28: Metzora
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 Metzora (Leviticus 14:1-15:33)
TLDR:
The Torah describes the rituals needed to cure someone struck with skin blanch.
It gets weird quickly; the priest takes two birds, slaughters one of them, and dips the other one in the blood (mixed with water and cedar wood) of the dead one. The priest sprinkles the mixture on the person needing curing, and sets the live bird free. It’s a preview of the “scapegoat.”
After seven days, the priests performs a final purification ritual that requires the infected individual to fully shave and make a sacrifice.
God warns that when in the future they’re in Canaan and a scaly affliction appears on a house (note: this is not asbestos), the priest must clear the house and examine the plague. If after seven days it spreads, the house is utterly destroyed (if it doesn’t spread, the priest performs a similar bird ritual as above to purify it).
The last chapter of the Parsha outlines what happens when men and women have bodily discharges (semen and menstrual discharge); in short, they become impure themselves and make any objects they touch impure too.
Question:
There’s no explicit connection here between getting the scaly infection (either on your body or your house) and committing a bad action. But implicitly (and more explicitly in other parts of the Torah), the person does something to deserve it. The punishment applies communal shame as a form of deterrence. It’s bad if you feel guilty, but possibly worse if everyone else knows you did something wrong. Herein lies a question about forms of punishment deemed acceptable; how do we apply communal shame as a form of deterrence today, and is it a good approach or long-term counterproductive?