This week’s Torah portion, Tazria,(Lev. chapters 12 through 13) might be called the “poster parsha’ for the “it’s all done-away-with-anyway” crowd. The actual “plague” described in Scripture literally hasn’t been seen for centuries, the people charged with identifying and ‘pronouncing’ it to be what it is aren’t doing that anymore, and since pretty much the Whole World is so unclean that they wouldn’t recognize real filth when it takes over, why, who cares anyway?
Still, it has been suggested that this plague — which never REALLY was “leprosy”, or Hansen’s Disease, to begin with — was once associated with the Hebrew words “lashon hora,” for the “Evil Tongue.” And there’s actually a pretty good case to be made on that score.
But, still, and important question remains: If this malady is so easy to ignore, and expunge from our understanding – then why, oh, why, does the Bible waste SOOO much ink on it?
First, he Erev Shabbat reading of the parsha (which also includes a bit of other “not PC” stuff as well!):
During the Sabbath day teaching, Mark approaches the ‘why’ question, and adds a twist as well.
Not only does the Bible provide a LOT of detail about a ‘nega‘, or plague, that many would just as soon pretend doesn’t matter, we’re reading it during what might be one of the greatest times of, well, we could call it “tribulation.” in all of human history. We’ve got nuclear war on the table, the demise of the fiat dollar and what by almost any measure is the biggest debt collapse and economic meltdown ever, widespread food hyperinflation and even famine a virtual certainty, and Evil child abusers from Disney to ‘supreme court’ injustices openly pushing perversion.
And who needs a kohen (a real priest) to declare a person “unclean” when we have Twitter and TwoFaceBook that will not only do it, but silence the offender as well?
Just not for the same reasons.
So, if the Whole Steenkin’ World is just plain “Beyond Unclean” – what’s the point of sending someone who might be ‘malignantly uncean’ OUT of the camp, anyway? Yes – there’s a message here.
“Tazria: We Don’t DESERVE ‘tzaraat’ – we have TwoFaceBook, Twitter, CNN, and DISNEY!”
The combined two-part podcast is here, via Hebrew Nation Radio.
