It's All A Cry For Help
Today's Spiritual Lepers
This was the sermon I delivered this past Shabbat at The Hampton Synagogue. The main raw material were
’s newsletter (more generally) and Rabbi Dr. Shai Held’s essay on the Torah portion Tazria-Metzora, entitled, “Struggling With Stigma.”—
I.
Consider the famous picture of Pope Francis embracing Vinicio Riva, November, 2013 in St. Peter’s Square. Riva suffers from neurofibromatosis, a genetic disorder that ravaged his body with painful tumors and welts. To make matters worse, his disfigured appearance caused people to recoil from him, and he lived in isolation, on the margins of society.
Describing the experience of meeting Pope Francis, Riva said:
First I kissed his hand, while he stroked my head and wounds with the other. Then he approached me and hugged me strongly. He kissed me on the face. My head was against his chest and his arms embraced me. He hugged me strongly.
The Pope’s touch was not therapeutic; it did not cure Riva. Rather, it was redemptive. It was a moment of profound connection that affirmed Riva’s humanity.
Describing the process by which a metzora (leper?) reenters the Israelite camp after a period of ritual impurity, the Torah says:
V’yatza hakohen el muchutz lamachaneh - and the priest goes out to outside of the camp
V’ra’ah hakohen - and the priest sees. (Vayikra/Leviticus 14:3)
These are not clinical terms. The kohen, the priest, is not curing the actual physical malady afflicting the penitent. He is a spiritual leader, not a dermatologist.
The kohen's role is to see the afflicted - to really see them, not their deformities or impurities. His role is to meet the penitent at the margins of society and to reaffirm and demonstrate the humanity of the one who finds themself on the outside. That, itself, is a critical part of the process of purification.
Going outside the order and structure of the camp to meet those on the margins is risky for the priest, perhaps even dangerous. Riva understood this, saying of Pope Francis:
His hands were soft, soft and beautiful. His smile was welcoming. But what has impressed me the most is that he did not think about whether to hug me or not. I am not contagious but he did not know. He did it and that was it.
In the words of the midrashic sages, this is why Moses was uneasy with his brother taking on this role.
Rabbi Levi in the name of Rabbi Ḥama ben Rabbi Ḥanina, Moses was greatly troubled by this matter: ‘Is this commensurate with the honor due my brother Aaron, for him to be examining leprosy?’ The Holy One blessed be He said to him: ‘Does he not benefit from it twenty-four priestly gifts?’ (Vayikra Rabbah 15:8)
Interpreting the Midrash, God might be telling Moses that the added benefits to which he is entitled from the people are Aaron's compensation for taking on the messier parts of his vocation. God might also be saying that there is no task more honorable for a kohen than tending to the ill, the penitents, the marginalized who suffer outside of mainstream society.
Aaron serves God in the Tabernacle; outside of the Tabernacle, Aaron serves the image of God, wherever it may be.
As Pope Francis taught, “let us overcome the fear of getting our hands dirty so as to help those in need.”
II.
Rabbi Samuel Bornstein (Shem Mishmuel, 19th century, Sochachov, Poland) notes that the phrases v’yatza hakohen/the priest goes out and v’ra’ah hakohen/the priest sees actually follow an earlier verse in a sequence.
Zot tihiyeh torat hametzora b’yom taharato, vhuvah el hakohen
This is the rule of the leper on the day of his purification; he is brought to the priest. (Vayikra/Leviticus 14:2)
If he is brought to the priest, why would the priest have to leave the camp to meet him? And if the priest has to leave the camp, in what way is the penitent brought to the priest?
Rabbi Bornstein explains that the role of the priest is to go outside of the camp to meet penitents where they are and restore them to the camp, but the penitents have to first signal their desire to enter. It is up to them to make the first move, so that the priest can respond.
Pope Francis may have moved toward Vinicio Riva, seen him, and lovingly embraced him, but Riva had to have made the journey to be at St. Peter’s Square in the first place.
