Did I never post about parshah Tazria, (Lev 12:1-13:59)? Oh, dear. I did, in fact, prepare something for services, although what I was planning to talk about was not what we did, in fact, talk about. The reading is about the treatment of people with skin diseases, usually translated as leprosy, but not actually leprosy, and besides I think they are distinguishing between two or three different diseases. That’s a matter of interpretation, though.
Anyway, the rules are set down, and they are (as we expect by now) incredibly detailed and specific. I mean, really unpleasant to read. Anyway, as I was reading them, it occurred to me (for the first time, which is why this whole method is so great for me) that I would actually have expected the community to be much harsher. I mean, there they are wandering in the desert, and if I were making the rules I’d be awfully tempted to quarantine a fellow at the first sign of any communicable skin disease. I mean, err on the side of caution, right? In fact, they are quite careful to make sure that the skin disease is in fact a communicable and virulent one, and that they don’t throw people out of the camp just for a lesion or two. I mean, they are careful within the context of eyeballing the skin; diagnostics are crude, but careful. Anyway, my question was what it would be like for the community, for the Scripture, if the rules were much tougher.
As it turned out, after a quick dismissal of the idea of a cruelly tough regime, the discussion went to talking about the distinctions of who is and is not Jewish. At services the night before, there had been a talk by a visiting woman who had grown up in Ethiopia before emigrating to Israel. The segue, essentially, was that on the voyage they had segregated the family members who were sick; various people wondered whether that was due to interpretation of Levitical law. From that, though, we talked about the discussion in the early seventies about whether the Ethiopian Jews were, in fact, Jews, and entitled to the Right of Return. Then we talked about the determination of Jewishness, and how that affects people, in a variety of different ways. It turned out that one of the people who had come to the shul for the first time that week was a convert, and we briefly discussed how that affected the community, both in law and in fact.
It was a fascinating discussion, but it wasn’t the one I expected to have. Which is, as it turns out, one of the great things about my congregation.
chazak, chazak, v’nitchazek,
-Vardibidian.