{"id":2958,"date":"2026-04-19T07:02:48","date_gmt":"2026-04-19T13:02:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/markniwot.com\/?p=2958"},"modified":"2026-04-19T07:02:48","modified_gmt":"2026-04-19T13:02:48","slug":"torah-teaching-for-parsha-tazria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/markniwot.com\/?p=2958","title":{"rendered":"Torah Teaching for Parsha \u201cTazria\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Join Mark Call of Shabbat Shalom Mesa fellowship for a provocative two-part look at parsha Tazria, Leviticus chapters 12 through 14, and a discussion of what is too often dismissed as &#8220;old&#8221; testament minutia that no longer has any relevance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mark suggests that one of the most intriguing things about certain sections &#8212; like this one! &#8212; is how things that the &#8216;church&#8217; claims are irrelevant is how He may have Written it for us knowing far better. Just maybe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And the Erev Shabbat reading starts to make that case:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-audio\"><audio controls src=\"https:\/\/hebrewnationonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/SSM-4-17-26-Tazria-teaching-podcast-xx.mp3\"><\/audio><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>During the Sabbath Day midrash, Mark begins by asking some relevant questions, including, &#8220;what is UN-righteousness?&#8221; And what does this parsha tell us about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And the answer follows from the observation that a person who was &#8216;declared&#8217; unclean, by the cohenim, was put &#8220;outside the [clean, evidently!] camp&#8221; &#8212; until they were again declared clean.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A look at the story of Miriam, and her &#8220;bad-mouthing&#8221; of Moses (in Hebrew, &#8220;lashon hora,&#8221; or the &#8220;evil tongue&#8221;) does at least begin to make the case that &#8220;gossip&#8221; or such damaging and contemptible speech, MIGHT be a cause of the &#8216;plague&#8217; of <em>tzaraat<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And unlike &#8216;leprosy&#8217; &#8211; there hasn&#8217;t been a single known case of tzaraat in the world for many centuries. But if &#8220;evil speech&#8221; can even remotely result in that &#8216;visual manifestation of a spiritual malady&#8221; &#8211; why, oh why, don&#8217;t we see it literally EVERYWHERE in a world today where the &#8220;Evil Tongue&#8221; gets you a network late night show?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Did YHVH decide to stop the warning? As things get worse, and we enter into greater tribulation, wouldn&#8217;t an indicator of &#8216;wolves in sheep&#8217;s clothing&#8217; be handy? Perhaps at least part of the problem is that when the whole word is &#8216;unclean&#8217;, there&#8217;s no point in kicking them out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Which seems to make the lesson all the more important.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Tazria: &#8220;What is UN-righteousness?&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-audio\"><audio controls src=\"https:\/\/hebrewnationonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/WT-CooH-4-18-26-Tazria-No-Tzaraat-for-centuries-so-What-is-Righteousness-podcast-xxx.mp3\"><\/audio><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Service information:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Shabbat Shalom Mesa fellowship worship services and teachings are broadcast live every Sabbath, via Paltalk. (www.paltalk.com has both the link, and the app.) The &#8220;room name&#8221; is &#8220;Walking Torah with Shabbat Shalom Mesa,&#8221; and can be found via the paltalk search, then bookmarked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Erev Shabbat services begin at 7:00 PM Mountain Time Friday evenings (9 PM Eastern, 8 PM Central)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Live Sabbath teachings begin shortly after 11 AM Mountain time on Sabbath day (Saturday).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>email: mark@markniwot.com<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The combined two-part reading and Sabbath <strong><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/hebrewnationonline.com\/mark-call-torah-teaching-for-parsha-tazria\/\" data-type=\"URL\" data-id=\"https:\/\/hebrewnationonline.com\/mark-call-torah-teaching-for-parsha-tazria\/\" target=\"_blank\">midrash<\/a><\/strong>, via Hebrew Nation Radio.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mark Call of Shabbat Shalom Mesa&#8217;s 2026 Torah-cycle teachings for parsha &#8220;Tazria&#8221; (Lev. chapters 12-14) and &#8220;un-righteousness&#8221;.<br \/>\n <a href=\"https:\/\/markniwot.com\/?p=2958\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5,24,1665,35,11,1865,1698,12],"tags":[2307,46,28,88,1365,104,1654,2306,851,2305,212,2304,2302,2301,2300,318,204,101],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/markniwot.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2958"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/markniwot.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/markniwot.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markniwot.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markniwot.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2958"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/markniwot.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2958\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2959,"href":"https:\/\/markniwot.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2958\/revisions\/2959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/markniwot.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markniwot.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markniwot.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}