This week’s portion – or, more accurately, two portions that
are read together, Taz’ree’ah and Metzo’rah – seems, at first site, not like
the most interesting of reading material: a detailed, somewhat arduous account
of ordinances, laws, and requirements relating to almost every aspect of every
bodily ailment – from bad skin condition to pure leprosy. But, as was the case in other portions, a
somewhat deeper examination reveals some extremely thought-provoking insights. In this post I want to discuss three in
particular.
What’s in a Name? A Word About Portion Titles
The title of the two portions tells us something about their
subject matter. Taz’ree’ah – the title
of the first of today’s two portions – is a word related to seed or sperm; in
today’s context, it reads something in the vicinity of “whenever a woman
becomes pregnant, she should [do the following…]” (Lev. 12:1-2). Most
translations understandably took the easy route here, simply reading the text
as whenever “a woman gives birth,” or whenever “a woman is with a child,” or,
closer still, whenever “a woman who has conceived seed.” Only one translation of the eleven I
examined, the Douay-Rheims Bible, chose
to confront the Hebrew original head-on by writing: “If a woman having received seed shall bear a [male]
child… [then she should]” (they actually used “man-child,” a term I cannot
accept). In any event, the first
portion begins with pregnancy – the point of departure for every human
life.
And indeed, this week’s portion
– as any other portion – is named after the first meaningful word in the
opening section. By “Meaningful” I do
not mean that it has a meaning – all words in the bible do; rather, it is
meaningful in the sense that it is not a part of the formal introduction
to the portion (as in “So said God,” or “Then God has spoken,” or, more to the
point in this week’s portion: “And God spoke to Moshe and told him: Tell the children of Israel to do the
following”). What is interesting to note, however, is that the first of these
meaningful words, this week, is not Taz’ree’ah, but rather “a woman”
[“Ee’shah”].
Despite that, the sages chose
not to name this portion, as it should have been called, “a woman,” but rather
the much more convoluted term “Taz’ree’a.”
That is unfortunate. Just
imagine for a second what an important contribution a portion named “woman” can
make to women’s rights and status in Judaism. Just consider the annual cause
for celebration, discussion, and reflection on that day for (at least) half of
the persons who are Jewish, merely because of the portion’s name.
And while it is true that in Judaism today, once the
Sanhedrin ceased to exist, the formal authority to make such serious revisions
– as re-naming a portion – is gone, one could make the argument that individual
communities, should they so desire, may mark this week by naming the portion in
public “Woman.” We should echo, therefore, Juliet’s question to her Romeo –
“what’s in a name?” – and answer it anew today: Much is in a name. Let us
properly restore it.
The title of the second portion
– Me’tzorah, which means a leper – also tells us something about this week’s
content. In the lowest level of
abstraction, reading the text as plainly as possible, both portions deal
heavily with skin diseases in different stages of evolvement. Perhaps that was a frequent condition in the
desert, requiring an elaborated set of ordinances (with the priests in the role
of physicians). But perhaps there is
something deeper here. That would be
the issue of my second point today.
The All-Encompassing Aspect
of Judaism
About twenty years ago, the Israeli Supreme Court was
heavily divided around a major jurisprudential (=legal philosophy) issue: Is the law ubiquitous? Is the law
everywhere, all the time, all around us, whenever we go? Or does the law have a limited role,
intervening in our lives only when we do (or attempt to do) something wrong? One side of the debate was presented by the
Vice Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, a noted Torah scholar and a prolific
jurist, Justice Menachem Elon. He vehemently opposed the idea of “the law is
everything.” To him, (and I cite from memory, twenty years after the fact),
“the law has nothing to say about love, dancing, playing with my grandchildren,
and many other activities. The law is not everywhere, and the law is not
everything.”
On the other end of the debate, however, stood Aharon Barak,
then an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, and later Israel’s most famous
Chief Justice (think of Chief Justice Marshall for comparison). Even then, there was no dispute about
Barak’s legal brilliance. To him, (and
again, citation from memory only) “the law is not everything, but it is
everywhere; everything can be examined through a legal lens.” The fact that we
can “dance, love, and play with our children,” Barak explained, exists only
because “the law allows it.” More
concretely, “the law sometimes allows, sometimes restricts, but is always
there.” Thus, at times the law chooses to intervene through restrictions (“You
shall not murder”; “You shall not steal” etc.), and sometimes through leaving
“blank spaces” in the regulation map (such as “in relationship, do whatever you
want to do [as long as you don’t violate the law otherwise (such as attacking
your partner)]”).
The debate was never firmly resolved. But reading this week’s portion and thinking
of the debate between these two giants – the noted Torah scholar on the one
hand and the brilliant jurist on the other – it seems that the Torah itself
leans towards the latter (the jurist), at least in its perspective on Jewish
law.
Indeed, this week’s portions take us through a long journey
of human life (“life cycle” in modern parlance) - and not necessarily the most
esthetically pleasing portions of it: skin conditions, ailments, rashes, and
the like. (To be exact, the portions take us through the legal rules or decrees
we have to follow whenever we encounter such conditions). From post-pardom irth
“impurity”; from circumcision (an eighth-day decree that the Rambam himself
emphasizes comes from this portion and not from the elaborate discussion
in Genesis on the Compact between Avraham and God; see Leviticus 12:3) to a
variety of skin diseases in all shapes and sizes; from hair and beard
infections to baldness; from contaminated clothes (and proper rules of laundry)
to leprosy; from women’s menstrual cycle to men’s inadvertent semen discharge –
and many, many, more.
While tedious at times, this legal journey is fascinating in
the sense that it shows, on the one hand, the ubiquity of the rules of Judaism
– how it may govern every aspect of our lives, from birth to death and
everything in between. But it also
makes another important point, which often escapes theological observers,
especially non-religious ones – and that is the subject of my third and last
point today.
What Religion Truly Is
When we talk about religion –
every religion, but ours most especially – we usually think of very spiritual,
dignified settings: Shabbat Dinner;
Shul Prayers; Reflections on God; Celebrating the Holidays (and realizing they
are “holy” days); etc. Very few people, I would venture to guess, think about
issues such as women’s cycle, skin diseases, proper laundry rules, and others
when asked “what religion means to you.”
This week’s portion, however, makes the very profound point that
religion – every religion, but ours most especially – in not only about
those unique and glorious moments in life, but also – and perhaps mostly –
about every single moment in life, from cradle to grave, and everything
in between. Thus, when a person receives upon themselves the obligation of
religion – the yoke of Torah and Mitzvot – they are placing an enormous
responsibility on their lives: It is the responsibility to live and act like a
Jewish person at all times.
The Shulchan Aruch, one
of Judaism’s profound documents, demonstrates this point beautifully when it
begins with the description of what a Jewish person should do immediately
upon awakening every single morning (to overcome [his desire to go back to
sleep] “like a lion” and to go out and serve his God by prayer [Shacharit]),
all the way through going to sleep again. Indeed, the laws of Judaism are all
around us, all the time – not only when we light the Shabbat candles.
That is the message of this
week’s portion.
Shabbat Shalom,
Doron
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