Parshiyot Tazria-Metzora
3 Iyar 5764 - April 24, 2004

Tzara’at, the collective name for afflictions that attack the body, clothing or one’s house, is a source of tum’ah (a hard word to translate as well; the best we might say is “spiritual defilement determined by physical conditions”), and requires purification (taharah). Only certain types of tzara’at are pronounced tamei.

The first signs of tzara’at must be examined, and its later developments monitored, carefully:
And Hashem spoke to Moshe and to Aharon, saying: A person who has on the skin of his flesh a rising, an outgrowth or a bright spot, and on the skin of his flesh shall become a plague of tzara’at, then he shall be brought to Aharon the Kohen, or to one of his sons the Kohanim. And the Kohen shall see (V’RAAH) the plague on the skin of his flesh, and hair in the plague has turned white, and the appearance (UMAR’EI) of the plague is deeper than the skin of his flesh, it is a plague of tzara’at. Then the Kohen shall see him (V’RAAHU), and pronounce him tamei (Vayikra 13:1-3).

A central theme of this entire passage is seeing, especially by the Kohen. The verb-root R-A-H, “see,” is repeated, in different forms, 49 times! The following are examples of laws of tzara’at that depend on vision (from Mishnah tractate Nega’im):
• There are four major shades (MAROT, “appearances”) of white that can be tzara’at: snow, whitewash, white wool and the membrane of an egg (1:1).
• The plague is examined by natural unoccluded light of the late morning or early afternoon (2:2).
• A Kohen who is blind, even in one eye, or who has lost much of his sight, is disqualified to rule on a plague (2:3), even on the basis of another sighted person’s examination.
• Only those parts of the body that are normally flat enough to be seen in one glance, and which are usually unconcealed when naked, are examined (6:7-8). “A man is examined [standing] as though he were hoeing [spreading his legs slightly], and as though he were picking olives” (2:4).
• If a Kohen is inexpert, a scholar accompanies him to examine and tell him what to pronounce, but “Tumah and taharah are in the power of the Kohen” (3:1).

The motif of sight is established in verse 3 above, wherein Meshech Chochmah (R. Meir Simcha of Dvinsk 1843-1926) connects the two versions of “see” with two aspects of what the Kohen must see. First:
And the Kohen shall see (V’RAAH) the plague on the skin of his flesh — he must examine the plague for signs of tumah.
Then the Kohen shall see him (V’RAAHU) — the Kohen must take the person into account. Thus, if he is a bridegroom he is allotted the seven days of celebration before pronouncing him tamei; similarly, if it is a festival he is given the entire festival (Nega’im 3:2), so as not to disrupt his joy.
What emerges from this are two conceptions of vision: 1. A judgment about an objective reality (as might be the case, for example, when an expert in Kashrut inspects a species of animal to determine if it is permitted); and
2. The creation of a reality.
The Kohen’s vision creates the reality of tumat tzara’at.

Our first impulse is to reject this. We intuit that there is a reality “out there” – known, certainly, to Hashem – and our sense of sight, like all our senses, is little more than an “information gathering mechanism.”

And yet, extraordinary methods of gaining access to truth, such as prophecy, are inadmissible to the halachic process (see Pesachim 114a, Rambam, Laws of the Principles of the Torah 9:1). The sole responsibility rests with halachic authorities, using natural means. Their vision establishes halachic reality. When it comes to deciding questions of Halachah, we invoke the principle that the Torah is “not in heaven” (Devarim 30:12).

It is ironic that some famous instances of “It is not in heaven” deal with the ostensibly otherworldly laws of tumah and taharah. One is the case of the “oven of Achnai” (Bava Metzia 59a-b). Another concerns a question of tzara’at judged by Rabbah bar-Nachmani:
In the Heavenly Academy they were arguing: If the bright spot precedes the white hair, it is tamei; and if the white hair precedes the bright spot, it is tahor. If it is doubtful [which came first], the Holy One Blessed be He says it is tahor, and the entire Heavenly Academy says it is tamei. They asked, “Who shall decide? – Let Rabbah bar-Nachmani decide, who said, ‘I am peerless in the laws of Plagues and Tent-tumah.’” They sent a message for him, but the angel of death could not touch him, because his mouth never ceased from its learning. Meanwhile, the wind blew among the reeds, and Rabbah bar-Nachmani thought it was a legion of mounted soldiers looking for him [he was a fugitive from the government]. He said, “Let me die at the hands of the angel of death rather than be delivered into the hand of the government.” At the time of his death he said, “Tahor, tahor!” A divine voice went forth and said, “Fortunate are you, Rabbah bar-Nachmani, for your body is tahor and your soul departed with ‘tahor.’”

Despite all this, the law follows the earthly majority! (Nega’im 4:11).

Modern scientists have come to realize that they, too, determine reality. Einstein’s Theory of Relativity
“postulated that observers in different systems moving with respect to each other would perceive the world differently. The observer thus became involved in establishing physical reality. The scientist was losing the spectator’s role and becoming an active participant in the system under study” (Harold J. Morowitz, “Rediscovering the Mind,” Psychology Today, August 1980).

The Kohen shows the way of the Torah: with our vision we can create worlds.

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