Shabbat Parashat Tazria-Metzorah - 5781

Shabbat Parashat Tazria-Metzorah - 5781

Rabbi Hal Miller

If it is a white baheret on the skin of his flesh and its appearance is not

deeper than the skin and its hair has not turned white then the Kohen

shall close off the affliction for a seven-day period. [Vayikra 13:4]

In our verse and again a number of times in our parsha, the Torah tells the

Kohen to "close off" something. In our verse it says "the affliction", but in

the following verse it says "him". What does it mean to close off and what

is getting closed off?

Rashi gives a simple answer on our verse. "He shall confine him to one

house and he shall not appear until the end of the week." This would seem

more applicable to the following verse where it speaks of "him", rather than

our verse with the phrase "the affliction". Further, Rashi does not explain why

the Torah uses the word 'close' rather than 'confine', which he takes it to mean.

Ramban and Ibn Ezra call it a quarantine upon the person, but do not give a

reason for the same phrase being used in the cases of the tzara'at on clothing

or a house. Rav Soloveitchik solves the problem by adding a parenthetical in his

translation of the verses specifying what is being quarantined in each instance.

Onkelos also says it means the person, and refers to 14:2, zot haya torah

hametzora", this the law for a quarantined person. But this word, metzora, is not

the same as our word, s'gor, which pretty clearly means closing. Talelei Oros says

"the Kohen shall isolate him", again quarantining the individual.

But not everybody agrees with that understanding. The Torah Temimah cites Torat

Kohanim: "then the kohen shall quarantine the plague-spot for seven days", and Rav

Hirsch's words are, "shall keep the plague in confinement for seven days". Further,

Rav Hirsch writes, "There are two stages of confinement: ha'sgor and ha'chlat,

intermediate isolation pending decision, and decision." Where does he find support

for this?

Perhaps this will pull it together. There are two periods of confinement for each of

the three classifications of tzara'at, where the Kohen gives a "second chance" so to

speak. There are two stages according to Rav Hirsch, the closing off (which applies

to both periods) and the final decision (after the second chance). One might think to

say that there are two targets for the isolation, the person and the affliction, but this

is not the right way to look at it for we would have to include a third category, the

item (clothing or house) that becomes afflicted instead of the person himself.

Instead, if we look at it as being two classes of people to be isolated, the afflicted

person and the rest of the nation, we see our answer. Confinement applies to the

afflicted person, not to the rest of the nation. Closing off applies to the nation, not to

the afflicted person. Sgor means to protect the other people, fencing them away from

him rather than the other way around. If he 'cures' himself, we let him back in with the

rest of us. We do not build an enclosure around bad things or people as that rules out

the chance for them to return to good. Rather, we build enclosures around the innocent

to close out the bad. This is the role of the Torah in our daily lives.