Parashat Tazria

This weeks Torah reading is a double portion of Tazria and Metzora. The reason we sometimes have a double portion is that the entire Torah has 54 portions. Which is the number of weeks in a leap year. So in leap years, we read one a week. During non leap years, we only have 50 weeks, so we need to double up on 4 portions to get it all read in one year. This is one of those doubling up weeks.

This week we read about “tzora”, which is generally translated as leprosy, but all commentators agree that it’s not actually talking about the physical disease of leprosy, but a spiritual disease with symptoms that resemble leprosy.

The commentary tells us that tzora is cased by improper use of speech (called Lashon Hara – or Evil Speak - basically gossip). With this in mind, we can understand why we are told to go to the high priest if we experience the symptoms of tzora, instead of a doctor. The doctor can tell us the the symptoms are consistent with leprosy, but the priest is the one who can tell us is the problem is a physical one or a spiritual one.

Tzroa is really a huge gift. There are many aspects of our spiritual life that we have no idea if we are doing properly. G-d doesn’t send us an evaluation telling us if we pray properly, if we get the most out of Shabbos, but G-d does tell us when we are harming our souls through speech. Why is speech so important? Because it can e so destructive.

The Torah tells us, that when we gossip, we gossip we harm three people, the speaker, the listener, and the one being gossiped about. The story is told of a man who engages in gossip. After doing so, he feels so terrible that he goes to his Rabbi and asks how he can fix what he did. The Rabbi tells him to go and get a feather pillow and bring it to the Rabbi. Once he has that, the Rabbi tells him to rip open the pillow and release all the feathers into the wind. The man does as he is told, and then asks the Rabbi how this will help. The Rabbi answers, now go and collect all the feathers, it is only one you have them that you can truly fix what you did by gossip.

That’s the thing about speech, once the words are out of your mouth, their like the feathers of the pillow, there is no way to get them back.

Next time we’re in a situation that there is gossip; lets try to stop it to save us from having to collect the feathers.

Shabbat Shalom.