for concluding that tzara’at has moral and spiritual rather than physical causes. Moses was afflicted at the desert encampment because he displayed a lack of trust. Miriam was afflicted because she spoke ill of Moses. Uzziah was afflicted because he improperly brought sacrifices in the temple.
The process of compensation also points to a cause that is beyond physical contagion.
The last part of the purification and reentry process is the offering of a series of sacrifices. The metzorah is to bring two male lambs, one ewe-lamb, three-tenths of a measure of choice flour with oil mixed in, and one measure of oil, to the entrance of the Tent of Meeting. One of the male lambs and the oil are offered first as a guilt offering, an asham. Then a burnt offering and a sin offering are made.
There are two points to be made here. First, this is an expensive requirement. There are provisions for decreasing the cost for those who are needy, but this is in any event a major cost to almost anyone. What justification could there be in requiring such an expense of someone who, simply by misfortune, contracted a contagious disease? Second, sin offerings are made for inadvertent transgressions, but guilt offerings are required for intentional misdeeds. There is no reason a guilt offering would be required if the person contracted tzara’at by simple physical contagion.
- The process of purification is complex and mysterious.
It is the priest’s job to confirm that the affliction has disappeared, not to cure it, and then to perform an intricate purification ceremony. The priest is a functionary, not a healer.
The ceremony involves two clean birds, some cedar wood, some crimson thread, and some hyssop. The priest kills one bird and allows its blood to flow into clean water. He then dips the live bird along with the other substances, into the bloody water. He (it seems) uses the live bird to sprinkle bloody water seven times onto the metzorah and sets the live bird free.
Using blood in a purification ceremony is significant, and we’ll see below that it it is done again at the end of the purificaiton process.
The slaughtered bird is not technically a sacrifice. The slaughter is done outside the camp, not at the altar. The process reminds us of the one described in Leviticus 16, when one goat is killed as a part of the Yom Kippur atonement ritual, and another is released into the wilderness “to make expiation” for sin. This process has a flavor of the magical about it. There is nothing rational or even particularly liturgical about it. No words are spoken.
When it is completed the metzorah washes his clothes, shaves, and bathes. The text then says v’taher “and he shall be clean.” He can then re-enter the camp. He is clean enough, apparently, to be in the camp, but more is required.
- Seven days later, the text tells us, he has to shave again, wash his clothes again, and bathe again, v’taher “and he shall be clean.” Why is this process repeated?
The commentators tell us that the first stage of purification only removed an initial level of impurity. The metzorah could reenter the camp but could not yet enter his tent because his presence would contaminate everything in the tent. (Some say that the “tent” is a euphemism for his wife. That is, he could not cohabit with his wife during that seven day period.)
Abarbanel says that the seven day waiting period was a time of soul searching and of repentance for the misdeeds that brought on the affliction. (We might think, though, that was done as a part of the process of “curing” the tzara’at.) The first level of purification was sufficient to allow him into the camp, the second made him fit to enter the Temple.
- Another unusual ritual element involving blood.
Some of the blood of the guilt offering is used in an unusual element of the ceremony. The priest puts blood on the right ear, the right thumb, and the right big toe of the metzorah, in a way that is reminiscent of the process of priestly ordination found in Exodus 29:20. Then some of the oil brought by the metzorah is applied to the same areas on top of the blood. The rest of the oil is placed on his head. “Thus, the priest shall make expiation for him before the Lord.” (14:18)
Abarbanel suggests that the ear, the thumb, and the big toe represent extremities, points farthest from the heart and so weaker and more susceptible to disease. So, the application of blood and oil is a matter of protection. Ibn Ezra, though, says that the thumb and the big toe are the keystones of the hand and foot, representing the essence of action. The ear is a reminder to hear that which he was commanded, and the right side is specified because of its dominance.
The reason for these elements of the process is unclear and proposed explanations are contradictory. But the parallels to the priestly ordination process suggest a high degree of significance. There seems to be a “power” element involved.
- The case of a house afflicted with tzara’at.
The last issue addressed in Chapter 14 is the question of tzara’at afflicting houses in the land of Canaan. The account begins at verse 33. I want to make just a few points.
First. This section only applies to houses in Canaan.
Second. The introduction has God saying to Moses and Aaron that it applies when “I inflict an eruptive plague upon a house that you possess.” (14:34) In this case it is explicitly stated that the condition does not arise from a natural cause. Ramban confirms that, “it is not a natural phenomenon at all.”
Third. The action described is initiated by the owner of the house, not by a priest or a third-party. It is the owner who reports to the priest that “something like a plague has appeared upon my house.” (14:35)
Fourth. The priest instructs the owner to remove all his belongings from the house “so that nothing may become unclean.” That is an interesting provision. All items that are under the same roof as a source of primary impurity, which tzara’at is, would be made impure automatically because of tumat ohel, or tent impurity. Here, though, nothing is actually impure, neither the house nor its contents, until the priest pronounces it impure.
Some say that this provision reflects a desire to spare the owner unnecessary financial loss. But it also suggests that the affliction might not be physical at all. It is possible, of course, that infection of contents of the house was a long term consequence of the affliction of the house. So it might be that the contents had not acquired any physical manifestations of the condition. But it does raise a question of physical versus ritual affliction.
The more interesting element is the idea that the affliction does not exist until it is said to do so by the priest. This is a problem caused by God but seems to exist only in potential until the words of the priest create it as a reality! The priest’s pronouncement is a form of “performative utterance,” in which the pronouncement does not just define, it creates.
Chapter 14 of Leviticus raises some of the most interesting, and most obscure, questions in the Priestly Torah. The connections to both the scapegoat and the priestly ordination rituals emphasize its importance.
[1] Steinsaltz, A. Reference Guide to the Talmud, 2nd ed. J. Schreier, ed. Koren: Jerusalem, 2014