Mark Call

This week is a “double-portion,” but NOT the one that is often paired as part of the standard Torah cycle.

Last week’s parsha began a look at a ‘plague’ or affliction — arguably spiritual in nature — that hasn’t been seen for many centuries. But the case was made that the ‘satanic imitation’ of it, in the form of a bioweapon that has also developed into a spiritual blight, certainly has.

This week, Mark has decided to ‘re-combine’ the double portion in a way that should help to outline a pattern that seems to be missed, but in different ways, between the two exiled houses

Parsha (“Metzorah,” Leviticus chapters 14 and 15), describes the cleansing process for the ‘metzorah’ – the one who HAS ‘tzaraat’ – in a way that certainly sounds familiar, but not quite identical, to other things we’ve heard before. The same thing seems to be true of what happens “after the death,” in the next portion, but with a different procedure. Still, that element of a larger pattern persists.

Erev Shabbat overview:

There are repeated patterns in Scripture that are easy to spot (well, often perhaps, after they’ve been pointed out, especially in the original language.) Others, not so much so. Those, we may “see through a glass darkly,” or even recognize as “variations on a theme” the way a great Composer might lay out a symphony.

Sometimes the best way to understand those more complex patterns might be to step back and just try to listen to the music.

“Metzorah – Acharei Mot: Cleansing the Unclean – After the Death”