1. The Condition of Tzara’at
Introduction
You may recall the robust discussionwe had about this mysterious
affliction known in Hebrew as tzara’at when we studied the book of
Leviticus, Vayikra, last year. Now as we focus on the mitzvot that guide us
as to the importance of sacred space to fulfilling our covenant mission, we
will look at tzara’at from a somewhat different perspective. What is this
“impurity?” What causes it? Why is God so concerned about it? How does
it threaten our mission for God, especially in our capacity to be in sacred
space and indeed be with others in community? And how do we treat this
condition in orderto permit the afflicted to come back in to the community
as well as to come back into sacred space to experience sacred encounter
and grow in holiness?
Let’s review the basic understanding we reached when we last visited
these matters in our Torah study, look at the guiding mitzvot, and then try
to come up with answers to our questions.
Recall our discussionabout the misleading translation of this Hebrew word
in mostBibles - both Christian and Hebrew. It’s said to be leprosy, but, as
we discussed, it clearly is not leprosy, not Hansen’s disease. While tzara’at
has features of this disease and others, it’s not any of them, including
leprosy. We’lldiscuss the significance of this in a moment, but I wanted to
make this point to help set the stage.

2. Whatever it is, it is important! The mitzvot about it cover two full chapters in
Leviticus. There are numerous other references to it in the Tanakh. Miriam,
for example, was afflicted after she criticized and spoke unjustly about
Moses.King Uzziah was punished with it after he arrogantly and
inappropriately offered incense on the inner altar. And, after Elisha cured a
Syrian general of tzara’at and refused payment for his services, his student
Gehazi, surreptitiously took the reward, and, as a result, was afflicted with
the condition.
In studying these mitzvot, we will deduce certain elements of the affliction.
Tzara’at appears as a skin ailment, though the condition runs deeperthan
the skin. It appears through unusual changes not only in the skin and scalp
of people but also in the fabrics of garments and the walls of houses. It is
generally a scaly affection, which also has eruptive or spreading potential.
This spreading feature appears to give tzara’at a plague-like or perhaps
infectious potential.
Yet, in many physical ways, this condition does not seem infectious in the
manner of,say, the bubonic plague. Actually, there are clear indications in
the mitzvot that while the afflictionis of a smiting and spreading sort, it does
not particularly portend a physical health threat to others.
It is the priest, not a doctoror other health-related expert, who ministers in
cases of tzara’at, and he does so without medical treatments to diagnose
or cure the ailment. Rather the priest identifies the condition and
administers the rituals of the mitzvot that, in certain ways, treat it.

3. The mitzvot steerus away from the view that the Divine concern is
fundamentally about the spreading of a physical disease. Yet, with respect
to this odd condition, which so resembles aspreading decay, there is
obviously an extreme Divine displeasure and insistence that those afflicted
by it be deemed tamei. And, important to our current discussionof sacred
space, so long as they’re afflicted, they are not permitted in sacred space
and indeed, for a while, not even permitted in human society.
Before we explore possibledeepermeanings of tzara’at and its relationship
to holiness, let’s look at the mitzvot.
XVII-XXV.Read Leviticus 13 (for class, we’ll read several verses to get a
feel), Deuteronomy24:8, Leviticus 14: 47-59 (for class, we’ll read several
verses to get a feel),Leviticus 14:1-10.
A. Let’s explore a few questions in order. First, if this is not a real physical
disease, what is it? Could it have been a feared physical disease, or a
disease we just don’t know about? Or is it metaphorical for some other
disease, or designed to represent another disease?
Second, why are we discussing these mitzvot in the context of sacred
space? What does all this have to do with holiness and the role of sacred
space in preparing us to becomea kingdom of priests and a holy nation?
And what could it mean to us in our own time, given our emerging
understanding of sacred space?

4. (Look for answers to these first two questions here.)
Third, at whatever level we understand this condition, why must a person
diagnosed with it be kept away, as tamei, from sacred space as well as
outside the camp altogether?
(Discussion)
Fourth, who diagnoses and treats the condition? And what’s the processfor
re-integrating the person back into the camp as well as into sacred space?
By the way, why don’t we worry about the priest contracting the condition, if
we have made the decisionto exile the afflicted at least on a temporary
basis from the rest of the community?
(Discussion)
Fifth, what could it possiblymean that the disease could afflict garments
and houses? Literally? Or does this mostly have meaning at deeperlevels?
How?
(Discussion)

5. Sixth, what might this mean to our emerging sense of the meaning of inner
sacred space and how we protectsuch space from, say, temptation or
succumbing to sinful behavior?
(Discussion)
(AS TO 1 AND 2: while the people of the Bible may have been concerned
as they approached the Promised Land about the pollution of a real or
rumored disease of this type and there are Biblical accounts of its outward
manifestation, it is not, at least not principally, about physical disease. As
we have discussed, there is no disease in recorded medical history that
has the characteristics of this condition.
If it’s not physical, that does not mean it’s not real. The Bible surely would
not spend 116 consecutive verses on a matter that has little or no meaning
for us. My hypothesis, based on a variety of supports, is that this condition -
its features, its dangers, its consequences, and its treatment - is at its
deepest levels an expressionabout sinfulness.Yes, it has the surface
reality in the text of being an organic disease with outward manifestations.
And we must grapple with that, but I suggest this principally is intended to
drive us, literally and figuratively, to deeperlevels,especiallysince there is
no actual physical disease that has these characteristics.

