{"id":1832,"date":"2019-04-05T16:34:06","date_gmt":"2019-04-05T20:34:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/?p=1832"},"modified":"2019-04-05T16:34:09","modified_gmt":"2019-04-05T20:34:09","slug":"tazria-on-behalf-of-seeding-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adrenalinedrash.com\/?p=1832","title":{"rendered":"Tazria: On Behalf of Seeding Life"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

We\nare smack dab in the middle of the Torah. Tazria, <\/em>\u201cshe seeded,\u201d marks\nthe exact halfway point of our fifty-four parshiot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And\nit is the kind of parsha that makes readers wish it had no place in Torah at\nall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s\neasy to see why. This is the parsha which reads like a medical textbook. We\nlearn in nearly sickening detail how inflammations of the bodies may present:\nscaly, yellow, white, and otherwise. We read about the various ways skin may appear\nafter a burn. The presence and color of any hair growing out of inflammations\nor burns are considered and described. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those\nwhom the priest declares \u201cimpure\u201d must remain outside the camp and call out \u201cimpure,\nimpure.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\ncan do all sorts of things to make Tazria<\/em> easier for us to read. We can\nnote that words like \u201cimpurity\u201d and \u201cpurity,\u201d \u201ccleanliness\u201d or \u201cuncleanliness\u201d may\nappear to encourage judgment and rejection but weren\u2019t actually used that way\nby Ancient Israelites. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ancient\nIsraelites didn\u2019t use these terms to describe individuals as inherently evil or\nsinful. They are using them to describe conditions, not moral states. Being pregnant\nor giving birth is a state of being. Being intimate with someone else is, too. A\nskin inflammation alters one\u2019s condition, as does menstruation. Yes, people are\nbeing quarantined or kept from the Temple precincts if they aren\u2019t in the\nappropriate state. But no one is being judged for presumed ethical failings or\nviolations of law. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\ncan note, as academics long have, that each of the conditions described in this\nsection of Leviticus deals directly with two alternate states of being: life\nand death. If you have a wound and bleed, you are not considered \u201cimpure.\u201d If\nyou are a menstruating woman, you are. A menstruating woman\u2019s blood loss is the\nloss of potential life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As\nfor all those eruptions and inflammations? Skin diseases that look like wasting\ndiseases naturally reminded ancient peoples of something most of us have never\nseen: the way a decomposing corpse appears.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still,\nwe cringe reading this parsha, and not only because the descriptions of some of\nthese states elicits a visceral reaction. \u201cThis is gross,\u201d one student once\ntold me. And I could understand that reaction; I\u2019ve felt it myself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\ndon\u2019t want to pretend that I am not disturbed by the idea that any person has\nto call out to warn others that he or she is in some altered state. This year,\nas I read the parsha, I wanted to imagine, with the rabbis, that the whole purpose\nof calling out is to ask for sympathy and compassion from others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But\nit wasn\u2019t good enough. I wanted another way to see the text and I couldn\u2019t find\nit \u2013 not even by relying on my own stock in trade: the historian\u2019s lens. It\u2019s a\nconvenient method of course, since a historian can insist on judging texts solely\nas products of their own time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then I found something that did work for me. I imagined the scene: afflicted person and priest, together. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\ndoes the priest do in this parsha?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He\ndiagnoses the effect of altered states. He must examine and explore and analyze\nand understand. He will have to get very close to whoever has the skin eruption\nor burn or inflammation. He does not treat the condition. He observes and\nfigures out what is needed \u2013 either by noting that nothing warrants any action at\nall or that the individual should spend time outside the camp.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\npriest doesn\u2019t do this once, but regularly. After seven days, he is once again\nwith the person in question. If the situation has changed, the burn or\ninflammation subsided, changed color, he can change the situation. The person\ncan come into the camp again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s\na position and a responsibility that is rife with possible misuses of power, of\ncourse. It is also potentially a place of tenderness and care. This priest is\nup close and personal; he has to observe, examine, touch the person whose\ncondition he is assessing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tazria<\/em> is a creation word. To bear seed, to create seed \u2013 this is a way to offer life to the world. I wonder and I hope: Perhaps priests of old understood every examination of every burn or inflammation to be holy service in returning people to life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So I will imagine them: Looking closely and\ncarefully for signs of healing. Hoping, always, for the latter. Announcing it\nwith joy. In their own way, seeding life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We are smack dab in the middle of the Torah. Tazria, \u201cshe seeded,\u201d marks the exact halfway point of our fifty-four parshiot. And it is the kind of parsha that makes readers wish it had no place in Torah at all. It\u2019s easy to see why. This is the parsha which reads like a medical … <\/p>\n

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