METZORAH: Destroyer of Worlds

by Rabbi Baruch Binyamin Hakohen Melman

Metzorah, this week's parsha, discusses the cleansing process of the leper, as well as the purification processes for bodily secretions of a reproductive nature, both male and female. It must be made clear that this is not referencing a physical uncleanness. Rather, it is solely discussing a spiritual form of impurity.

In fact, the English word for conTAMination derives from the Hebrew word for spiritual impurity, which is TUMAH. And "pure" itself derives from the Hebrew word Parah. One could only become pure by being sprinkled with the ashes of the Parah Adumah, the red heifer.

Nor is this evidence of any misogynist bent in the Torah itself. Quite the opposite! Both males and females are deemed spiritually impure by dint of the secretions of their respective male and female fluids.

What is the connection between two strange, seemingly disparate topics, viz. the juxtaposition between the narrative of ritual impurity for the secretion/emission of male and/or female fluids and general impurity resulting from general psoriatic skin ailments?

It is generally understood that Miriam developed "leprosy" from her lashon hara (evil speech) against her brother Moses. The Torah itself makes that connection. Hence we can extrapolate from the particular to the general that there is a connection between "leprosy," possibly psoriasis (related to the word tzoraas), and the improper use of the Divine gift of speech. And what she said wasn't so much "evil" as it was widely understood to be "merely" involving herself in his personal sphere, intruding, as it were, on the private zone of relations between man and woman.

Lashon hara has the capacity to destroy people's reputations and careers and even lives. It may not be the actual death blow per se, but it certainly has the power to create the conditions in potential form. In western society entire industries are devoted exclusively to the spread of slander, gossip and talebearing. In fact, the more salacious, the more lucrative.

So too, male and female emissions and secretions have within them the potential for human life. Conversely, since their emissions carry within them the sense of loss of potential life, in a sense their emission bears with it the concomitant sense of potential death.

Since the advent of modern science, no one believes in the idea of a homonculus, i.e., the idea of a fully formed miniature human residing in male seed. Nevertheless, to some degree it represents symbolically a potential for life, similar to the woman's unfertilized eggs which are lost through her monthly cycle.

Hence the connection: both ideas speak of the idea of potential death. One is the potential death of reputations, lives and careers. The other is the potential life that was lost, the life that never came to be. They intersect with the idea of nidah. This usually refers to woman in her menstrual state, to be off-limits to her husband, but the very first case of a person said to be (in a state of) nidah in the Torah was a man!

The first nidah in the Torah concerned KAYIN, when because he took a life he was to wait outside the figurative camp of humanity, literally "off-limits," by becoming a perpetual wanderer, a displaced person. He was to be a fugitive and a waNDerer (na veNaD ba'aretz (Gen 4:12). Being NaD, he was the first to be in a state of nidah. He cut off the potential of another's life by killing.

He cut down the flowering seed potential of a human life, still in its youth. Therefore his compensatory karmic healing was that his seed/life could never be allowed to take root. He was forced to wander in perpetuity. While we may not kill others in a physical sense, our words have the power to destroy lives, families, even communities.

Let this connection be a reminder that our words are like actions- that we can destroy worlds, or create them, depending on how we use our gifts.

© 2000 - 2011 by Rabbi Baruch Binyamin Hakohen Melman

These words of Torah are written in the merit of my beloved father, Israel J. Melman, obm, Yisrael Yehoshua ben Harav Ya'aqov Hakohen Melman, z"l and in memory of my beloved mother, Esther Melman, obm, Esther bat Baruch z"l.


http://seferchabibi.blogspot.com/2007/07/yahrzeit-of-my-father-27-tammuz.html
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9506EEDC1630F93BA35754C0A9649C8B63

http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/nytimes/obituary.aspx?n=esther-melman&pid=143745543

Chabibi stands for CHidushei Baruch Binyamin ben Yisrael Yehoshua
(a chidush, from the word chadash, means a new, original or fresh perspective)

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