6. a. We have knowledge aplenty about the Bible’s concernabout the
polluting effectof sinfulness. The mitzvot regarding tzara’at principally
appear just verses before the Holiness Code,the glorious set of mitzvot
that define the essenceof the holy life. Could it then be that the spreading
disease about which we are so concerned here is something God wants us
to understand in the context of holiness, perhaps as its greatest threat?
Indeed,I want to suggest that it is sinfulness that is the preeminent threat
to holiness, a threat that we must understand, diagnose, quarantine, and
treat in order to protect sacred space, us, and the holiness which we are
called upon to come out of sacred space to promote?
b. As we mentioned, the three cases in the Tanakh in which this disease
appears all involve a sinful actor: Miriam, in gossiping and hurting Moses;
Uzziah, in disrespecting God and his idolatrous abuse of position; and
Gehazi, in his dishonesty and theft.
c. In fact, as we studied earlier, one could say we figuratively came upon a
condition much like tzara’at in the story of Cain and Abel.Cain offereda gift
to God for which the Divine had no regard. Cain became angry. God
confronted Cain, questioning his distress. God said, “surely, if you intend
right, there is uplift. But if you do not intend right, sin is at the door,a
crouching demon, whose urge is towards you. You can be its master.”
(Genesis 4:7) Cain, nevertheless, as we know, killed Abel. God then
punished Cain. Cain left the presence ofGod,and, marked by God so that
no one would kill him, he was banished foreverto live in a different place.

7. Let me take a break in our answers to ask you another question: what is it
in these Biblical stories that make us think tzara’at is about sin? In other
words, what is in the essence of our understanding of sin that we see in
these characters’ behavior and, at least metaphorically, in the descriptionof
tzara’at?
(These stories tell us much about our tradition’s view of sin. The spreading
nature of sin is clearly seenin Miriam’s gossip. The bloated self of Uzziah -
the expropriation of a role that is not ours - has the feel of a sin in that a
borderis crossedas to our serving a properrole and our assuming,
virtually idolatrously, that we can take on whatever role we choose. The
transformation of our wishes into theft, as happened with Gehazi, is
characteristic of sin, a transgressing, a spreading from one way of being,
so to speak, to dis-ease.)
In God’s confrontation with Cain, we understand that if our intentions are
bad, we are susceptibleto the sinful condition. Sin is near our door, ready
to come in. If we are not committed to the good,sin seeps in, spreads in to
afflict us. It does not take us over all at once; indeed God’s message to
Cain conveys the idea that, even when inclined to the wrong, we can keep
sin away. When, however, we do not, and it creeps under our skin and
erupts, the condition takes hold in a fateful and harmful way, perhaps with
permanent and devastating consequences. Is this affliction of Cain not
perfectlyparallel to that of the condition of tzara’at?

8. Indeed, in a manner of speaking, might it not be said that God, the Priest of
all priests,was examining Cain for tzara’at? Cain’s distress and fallen face
were, in effect,his discolored skin and white hair. The condition, we later
learn, had gotten under his skin and spread; the tzara’at was chronic and
mature. Cain refused God’s treatment, which led to even worse sin and
permanent exile.)
AS TO 3: This really is what is crucial in our study today. Sin absolutely
counters holiness. We have an evil inclination. We have a great capacity
for depravity. Our heart is weak and constantly subject to every sort of evil
imagination. We are the moist garment, susceptible to the mildew, the wet
wood, ripe for rot.
If we succumb to sin in a significant way or are in the process of doing so, I
think the Bible says we’re in no condition to experience sacred drama, nor
are we right for sacred space. The mitzvot seem to drive the idea that we
must diagnose and get free of the affliction in order both to re-enter society
and experience sacred space. As Chinuch says, the personwith tzara’at
“should take to heart that as a result of sin, a personis distanced from all
goodness- this lessonis impressed upon him so that he will return from his
evil path that caused him to be afflicted…”
God tells us we can curb the evil inclination and turn sin away. Before we
and others, in our homes and society, becomecorrupt, we can resist. Yet,
since we are not perfect beings and often slip and fall, God wants us to turn
back, seeks our return, and gives us paths back. The Bible is full of the

9. ways and means back, and we’ll talk more about them over the next
several weeks. But we must be clear here that falling prey to sin is
thoroughly inconsistent with our becoming a kingdom of priests and a holy
nation, and the Bible worries and warns a lot about allowing sin to tarnish
the sacred and diminish the holiness that is its principal purpose.
AS TO 4: It is the priest who diagnoses and treats and supervises re-entry.
Of course, this is right. This is a spiritual/ethical affliction, not a
physical/medical one.
Is it possible Jesus treated tzara’at?
(Discussion)
The priest helps us understand and treat our condition. We see where
we’ve gone wrong. We understand the consequences ofour action. We
repair the injury and make right with those wronged. We begin to “shed the
skin” of acquiescing to the sinful inclination. Others, it is hoped, will pray for
the afflicted. After a time of separation, after examination and turning within
our soul and outward; we heal, prepare to return, and bring an offering to
re-connect with the Divine and others. This process has the same feel as
that of a personafflicted with tzara’at who seeks healing and return.

10. For those afflicted, purification takes time and effort and does not always
occur speedily. It can take time and be in stages. Before one can fully re-
integrate into societyand return to sacred space - pure, healed - one must
be “cleansed,” undergorituals of healing and rededicationto the Way.
AS TO 5: Could the mention of garments and houses simply direct our
souls and minds to the recognition that our environment is also affected by
sin, and that the environment can move us toward sin? The ways of sin rub
off on our culture, our society, and all things that encompassus and touch
us, represented in the text by the idea of garments and houses. If the
affliction reaches our garments and houses, could it be that our
waywardness has becomeeven more severe in that it shows in outward
ways all around us?
AS TO 6: Discussion)
Conclusion