This week the regular reading is a “double parsha,” including both Tazria, and then Metzorah. (Vayikra/Lev. chapters 12 through 15).
But they go together very well, because both largely have to do with a “plague” that is very much NOT to be confused with, or translated as, “leprosy.” But that begs several questions (very much things Mark will address!) —
including, first, “well, then, what IS this thing, “tzaraat?”
And second, if we don’t really know what it is anymore anyway, because we haven’t seen ‘cases’ (much less infections) for centuries, “Why does it even matter?”
Ah, and THAT turns out to be a VERY Big Deal!
Join Mark Call of Shabbat Shalom Mesa for an examination of why it is still vital that we understand the difference between the “holy and the profane,” and the “clean and the unclean.” Yeah, that may sound familiar, and now more than ever, but somehow an ancient affliction that we haven’t seen in a long time may beat the heck out of it’s literal “opposite,” a Booga Booga Scary ‘flu’ (aka, “Covid-1984”) that we may not actually SEE much of either, but ‘cases’ are another thing entirely. And so is Big Brother’s Totalitarian, even arguably “satanic”, over-response.
First, the Erev Shabbat overview of this week’s reading:
The Sabbath day teaching goes beyond that anti-parallels between what can be thought of as the ‘chastening’ or correction aspect of a plague where people are ‘unclean,’ and told to warn others, while exiled “outside the camp,” and a clearly man-made bioweapon where those who are muzzled and in many cases simply not allowed to speak (much less “tweet”) at all are NOT symptomatic. Yes, it’s a different kind of ‘priest’ who makes the proclamation now, albeit with far less actual “scientific,” clinical data (hence the detail in this portion!), and the cleansing ritual described in Leviticus is arguably far less permanent, or potentially deadly, then The Poke.
But there’s FAR more to consider!
“Tazria-Metzora: Tzaraat, ANTI-Tzaraat, the Evil Tongue, and Praise”
The combined two-part teaching is here:
