Well, I made a successful return to Torah commentaries this Shabbat. Hopefully what I shared was enlightening. You can now all judge for yourselves. Here’s my 2010 Tazriah-Metsora commentary.
Shabbat Shalom.
This week, we have a double portion for our parashah. It includes Tazriah, a Hebrew word that means, “She bears seed” or “She conceives,” as well as the portion known as “Metsora,” a Hebrew word that means, “Infected one,” or “diseased one.” This double portion covers Leviticus chapter 12 through Leviticus chapter 15.
Now, this week’s reading covers such topics as pregnancy and childbirth, skin diseases, bodily discharges and the laws surrounding purification from all of these afflictions. But before we delve into that, I want to share a word of encouragement from this week’s portion for a select portion of this congregation – and you’ll know who you are in just a moment.
Now, some of you might remember the 1980s. One of the big trends back then was custom T-shirt shops. You could walk in, select the size and color of T-shirt you liked best, and then select just about any kind of saying or cartoon that you wanted and it would be added to the shirt while you waited.
I’ll always remember one we got my father. It’s not a Biblical saying, but it might sound like it. The t-shirt read, “God made only a few perfect heads. All the rest, he covered with hair.”
I thought it was pretty funny back then, too. Of course, those of you who’ve known me for a few years now will testify that, as the years go on, my head’s getting a little closer to perfect all the time.
Yet the word of encouragement for those of us who are a bit closer to perfect atop our heads comes to us from:
Leviticus 13:40-41
If a man’s hair has fallen from his scalp, he is bald; but he is clean. If a man’s hair has fallen off the front part of his scalp, he is forehead-bald; but he is clean.
So, that’s good news, right? Some of us may be balding, men, but at least we’re clean! Now, joking aside, the passage does go on to say that if baldness is accompanied by sores of various kinds, it can indeed indicate ritual uncleanness. Of course, so can a whole lot of other things. And what we see in this week’s double-portion is that there is so much ritual uncleanness in the world, it’s almost impossible to avoid!
Yet it’s important to note that ritual uncleanness is not always the same as sinfulness – though, at times, it can be. For example, that which is unclean can often be remedied in this week’s parashah by simply bathing and separating oneself from the community until evening. Can water grant remission of sins? No, the Torah is clear that blood must be shed for sins to be pardoned. So if some types of uncleanness can be remedied by washing with water, they must not be sources of sin, but a simple lack of purity.
Yet even this insight misses something more important. What both of these portions talk about is what? Ceremonial uncleanness, right? As we read, for example, in:
Leviticus 12:1-4
The L-RD said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites: ‘A woman who becomes pregnant and gives birth to a son will be ceremonially unclean for seven days, just as she is unclean during her monthly period. On the eighth day the boy is to be circumcised. Then the woman must wait thirty-three days to be purified from her bleeding. She must not touch anything sacred or go to the sanctuary until the days of her purification are over.
So you see, many of these purity laws have to do with one’s fitness to enter the Temple … the Tent of Meeting … and since that Temple no longer stands, it would seem many of these laws are of limited relevance and use to us today. Right?
Not so fast. Because while the laws of ritual purity were specific to Jewish people living in the Land, and relevant to entering the Temple or the Tent of Meeting, they also have a more symbolic, spiritual aspect to them.
Let’s start by looking at the word for impurity or infection. The Hebrew word for our second portion is “metsorah.” It is derived from two root words. The first, “motzi,” means “source or well-spring.” The second, “ra,” means “evil.” So the word “metsorah,” in addition to meaning “infected one” or “diseased one,” could also be said to mean “well-spring or source of evil.”
When one thinks about this, it begins to make sense. After all, on a spiritual level, what causes infection or disease in our spirit? Evil, right? Specifically, exposure to evil or a source of evil. And often, simple exposure is enough.
We see the truth in this in the story of the fall of man. What happens when Adam and Chavah are exposed to the lies of the serpent? They become infected, diseased with doubt. Doubt about what? Whether to trust in the words of the L-RD, or the words of the serpent. Exposure alone to that doubt is enough to produce what comes next: rebellion against God’s only command at that time, as they eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
In the same way, we can see how simple exposure to impurity can infect us in our daily walk, in our witness, in how we view, understand and even explain our faith in the L-RD to others.
For example, what does the Tenakh teach us about where to invest our faith and trust? We read this in:
Proverbs 3:5-6
Trust in the L-RD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.
This is what the L-RD asks of us, right? To simply put our trust in Him, rather than our own understanding of things. We can all agree on that, right?
Yet we live in a world that is full of people who don’t do that; who put their trust in their own understanding, rather than in the L-RD. Still with me? Good.
One of the most prevalent theories out there in the world today, in the understanding of men, is the theory of evolution.
Like atmospheric yeast, it’s out there in the world, like it or not. And this idea that man was not created but evolved from lower life-forms, and all the ideas that spring forth from that core theory, such as that the earth is, as scientist Carl Sagan always said, “billions and billions of years old,” rather than nearing the end of the six thousand years of human history spoken of in the Bible, has been entrenched in public education and the public mind so firmly for so long, that the fact is that today, many believers would prefer to cast aside the first few chapters of Genesis in an attempt to lure those who view the world through evolutionary, so-called scientific eyes, than to even attempt to believe what God has revealed about the nature of His creation.
The rationalization many use is that they “don’t want a few chapters in one book of the Bible” to be a barrier to someone entering the kingdom of heaven. “It’s not important enough,” they’ll claim.
Yet, is that what we’re called to do? Are we to stake claim only in the words of the Torah that make sense to the unbelieving? Or are we to simply trust in the L-RD with all of our hearts and lean not on our own understanding?
And that’s what simple exposure can do! Simply by being in the same atmosphere as this well-spring of evil, we become infected, diseased in our own thinking. We start to change what we believe to make it easier for the unbelieving to accept, rather than simply standing firm in our trust in the L-RD… which is what the L-RD has called us to do!
This is just an example. There are many. Perhaps the well-spring of evil in your home is broadcast television, which contains so many shows that are rooted in evil and untruths that can infect you, make you impure in your simple, commanded trust in God. Perhaps for your children, it’s videogames that is the source of infection. It could be an unhealthy amount of time spent on the Internet, rather than in the Word of the L-RD.
It could even be something as simple as evil speech – known as lashon horah in Hebrew – the practice of speaking of people in a way meant to diminish them in the eyes of others, even if what you’re saying is true. If the intention is to diminish rather than to build up, it’s lashon horah and it can destroy a sense of safety and trust in a community.
Now, perhaps, we begin to see the pieces come together from what seems on the surface like a rather dry and boring pair of Torah portions. For you see, for all these detailed instructions on how to rid oneself of impurity, there is one remedy that is never recommended. Whether an impurity is a result of sin, or a simpler impurity that isn’t necessarily sin but does make you ceremonially impure – in other words, unfit to come before the L-RD – one solution that the Torah NEVER endorses is to do nothing about it!
That’s amazing to think about, isn’t it? I mean, you read about how touching a mildewed cloth makes you impure, but the solution is to wash and wait until evening, the start of a new day, and one is tempted to think: well, then that’s not sin! Why is the Torah being so nitpicky? If it’s not sin, why all the fuss over simple impurity.
Well, it’s because while God does desire for us to come to Him through Messiah Yeshua and experience His yeshua – His salvation – he isn’t done with us once the sin is dealt with. God wants us to live a life far above that minimum standard required to attain eternal residence in His kingdom! He wants us to, as he repeats throughout the Torah, including just before this week’s parashah in:
Leviticus 11:45
I am the L-RD who brought you up out of Egypt to be your God. Therefore, be holy, because I am holy.
Holiness – not just freedom from sin but freedom from all impurity – is the nature of God. To experience intimacy with God, we must strive to be like him. Not just forgiven of our sins, but pursuing holiness, which is the lack of all metsorahs – the lack of any sources or well-springs of evil in our lives.
Let us, therefore, pursue lives that are holy – free of all spiritual infection and disease – in how we live and walk through this life and live by our beliefs, our trust in our creator. Let us be holy, because the L-RD our God is holy, and may we accomplish this through our redeemer, the Messiah Yeshua.
Shabbat Shalom.
My Tazriah-Metsora 2010 Commentary
April 17th, 2010 by Craig Hansen
Well, I made a successful return to Torah commentaries this Shabbat. Hopefully what I shared was enlightening. You can now all judge for yourselves. Here’s my 2010 Tazriah-Metsora commentary.
Shabbat Shalom.
This week, we have a double portion for our parashah. It includes Tazriah, a Hebrew word that means, “She bears seed” or “She conceives,” as well as the portion known as “Metsora,” a Hebrew word that means, “Infected one,” or “diseased one.” This double portion covers Leviticus chapter 12 through Leviticus chapter 15.
Now, this week’s reading covers such topics as pregnancy and childbirth, skin diseases, bodily discharges and the laws surrounding purification from all of these afflictions. But before we delve into that, I want to share a word of encouragement from this week’s portion for a select portion of this congregation – and you’ll know who you are in just a moment.
Now, some of you might remember the 1980s. One of the big trends back then was custom T-shirt shops. You could walk in, select the size and color of T-shirt you liked best, and then select just about any kind of saying or cartoon that you wanted and it would be added to the shirt while you waited.
I’ll always remember one we got my father. It’s not a Biblical saying, but it might sound like it. The t-shirt read, “God made only a few perfect heads. All the rest, he covered with hair.”
I thought it was pretty funny back then, too. Of course, those of you who’ve known me for a few years now will testify that, as the years go on, my head’s getting a little closer to perfect all the time.
Yet the word of encouragement for those of us who are a bit closer to perfect atop our heads comes to us from:
So, that’s good news, right? Some of us may be balding, men, but at least we’re clean! Now, joking aside, the passage does go on to say that if baldness is accompanied by sores of various kinds, it can indeed indicate ritual uncleanness. Of course, so can a whole lot of other things. And what we see in this week’s double-portion is that there is so much ritual uncleanness in the world, it’s almost impossible to avoid!
Yet it’s important to note that ritual uncleanness is not always the same as sinfulness – though, at times, it can be. For example, that which is unclean can often be remedied in this week’s parashah by simply bathing and separating oneself from the community until evening. Can water grant remission of sins? No, the Torah is clear that blood must be shed for sins to be pardoned. So if some types of uncleanness can be remedied by washing with water, they must not be sources of sin, but a simple lack of purity.
Yet even this insight misses something more important. What both of these portions talk about is what? Ceremonial uncleanness, right? As we read, for example, in:
So you see, many of these purity laws have to do with one’s fitness to enter the Temple … the Tent of Meeting … and since that Temple no longer stands, it would seem many of these laws are of limited relevance and use to us today. Right?
Not so fast. Because while the laws of ritual purity were specific to Jewish people living in the Land, and relevant to entering the Temple or the Tent of Meeting, they also have a more symbolic, spiritual aspect to them.
Let’s start by looking at the word for impurity or infection. The Hebrew word for our second portion is “metsorah.” It is derived from two root words. The first, “motzi,” means “source or well-spring.” The second, “ra,” means “evil.” So the word “metsorah,” in addition to meaning “infected one” or “diseased one,” could also be said to mean “well-spring or source of evil.”
When one thinks about this, it begins to make sense. After all, on a spiritual level, what causes infection or disease in our spirit? Evil, right? Specifically, exposure to evil or a source of evil. And often, simple exposure is enough.
We see the truth in this in the story of the fall of man. What happens when Adam and Chavah are exposed to the lies of the serpent? They become infected, diseased with doubt. Doubt about what? Whether to trust in the words of the L-RD, or the words of the serpent. Exposure alone to that doubt is enough to produce what comes next: rebellion against God’s only command at that time, as they eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
In the same way, we can see how simple exposure to impurity can infect us in our daily walk, in our witness, in how we view, understand and even explain our faith in the L-RD to others.
For example, what does the Tenakh teach us about where to invest our faith and trust? We read this in:
This is what the L-RD asks of us, right? To simply put our trust in Him, rather than our own understanding of things. We can all agree on that, right?
Yet we live in a world that is full of people who don’t do that; who put their trust in their own understanding, rather than in the L-RD. Still with me? Good.
One of the most prevalent theories out there in the world today, in the understanding of men, is the theory of evolution.
Like atmospheric yeast, it’s out there in the world, like it or not. And this idea that man was not created but evolved from lower life-forms, and all the ideas that spring forth from that core theory, such as that the earth is, as scientist Carl Sagan always said, “billions and billions of years old,” rather than nearing the end of the six thousand years of human history spoken of in the Bible, has been entrenched in public education and the public mind so firmly for so long, that the fact is that today, many believers would prefer to cast aside the first few chapters of Genesis in an attempt to lure those who view the world through evolutionary, so-called scientific eyes, than to even attempt to believe what God has revealed about the nature of His creation.
The rationalization many use is that they “don’t want a few chapters in one book of the Bible” to be a barrier to someone entering the kingdom of heaven. “It’s not important enough,” they’ll claim.
Yet, is that what we’re called to do? Are we to stake claim only in the words of the Torah that make sense to the unbelieving? Or are we to simply trust in the L-RD with all of our hearts and lean not on our own understanding?
And that’s what simple exposure can do! Simply by being in the same atmosphere as this well-spring of evil, we become infected, diseased in our own thinking. We start to change what we believe to make it easier for the unbelieving to accept, rather than simply standing firm in our trust in the L-RD… which is what the L-RD has called us to do!
This is just an example. There are many. Perhaps the well-spring of evil in your home is broadcast television, which contains so many shows that are rooted in evil and untruths that can infect you, make you impure in your simple, commanded trust in God. Perhaps for your children, it’s videogames that is the source of infection. It could be an unhealthy amount of time spent on the Internet, rather than in the Word of the L-RD.
It could even be something as simple as evil speech – known as lashon horah in Hebrew – the practice of speaking of people in a way meant to diminish them in the eyes of others, even if what you’re saying is true. If the intention is to diminish rather than to build up, it’s lashon horah and it can destroy a sense of safety and trust in a community.
Now, perhaps, we begin to see the pieces come together from what seems on the surface like a rather dry and boring pair of Torah portions. For you see, for all these detailed instructions on how to rid oneself of impurity, there is one remedy that is never recommended. Whether an impurity is a result of sin, or a simpler impurity that isn’t necessarily sin but does make you ceremonially impure – in other words, unfit to come before the L-RD – one solution that the Torah NEVER endorses is to do nothing about it!
That’s amazing to think about, isn’t it? I mean, you read about how touching a mildewed cloth makes you impure, but the solution is to wash and wait until evening, the start of a new day, and one is tempted to think: well, then that’s not sin! Why is the Torah being so nitpicky? If it’s not sin, why all the fuss over simple impurity.
Well, it’s because while God does desire for us to come to Him through Messiah Yeshua and experience His yeshua – His salvation – he isn’t done with us once the sin is dealt with. God wants us to live a life far above that minimum standard required to attain eternal residence in His kingdom! He wants us to, as he repeats throughout the Torah, including just before this week’s parashah in:
Holiness – not just freedom from sin but freedom from all impurity – is the nature of God. To experience intimacy with God, we must strive to be like him. Not just forgiven of our sins, but pursuing holiness, which is the lack of all metsorahs – the lack of any sources or well-springs of evil in our lives.
Let us, therefore, pursue lives that are holy – free of all spiritual infection and disease – in how we live and walk through this life and live by our beliefs, our trust in our creator. Let us be holy, because the L-RD our God is holy, and may we accomplish this through our redeemer, the Messiah Yeshua.
Shabbat Shalom.
Tags: commentary, Metsora, Tazriah
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