Life or Death, which do I choose?
This double parashah speaks of being tahor – טָהוֹר and tamei – טָמֵא which to me, are poorly translated as pure and impure or clean and unclean. The problem is that we don’t understand this message from the Torah. The word tazria תַזְרִ֔יעַ is related to tzaraat צָּרַעַת and although it is translated from the Septuagint as leprosy, it has nothing to do with the Hansen’s disease of today. It has more to do with the afflicted person’s ability to present themselves to the Ochel Moed or the Temple, the place God has appointed for us to worship Him. The question is how do we apply this to our lives today? Our sages have many opinions but sadly they add so much to what is written that all clarity becomes lost.
I like to keep things simple even in the most difficult areas. The basic idea is tahor represents life and living, and tamei represents death. Our God is the God of the living. When we, as living beings, approach Him, we need to be clean and presentable. For example, if we are invited to a wedding, how do we go? Are we dressed like a beggar? First, we shower, put on our finest clothes to look our best. Tahor and tamei are the same. With tahor, we are presentable and tamei, unpresentable. When there is something in our lives that does not allow us to present ourselves to Him, we need to prepare ourselves.
How can we understand tzaraat (leprosy) today? It can be thought of as something that destroys us from within and is not always easily detected. With the advances of science, doctors and psychologists today are discovering that most diseases have to do with the body and mind connection – psyche soma or psychosomatic elements. When we are emotionally weak or empty, it can attack the physical. Many people today are suffering from depression which influences the physical body. Doctors have discovered that when this occurs, the immune system is weakened, and we can easily become sick. They tell us that we all have cancer cells in our bodies, but these only become active when we are weak due to our stress levels.
In Deut. 30:15, the Creator tells us 15 ‘Look, today I am offering you, life and prosperity, death and disaster.” He continues in verse 19 Choose life…”
Tahor and tamei…life and death. These verses speak of bodily emissions containing the ability to give life; once they are released from the body, they die. Every month, a woman ovulates. If the ovule has not been impregnated, it is discharged by the blood during her menstrual cycle. What could bring life now dies as it leaves her body. That is what we see as contamination. The same thing happens with men. When they discharge seminal fluids from their bodies which do not do their job, and the semen is released, they also die. The separation is about life and death. The Creator is showing us that He has given us life and that we are to live it by doing what is right. What destroys us instead of giving us life? A main element involved in this is “the tongue”. It is a very small part of the body but it can cause more damage than the atomic bomb. This little element can destroy you or make you.
Ladies, please don’t get upset at me but when men fight, they fight in the moment but when women fight, they use their tongue and can cut you in little pieces. Being more verbal, they have that capability. This problem for both males and females is called “lashon hara, the evil tongue.” Our sages say metzora is a contraction of “motzei shem ra” – מוציא שם רע – to give a person a bad name. The diseased person, called metzora, has become ill because they had used their tongue for evil. Have you ever spoken ill of anyone behind their back to someone else? The truth is that if we are human and we have a tongue it is extremely difficult to dominate it. It is a constant struggle and a continuous process of going from tamei to tahor, from death to life. How can we go through this process? It is called teshuva. We acknowledge it, we confess it with the same tongue that we spoke evil and need to repair things right to be able to draw near or approach the Creator.
Why would this only apply to the Beit Hamikdash, the Temple? Because this was when we could present ourselves to the Creator. Today we don’t have the Temple and we play as if we no longer have that problem, ignoring most of these because there is no Temple. We think that we can come to our houses of worship without dealing with the impurities in our lives. We have become very good fakes. The Creator is asking us to be honest with ourselves and with others before we come clean to Him. I am not saying that this is easy or that we should place expectations on ourselves that we will never do it. The Creator didn’t make us perfect. Other religions teach us that we can reach perfection but that is wishful thinking. When we accept the reality that we are imperfect beings, it will be easier to approach the Creator. When we realize our limitations, all we can do is ask for help to keep improving. Our life is a process from birth to death. Some of us grow in the right way while others are a little twisted. When you plant a tree and it grows crooked, it is almost impossible to straighten it unless you cut it down and replant it straight. How many of us need to be broken before we can return to walk in God’s direction; to be tahor and get rid of the tamei.
Lashon Hara is more than simply speaking badly about someone else. We spread lies criticizing others without speaking to them face to face or because we don’t like the way they are. It creates an environment of Sinat Chinam (free or gratuitous hatred), spreading hatred without cause. Many of us are sick and don’t know why. Perhaps it is because we have done just that. When we are spiritually sick, sooner or later it affects our physical body. That’s when we need to be brutally honest with ourselves but we usually don’t take this very seriously. When we are sick, we feel separated from the Creator, as if in quarantine.
I went through a very difficult period when I almost died. In that process, I learned a lot about myself. When we are sick, we are in quarantine and it feels like we can’t approach the Creator. First, we need to deal with ourselves. Healing won’t come until we look within and ask ourselves: “What is holding me back from having a “clean” (tahor) relationship with Him”. What have I done or thought? We will remain trapped until we make things right with ourselves and others.
People have come to me asking me how to do that. I tell them, “When we sin publicly, we are obliged to make it right publicly; when we sin privately, we need to make it right privately.” We can’t hide from our Creator; He knows exactly what we are doing – He has night vision. He sees into our depths.
Ask yourself, “What is holding me back, that doesn’t allow me to be free to be myself, to live?” Do you know the difference between life and death? When we are dead, everything decomposes and is destroyed. When there is life, everything grows and flourishes around us. Do you that your attitudes can bring life and death, tahor and tamei? Do you see a glass of water half-full or half-empty? To those who see the glass half empty, you are very self-destructive, negative, and inflexible, and this leads you to death. If you see the bad and wrong in everything and are so critical, your inner being is damaged. It’s not long until things go wrong in our lives, to the point of physical illness. Can you look to see if you can find positive things in everything? When something negative happens, think about a solution that would change the outcome to a positive one.
Do you think there is a separation between our spiritual and physical lives? They are connected. Do you know why you can “sometimes” become sick? I am not saying “all” the time. It is because the Creator is slowing us down, placing us in quarantine so that we can deal with the issues that we have swept under the rug. He wants us to make things right. You have often heard me quote Psalms 139: 23-24, “Search me, O God, and know my heart, test me, and know my thoughts; and show me if there be any way in me that is grievous, and lead me in the way everlasting.”
The Creator has given us a choice between life and death and tells us to choose life. Have we chosen life? Or are we happy to choose death? Our life speaks for itself. It doesn’t mean that just because something goes wrong in our lives we are necessarily doing something wrong. Maybe we need to find a better perspective. Those who can’t change will have more problems than others. Those who have put themselves in a box, who have their own format, insisting “this is the way I am and this is the way I’m going to stay”, are the ones who suffer most.
We need to be flexible, to allow ourselves to grow, to seek life and not death. The first step is to acknowledge what we do. Then to forgive ourselves; that is one of our greatest problems. When we do something wrong, you would be surprised at how many of us have problems admitting it and saying I’m sorry. Those who have problems admitting that they do wrong, will not grow. When we can’t learn from our mistakes or the mistakes of others, again we do not grow.
In these two parashot, the Torah tells us that we need to present ourselves to the cohanim, and they will decide whether or not we have tzaraat because it was a spiritual problem, not a medical one. Today we can begin to search within us to see if we are tahor or tamei. Have you chosen life or death? May our Creator guide our paths and help us to choose life and not death.
Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi Netanel ben Yochanan