Parshat Tazria
April 5, 2003

Our portion discusses, in great detail, the laws of one affected by the skin disease called Tzara’at. This disease comes, teach our Sages (Arachin 15 a-b), as a Divine warning that the afflicted person has acted sinfully. One of the sins most closely associated with Tzara’at is speaking lashon hara (slanderous speech). Tzara’at renders a person tamei (ritually unclean). (A very helpful book for understanding these complex halachot is “The Laws of Tzora’as”, by Rabbi Menachem Moshe Oppen.)

If part of a person’s skin turns white, he is brought to a kohen for examination. Under certain circumstances, the kohen will order the person to be temporarily confined (musgar), to see if the signs of tzara’at develop into a definite plague (muchlot). After the period of confinement, the person, after further examination by the kohen, may be declared muchlat, or, alternatively, tahor (ritually clean). Under other circumstances, the kohen will declare the person muchlat immediately.

Once the person is declared muchlat by the kohen, he must isolate himself from the community:

And the Tzarua [we have not translated this word as “leper,” since they are not actually the same], upon whom the plague is found, his clothes shall be torn; his head shall be unkempt [i.e., he may not cut his hair]; and over his upper lip shall he be veiled; and “Tamei! Tamei!” shall he cry. All the days that the plague is upon him shall he be tamei; he is tamei. He shall dwell in isolation; outside the camp shall be his dwelling (Vayikra 13:45-46).

The Tzarua, with his uncut hair and face covered, his clothing in tatters, and warning everyone not to come in contact with him, lives in complete isolation. He resided outside the camp in the desert; later, he lived outside any walled city in the land of Israel. Even other people who are rendered tamei through other sources may not be his neighbors: he must live isolated, in an all- tz’ru’im area. His life is a kind of living death, as he himself mourns his condition.

In view of all this, the following laws are especially surprising:

But if the tzara’at then breaks out further in the skin, and the tzara’at covers all the skin, [susceptible to] the plague, from his head to his feet, to all that is shown to the eyes of the kohen; then, the kohen shall look and behold tzara’at has covered all his flesh, and he shall pronounce the plague tahor… But, on the day that there appears healthy flesh in him, he shall become tamei. And the kohen shall view the healthy flesh and pronounce him tamei : the healthy flesh is tamei, it is tzara’at (Vayikra 13:12-15).

The case here, as described in the mishnah (Nega’im 8:1), is when the person was first declared tamei, and then the tzara’at spreads throughout his body.

Actually, only certain parts of the body are inspected: the mishnah (Nega’im 6:7-8) lists various parts of the body that are not examined, either because they are not flat enough to be seen in one glance, or because they are actually concealed. Therefore, says the mishnah (Negai’m 2:4),

“A man is examined [standing] as though he were hoeing [spreading his legs slightly], and as though he were picking olives.”

(My colleague, Rabbi Binyamin Adilman, who produces olive oil here in Israel, explains that the motion of olive-picking does not involve raising the arms very high. Instead, one grabs the branch and pulls downward, in a movement similar to milking a cow, stripping off several olives at once.)

To return to our case: when a person who has been declared tamei has an outbreak of tzara’at over his whole body (as seen by the kohen), then he is declared tahor! If, on the other hand, he was previously tahor, then an outbreak of full-body tzara’at renders him tamei! The mishnah (Nega’im 6:1) summarizes this paradoxical halachah as follows:

One who has an outbreak from a condition of tum’ah becomes tahor; if even his extremities return [to their healthy state], then he becomes tamei, until his plague is reduced to less than the size of a gris [half a bean]. [If his oubreak occurs] from [a condition of] taharah; then he becomes tamei. If his extremities return [to their healthy state], then he remains tamei until his plague returns to the way it was [before his outbreak].

What a strange law! A small white spot, the size of a gris, might make a person tamei, and so might a total outbreak of the plague. However, if he was first declared tamei and then the plague spreads to his whole body, he is tahor!

Of course, this is a chok, a Divine statute whose reason is not evident to us. Our attempt to derive a message from these halachot should not be misconstrued as explaining them in their entirety.

Chatam Sofer (Rabbi Moshe Sofer, 1762-1839) suggests that we derive a moral lesson from this mitzvah. He reminds us that tzara’at is a punishment for sinful behavior, especially that which affects social cohesiveness, such as lashon hara. The effect of declaring the tzarua as tamei, in addition to removing him from the Israelite camp, is to prevent others from being infected by his hypocritical ways. On the other hand, a thoroughly wicked person, whose sins are widely known, will not influence good people; rather, they will know on their own to keep their distance from him.

Similarly, writes the Chatam Sofer, the plague which

“All of it has turned white”, then the person’s wickedness has become obvious and well known in the community – although he is wicked in himself, and thus the affliction is called “a plague”, nevertheless, he is tahor. He is not tamei to infect others with tum’ah, nor does he require expulsion. However, “on the day that there appears healthy flesh in him”, meaning on the day that he begins to show himself as a righteous person, a “living man”, then he shall become tamei.

Along the same lines, he criticizes vigorously those who sin in secret, yet flaunt public acts of righteousness so that no one would suspect them of wrongdoing. It is recommended (Yoma 86b; Midrash Tehillim 52) that hypocrites be exposed publicly in order to prevent profanation of Hashem’s Name: If a hypocrite, someone thought by the public to be righteous, were to suffer misfortune because of his secret sins, people might accuse Hashem of injustice. Thus, hypocrisy must be disclosed.

As harmful as the brazenly sinful person is to the public, the hypocrite is even more so. The Torah commands us to pursue goodness, not only when others are watching, but even when Hashem is the only One who sees.

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