Tazria
How can we heal from harm we’ve caused?
Reflection by Carrie Watkins, US Community Manager:
"This week’s parsha focuses on tzaraat, which is often incorrectly translated as leprosy. Tzaraat is an affliction of the skin that many commentators clarify is not a natural, medical event. Rather, tzaraat is the physical manifestation of some spiritual misalignment. Commentators pick up on a midrash that the word metzorah (another word form for tzaraat) is a shortened form of motzai shem ra, a reference to lashon hara, meaning evil speech, the prohibition of speaking ill of others. When we engage in lashon hara, it harms our soul. In our Biblical tradition, that harm manifested as tzaraat.
The Sfat Emet, a late 19th Century Hasidic Rebbe, offers a gorgeous explanation for why speaking ill of others causes harm in his commentary on parshat Metzora.
We do not refrain from evil speech in order to squash out evil from the world, he says, or pretend that evil isn’t there. In fact, `בכל דבר יש תערובת טוב ורע,` in everything there is a mixture of both good and evil - including within every person! Nevertheless, `באדם ומ״מ כמו שהוא בשורש הטוב גובר על הרע,` as long as a person is connected to their root, the good inside them will prevail over the evil, since good is ultimately stronger than evil. Therefore, one must be very careful not to extract the evil from its context within the larger whole. When we speak ill of others, we take the ill-will inside of us, which is part of our wholeness, and we separate and isolate it into external words. From this place, we do harm.
The Torah instructs a person who has recovered from tzaraat to bring an offering of two whole, living birds and some living plants, to be sacrificed over mayim chaim, living water. Healing from tzaraat, from harm we’ve caused, involves coming back to wholeness and to the Source of Life. `וכשהוא בתוך הכלל יכול ליתקן` when the evil inclination is thus returned to its context, it can be healed.
What a beautiful invitation for our mindfulness practices. We don't need to fear or try to push away the רע, the evil or ill-will that inevitably makes itself known to us when we pay attention to our thoughts and feelings for long enough. It’s part of our wholeness. Rather, we can approach that ill-will with mindfulness and intention, allowing it to live inside us without externalizing and separating it. As Dumbledore says, `It is our choices, Harry, that show who we truly are, far more than our abilities.`”