More resources for clergy speaking about Israel at 75 can be found here.
Throughout Parshat Tazria, the verb ר-א-ה, meaning see, is repeated numerous times. When an individual comes before a priest with a purported illness, the Priest is not required to administer medical aid; instead, he must “see” and “witness” the person’s suffering. As T’ruah Chaver Rabbi Sarah Marion writes, “It is as if the Priest is saying: I see you. I do not know why or how this happened to you — alas, perhaps only God knows — but, nonetheless I see you. I see your scars. I see your fear. I see you as more than just this disease — I see you as a person — a person who is struggling, a person in need of compassion and love. And so I am not afraid to see and get up close and personal with your scabs and your wounds, because I see your humanity within and underneath them.”
- When we look at Israel, we must look at the real Israel — and the reality of the people who live there — not a fantasy of a perfect place that embodies our greatest aspirations for Judaism. We must not turn away from or ignore the political, religious and social realities that plague the state of Israel. In order to really know the country, and ultimately help it to heal and prosper, we first must allow ourselves to see it for everything that it is, scabs and all.
Both of our parshiyot involve the identification of and response to tsara’at, sometimes translated as leprosy or plague. This condition can happen to an individual or to a house, as described in Parshat Metzora. When an individual discovers a plague in their house, that house must be cleared before a Priest can enter, in order to prevent items within the house from becoming impure. If the plague is identified within the walls or on the stones of the house, those areas must be scraped and cleaned with great care, and if, after some time, the plague remains within the house, that house must be torn down and rebuilt.
- The Torah text understands the immense consequences of letting plagues go unchecked. After 55 years of an undemocratic occupation, we cannot be surprised that our condition has spread to almost every corner of the Israeli governmental system. Now is the time to raise our voices in opposition, not only to the judicial overhaul plan, but to the source of this plague, a military occupation that has stained the democratic soul of Israel. We must demand a peaceful and humane antidote to this disease, one that will allow us to move forward together. If such an antidote cannot be obtained, we will have no choice but to tear down and rebuild.
In Midrash Tanchuma on Parshat Metzora (4:26), the Rabbis discuss what causes a metzora, a leper, to come into someone’s home. One of the 11 reasons cited is אַף עַל עַיִן רָעָה, for the evil eye, translated by R. Issac as, “When someone’s eye is too evil (i.e., when someone is too miserly) to lend out their possessions.” R. Isaac goes on to explain that when someone asks a miserly person to borrow a tool, such as a scythe, ax, or any object, they respond, “Cursed is the one who has a scythe, cursed is the one has an ax” (meaning, ‘I do not have one’).” In response, God inflicts leprosy upon this miserly person’s home.
- The Israeli government is making hugely impactful legislative and policy decisions with absolutely no regard for the hundreds of thousands of human beings crying out for them to stop. In this case, God does not need to inflict leprosy upon the nation; ordinary citizens have already shown the world who the Israeli government is willing to abuse and ignore in their quest for power and control.
In Mesechet Sanhedrin (98a), Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi sees Elijah, and asks him
“When will the Messiah come?” Elijah responds that Yehoshua ben Levi will be able to find the Messiah by the gates of the city, changing the bandages of those suffering from leprosy.
- The solution to the painful and needless loss of life, the violence that comes in heartbreakingly predictable patterns, is not to turn away from the problem, but rather to do the exact opposite. To sit at the gates of the holy land, identify the conditions which are plaguing the Israeli and Palestinian communities, and begin to lovingly and purposefully change the bandages. We cannot expect a healed world if we are not also willing to help heal it.
