This week we have another of our famous double parshas (weekly Torah readings) and it is called Tazria-Metzora. Tazria is the name of the first parsha and means, “She will cause seed to be sewn.” Metzora is the name of the second parsha and refers to a person who has Tzaraat which is a spiritual malady and often mistranslated as leprosy. Seeing as we had our first double parsha a few weeks ago, I think I will go straight into summary and trust that you all know what a double parsha is all about. If you want to learn what a double parsha is, you can click here, and then come back here.
The first parsha, Tazria begins with god talking to Moshe (Moses) and having him tell the children of Yisrael about the process a woman needs to go through in order to be plain, vanilla tahor (pure) after she causes seed to be sewn in her and she gives birth. The reason I say plain vanilla tahor is because this parsha (and other parshas) talk about different levels of tahor. For example, our parsha refers to a woman becoming blood-pure (dmay tahara in Hebrew) which is a level of purity that does not allow her to come in contact with things holy (kodesh in Hebrew).
Before I continue, I want to say that I explained the Hebrew words tahor and tamae in a previous blog entry that you can access here. I feel it is important to understand what these words mean because to translate them as merely clean/pure and dirty/contaminated, which are common translations, does a real disservice to what the Torah is trying to teach us about women, birth, etc. Ok, back to our feature…
After we read how she becomes plain tahor, god tells Moshe and Aharon what is done if a person has the disease Tzaraat. The basics are they need to come to a cohen (priest) who determines if it really is Tzaraat or not. If it is, the person is considered tamae (mixed) unless the person is completely covered head to toe in which case they are tahor until some healthy skin is seen within the Tzaraat. If the cohen is not sure if the person has Tzaraat, they get isolated for seven days. We also read what a person has to do, whether he has Tzaraat or not, in order to become vanilla tahor again. After we read about Tzaraat on a person, we read about what is done to determine if it is on linen, wool, or leather. And this is what our first parsha ends with.
Our second parsha begins with haShem (god) telling Moshe what a person healed of Tzaraat needs to do in order to become plain tahor again. It includes a ritual with two birds, cedar wood, a thread of scarlet wool, hyssop, and an earthen bowl filled with living water. I’m not going to go into the ritual here, but if anyone has any thoughts or ideas that might shed light on the ritual, I am all ears. Write your thoughts at the end of this blog, in the comments section.
Getting back to our parsha, the whole purification process takes eight days and includes oil being put onto the tip of the person’s right ear, on his right thumb, and on his right big toe. This oil is put on top of blood from the person’s guilt offering that was put on those three same places. I bring this up because it harkens back to part of the ritual that made Aharon and his sons cohanim (priests). If anyone has any ideas on the connection, please feel free to comment below.
After reading of the ritual to purify a person of Tzaraat, we learn that god tells Moshe and Aharon that after the people enter the promised land of Cnaan, they will find that their houses can also get Tzaraat. They are also told what a person needs to do if it appears that their house has Tzaraat. Just like before, we are told that a person needs to go to a cohen for only a cohen can know for sure. Interestingly, the first thing the cohen does is to command that everything be removed from the house before the priests looks at the house. The Torah then explains that this is so nothing that was in the house will become impure if Tzaraat is indeed found.
How fascinating this is because it is telling us that a person or an object does not have Tzaraat until a cohen declares it so. Anyone out there care to take a shot at explaining that? I know that if I was having a dinner party and I suspected Tzaraat might be on my walls, I would wait till after the party to call for the cohen. 🙂
One serious thought I do have on this is that it shows the power in naming something. Just like haShem spoke the world into being, and we are godlike when we name something, for a name is something’s essence, the cohen is godlike by determining when something has Tzaraat. And similar to this, I have heard that a dream does not take on a meaning until it has been interpreted. Therefore one should always be careful on how a dream is interpreted, for one’s dreams are important.
But I digress. Where was I? Oh yes. Tzaraat suspected on a house. A cohen is called and everything is taken out and the cohen inspects the house. If it is Tzaraat on the walls, we are told how to try and rid the house of the Tzaraat. If the Tzaraat cannot be removed, the house must be destroyed and we are told what to do with the remains of the house. If the Tzaraat is healed from the house, we get our two bird, cedar wood, hyssop, red wool, living waters in an earthen bowl ritual again and the house becomes plain tahor.
After all this talk about Tzaraat, the Torah now moves to tamae caused by a discharge from the flesh. We are told that one must be careful because not only can a bed or a chair become tamae from a person who is tamae from a discharge, but they can also cause a tahor person to become tamae. This means that one must know their state and the state of the people around them, and also one must be aware of where somebody sits or lies.
Talk about a tradition that requires awareness!
