Fear and The Remedy – Thoughts on Torah Portion Tazria-Metzora

Fear and the Remedy
Thoughts on Torah portion Tazria-Metzora

Rabbi Mordecai Finley – Ohr HaTorah Synagogue – Mar Vista

This week’s Torah portion is about mass fear, or better put, how to stave off mass fear. Mass fear makes people do irrational and destructive things.

You wouldn’t think so from a first read. On the surface, most of this week’s Torah portion (Tazria-Metzora) is about a skin lesion called “tza’ra’at”. In older Bibles, this skin disease was translated as “leprosy,” but modern medicine has ruled that out. It might as well have been leprosy. What is described in most of these two combined Torah portions is a frightening growth on the skin (and toward the end of the portion, on the walls of dwellings) that would have caused fear, disgust and revulsion.

The natural reaction of a group of scared people would have been to banish the afflicted person, for fear of contagion. An overreaction on the part of a group of superstitious people would have been to kill the afflicted person, the skin disease being thought to be a result of some demonic possession. A person with some disease or condition that marks them as different can quickly become “other” – less human than the rest of us, to be marked off, excluded, banished, or killed.

The Torah portion describes a process that effectively gets ahead of the mob, a process that is boring and strange to the reader, until you understand the deeper thing going on – preventing mass fear. The priest more or less says, “Everyone calm down. I’ve got this one.”

There are detailed instructions for dealing with the outburst of the frightening skin disease. The Kohen acts as a physician, diagnosing the unsightly, severe scurf as to whether it is actually tza’ra’at or not. If the Kohen determines that the rash is not the feared condition, the person is declared “clean.” Everyone can relax. The inciters of the mob skulk off until the next opportunity.

If the Kohen decides that the scurf is actually tza’ra’at, a detailed ritual kicks in. The precision of the ritual and the time it consumes would weary any mob (or most readers of this Torah portion, for that matter).

Mob violence coalesces around fear, hatred, judgmentalism and action. Precise thinking kills that energy. Nothing ruins the ecstasy of the mob more than deliberate cogitation, rational debate, the careful weighing of all points of view. Feelings such as fear matter until they take you to a bad place. Then good thinking can become our salvation – our salve.

The precise, boring and even disgusting details of this Torah portion are like a balm to the burning itch to fear, hate, expel, banish, silence and kill. Calm, rational, careful, and compassionate thinking can be a remedy for the most dangerous condition of all – the human condition.

Now to the current situation. I have avoided expressing my opinions, except in private conversations. I am not a scientist and certainly not a virologist or an epidemiologist. My opinions are no better than some other lay person, trying to figure out what seems true based on the constantly emerging data and the disagreements between various epidemiologists, virologists, other medical scientists and physicians. As I have said: no matter what my opinions are, I will follow the law.

I will only offer this: it does not seem that most dire predictions (exponential growth, millions dying in the U.S. of the virus) have been borne out, for which I am grateful. When I say this to some people, they say, “Wait until next week.” or “Wait until the re-infection.” Well, I don’t have much of an option other than to wait. I hope the predictors of doom are wrong.

What is entirely predictable is the urge to blame – the Chinese, the Americans or the Jews, for example, and other Usual Suspects. When we are afraid, we have that urge to get riled up and to rile up others. It is natural to get riled up, but not necessary.

If you have heard my teachings of late, you will have heard me say that I think our main task is emotional resilience and taking care of each other. Feel your ego-self feelings and think your ego-self thoughts for a few moments a day, and then return to our core duties as human beings – for example, being safe, compassionate, rational, and strong. Take care of ourselves and each other.

Despite the tendency to blame as a way of dealing with fear, we at least haven’t seen those mobs with torches hunting for werewolves. We have been taking care of those stricken with the virus – we, meaning intrepid caregivers, at every level, are going beyond the call of duty.

I have heard some disturbing thoughts, though. “It’s a plague.” You mean like the Black Death? – go look that up. “It’s Mother Earth cleansing herself.” What is she – racist, and hates old people? “It is God punishing us (or them)?” Who exactly is the “us” or “them,” and for which particular sin that all of a sudden became rampant in the winter and spring of 2020?

It is a virus – like the influenza virus, but worse and more vicious. And we were not prepared for it, nor for any new virus. We are reminded that life on earth can be randomly cruel and destructive and there is little we can do but try to respond wisely and compassionately.

I go back to the priest in our Torah portion dealing with the outbreak of an ugly and fearsome skin disease. The ultimate job of the priest was to calm the nerves of the mob, to let the afflicted know they were being cared for, and ultimately to get society back to its stasis, until the next time.

There is great beauty under the rather repelling surface of this week’s Torah portion, a beauty that can be found in each of us.