The Talmudic sages, however, say something a bit different. Earlier, the Torah describes the affect of the one stricken with the impurity of tzara’at (leprosy).
his clothes shall be rent, and the hair of his head shall grow long, and he shall put a covering upon his upper lip, and shall cry, Unclean, unclean. (tameh, tameh). All the days during which the plague shall be in him he shall be unclean; he is unclean: he shall dwell alone; outside the camp shall his habitation be (Vayikra/Leviticus 13:45-46).
(This verse can be read prescriptively - this is how a metzora/leper should act.
It can also be read descriptively - this is how a metzora/leper will act.)
Classically, the meaning of the cries “tameh, tameh/impure, impure” are understood as the metzora warning others to keep their distance, lest they become impure as well. This is also why they must dwell alone outside of the camp.
However, one Talmudic interpretation is that the metzora is actually calling out for help
As it is taught: It is derived from the verse: “And he will cry: Impure, impure” (Leviticus 13:45), that a leper must publicize the fact that he is ritually impure. He must announce his pain to the masses, and the masses will pray for mercy on his behalf. And likewise, one to whom any unfortunate matter happens must announce it to the masses, and then the masses will pray for mercy on his behalf.
This is a startling interpretation. Rabbi Shai Held writes:
This Rabbinic interpretation profoundly alters the human dynamic that unfolds between the metzora and the rest of the community; it tries to elicit a deeper level of humanity both from the afflicted and from the community at large. A person who is ill may be tempted to withdraw psychologically; the one who is suffering from an illness so closely associated with death and impurity all the more so. But the Torah invites him not to grant stigma and shame the final word: One who needs divine mercy should ask for it, and one who yearns to know that others care for him should ask for expressions of love and concern.
I think the Talmudic passage could work on two levels:
The leper is actually saying, “I am impure, I am afflicted - please pray for me.” (this is what Held is saying)
The leper is actually saying, “I am impure, keep away from me, leave me in my solitude,” but we are to understand the meaning of what the leper is saying as “Keep me in your hearts. Remember me. Pray for me.”
To reintroduce the understanding of the Shem Mishmuel, the priest is obligated to leave the camp to meet the penitent who reaches out from the margins. But sometimes the one who does the opposite, the one who pushes others away, is actually the one who is most desperately calling out for help.
The job of the priest is to be sensitive and spiritually attuned enough to hear someone saying, “I am impure, stay away,” and understand that may be precisely the time to draw nearer. To know that the one who withdraws and pushes others away may be the one most earnestly begging to be seen.
III.
In today’s angry, polarized, vitriolic world, the words “impure, impure/tameh, tameh” are less commonly heard as people warn others of their own impurities, their own shortcomings. Rather, they are an accusation hurled at others in ever-increasing levels of volume and rancor. The isolating result of those words, though, is effectively the same. Today’s culture is angrier than ever - and more people feel more isolation and loneliness than ever. These two phenomena are intertwined.
I would argue that people don’t loudly delegitimize others out of a genuine sense of superiority, a genuine confidence in themselves and what they stand for. Instead, I think the alarming levels of vitriol are, as the Talmud understood, actually cries for help. The anger, cruelty, and even sadism that mark so much of our public discourse and policymaking reflects the desperation and terror of insecure people who feel isolation, loneliness, and emptiness in their own lives, and respond by loudly and crudely turning those feelings against others.
Would that we develop the compassion, the spiritual generosity to understand the accusing shouts of “tameh, tameh/impure, impure,” as cries for help from broken, desperate people - today’s spiritual lepers.
The priest cannot cure the metzora. Pope Francis could not cure Vinicio Riva.
There are many problems that need real solutions. The priest was not obligated to bring someone impure back into the camp where they could contaminate others.
But we should be developing the sensitivity to hear the vitriol as the cry for help it really is, and respond in kind. To leave the camp and see, really see, people who are suffering. (Some of them think and act as though they are exiles on the fringes of society even as they traverse the halls of power!) To find some way of sharing with them the basic affirmation, dignity, and humanity they so clearly are lacking in their own lives, and so desperately crave.
—
Some upcoming reruns of past Author Discussions on JBS-Jewish Broadcasting Service:
5/11, with Tovah Feldshuh
5/11, with Eleanor Reissa
5/16, with Shai Held
for local stations, online streaming, and more information - www.jbstv.org