27: Tazria
Welcome to TLDR Torah: a synopsis of the weekly parsha based on Robert Alter’s translation, plus a question to spur your Shabbat dinner (or any!) conversation.
Parsha Tazria (Leviticus 12:1-13:59)
TLDR:
We continue the discussion about purities and impurities, but this time we’ll need an armchair obstetrician and dermatologist.
As if giving birth isn’t hard enough, the Torah deems the woman impure for 40 days if she births a male, and 80 days for a female. Why the difference?
(Answer: After Ibn Ezra confidently explains that it takes double the time for a female to be created in the womb, he explains that the woman has to make a sacrifice offering because she might have had an “unseemly thought” during childbirth.)
Bring out your tweezers, scalpels, and blackhead extractors because if there’s a person with a rash that turns white, the priest has to expect it, sometimes over the periods of weeks, and isolate the individual.
The Torah then describes extensive purity laws about skin affliction (traditionally “tsara’at” was translated to “leprosy” but that has been widely rejected; Alter uses the term “skin blanch” but apparently there’s no clear modern corollary).
While it’s possible to interpret tsara’at laws as public health attempts to mitigate disease contagion, many elements are focused on separating the perceived spiritual pure and impure.
For example, there is a section about fire burns and yellowed hair generating impurities. Bald people should take comfort knowing that they are pure as long as there are no blanch spots on their bald forehead.
The parsha concludes with detailed rules about how to handle contaminated clothing.
Question:
We can look back on this Parsha holding partial admiration that the Israelites lucked into internally coherent contagion laws. On the other hand, there’s clear superstitions (e.g. around baldness) untied to actual health outcomes. What will our great-grandkids look back on what we do today with bewilderment? Our milk obsession? Thinking cold weather gives you a cold? Olympic cupping?