Other objects touched by a person tamae from a discharge of the flesh are discussed as well. The Torah then says that the person with the discharge must wait seven days after the discharge before they can bring sacrifices to the cohen who will atone for the person.
Next is a quick bit about the how to deal with tamae caused by semen. This is followed by the tamae cause by a women’s menstruation. This is followed by a woman who has a discharge that is not part of her menstruation, and how she has to wait seven days and then bring sacrifices to the entrance of the tent of meeting and the priest atones for her.
The parsha ends with god saying that the children of Yisrael need to move away from their tamae so they don’t make the presence of god that is within them tamae, and that we have just learned the rules around a woman on her period, a person who has a discharge, and a man who lies with a woman who is tamae.
So, what do you think? Kind of a strange parsha? Yeah, I got that too. Yet, it does have a flow to it if you connect it with the previous parsha that told us we need to know what is tamae and what is tahor. A couple of things grabbed at me as I was reading this and I mentioned a few of them as I gave my summary. There is one thing in particular that really grabbed me and made me think, and that was the word tazria.
Let me tell you what I am looking at. I am at the beginning of the first parsha, Vayikra (Leviticus) verse 12:2. Verse 1 reads, “And god spoke to Moshe saying.” Verse 2 continues with, “Speak to the children of Yisrael saying a woman because she will cause seed to be sewn (tazria) and will give birth to a male and she will be tamae seven days like the days of her menstruation…” Why does the Torah choose to use this word tazria here? It is such a strange word to use, especially when the Torah, back in the book of Breisheit/Genesis, used the verb harah, which means to conceive, in similar places. So, why here does the Torah now choose to use tazria, which as I said before means, “She will cause seed to be sewn,” instead of harah which means to conceive?
To understand this we first need to understand that almost all words in Hebrew derive from a three letter root verb. Our word tazria has the root zion-raysh-ayin which means to sow seeds.
Essentially what this root word is describing is the final stage of planting. Before the seeds can be sewn, the ground must be turned over or softened, and moistened with water, and little holes put into the prepared soil so the seeds will have a place to grow and develop. This is the way a farmer does things today.
Imagine if you will another way. Imagine a time where the earth would loosen and soften herself, and her soil would become moist and make little pockets for seeds. Imagine the farmer being awakened from his slumber by the powerful smell of the rich earth begging for him to sow his seeds in her. There was a time like this. It was back when Adam lived in the gan Ayden (the garden of Eden). Now, however, we are not longer in Ayden, and so we must do the preparation work ourselves.
“How does this tie into our parsha?” I hear you ask. Let me tell you. Once upon a time, Adam knew Chava (Eve) and she produced a child. This is the way it used to be. The word for knew in Hebrew is yodaya and it means to know something/someone as if you were that thing/person. Robert Heinlein coined the word, “Grok” which gets the point across. When you know something/someone in your very heart/soul/bones, then you yodaya that person.
This is how Adam and Chava were when they had sexual relations. They were like one being. This resulted in them knowing exactly what to do so that she would be soft and moist and prepared to receive his seed, just the like earth. Not only that, she would be so enticing, that he would not be able to hold back his seed from her. This is the ideal meaning of the word tazria.
Unfortunately, we are no longer in that ideal state. The Torah started with a man and a woman knowing each other. Later, we fell to the point of a man taking a woman, and the use of the word harah meaning to conceive. So why does the Torah now come along with the word tazria? I think the reason it used here and now is because we are talking about the process a woman goes through to produce a child, and if the process is going to be given, it should be given correctly. A woman should start out tazria, creating inside herself an ideal place for a man to sow his seed. Then she gives birth. Then she returns to a place of plain tahor. And in order for this to happen in its correct way, the woman needs to be tazria.
Ideally this should happen when the woman and her man have sex in a yodaya fashion. However, today, we are not able to reach that ideal, just like the farmer is no longer in gan Ayden. Therefore, like the farmer has to prepare the earth before he sows his seed, so too, our Torah is telling us that a man is required to fully involve himself in helping the woman prepare herself to take his seed. If he does this, then she will entice him to sow his seed in her, and this is the way a baby should be created.
Forgive me if I have been a little too graphic for you, but the Torah is a blueprint for creation, so it is only natural that it should contain within it the proper ways a couple should go about creating life, don’t you think?
If you care to read what I wrote about this parsha last year, click here.
About the Author
Shmuel Shalom Cohen spent 10 years studying Torah in Jerusalem. Six years ago, he started Conscious Torah to help Jews connect to their tradition in ways they didn’t think possible. Shmuel also started, and is the executive directory of Jewish Events Willamette-valley, a non-profit whose mission is to build Jewish community, pride, and learning. In his free time, Shmuel likes walks in nature, playing music, writing poetry, and time with good friends.