Here’s another one of those paraschot that just seems to be SO “old testament,” and that has perhaps even been used as a poster child for “done away with.” After all, it’s a ‘disease’ that hasn’t been seen for centuries, except in a few Bible movies, and isn’t really “leprosy” at all, anyway. So who cares?
Which is why Mark suggests we ought to!
Parsha “Tazria” (Leviticus chapters 12 through 13) also at least has something to do with the ‘eighth day,’ when an infant male child is to be circumcised. But it also comes from a section that is ‘politically incorrect,’ in a world that so hates His Word, and then introduces a concept that might be even more “out of favor.”
The Erev Shabbat reading lays out all the sordid details:
The sages suggest that a person being overcome by the malady of ‘tzaraat’ and exiled outside of the camp was a sort of testimony that Elohim Himself was publicly pointing out that individual’s wrongdoing.
Mark Call of Shabbat Shalom Mesa fellowship has suggested in the past that perhaps the “NOT-leprosy” that is described in Scripture, but has not actually been SEEN in centuries might in some ways thus be a type of ‘blessing’ for His people, in that the ‘evil tongue’ might be revealed for what it is, while repentance is still possible.
Such detail about a ‘plague’ that probably hasn’t been seen anywhere on the planet for over a thousand years. And if the ‘evil tongue’ of lashon hora is the proximate cause – you have to wonder why it isn’t more common in today’s world of “calling evil good,” and vice-versa, than ever.
So why no more? And why not – especially – in a time when truly reprobate “leaders” give a whole new understanding to the term “evil tongue,” or lashon hora.. don’t we “unclean, unclean” as bumper music for every fake newscast?
Tazria: Why? They Have NO Shame!”
The combined two-part teaching is here:
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