Shabbat Shalom!

In the previous parasha (Tazria) we learn that leprosy is the punishment for sins against other people. Torah and the Talmud warn us that there are serious consequences for the daily behavior of careless speech (lashon hara) about other people (Twerski, 1992). Parasha Metzora focuses on the ritual purification of the "leper" or the person who slanders or gossips about others. Both Rashi's commentary and Talmudic discourses focus on how we can improve our behavior.

Anthropologists looking at Jewish ritual note the tendency, in Torah and Talmud, to place humans within contrasting categories. Clean and unclean and high and low are just two categories. If we get too "high", we need to be brought down. To ritually purify the leper, the high priest symbolically humbles the leper by using hyssop. Hyssop is a plant that grows close to the ground (Twerski, 1992). It is the major spice in Za'atar which is eaten on pita throughout the Middle East and it has a zing to it. The zing of the hyssop provides a wake up call. In the language of my African American students one has to strive and "raise up the race", but also "be down".

Let me share a personal story. My father, Moshe ben Bunim of Blessed Memory, died when I was nine years old. For years, I have struggled with trying to reconstruct his "words" or "lessons that he taught me" with little success. The documentation of my father's history has provided a partial explanation. Parsha Metzora reinforces it.

My father was raised in the Jewish tradition of humility. He studied at the two Yeshivot whose foundations were rigorous study, intellectual integrity, ethical behavior and humility. While the family knew he went to Yeshiva, he never identified which Yeshivot he attended. In letters from his family I have learned that he attended the Kelm and Mir Yeshivot. The latter was the foremost center of Jewish scholarship. While we lived among well-learned Rabbis, I am fairly sure he never shared it with them.

Jessica, my dear wife, gave me a book by one of the Rabbis I grew up with (Rabbi Abraham Twerski). He inscribed it, "Best wishes...May you grow up in your father's way." I now better understand my father's character. Rather than "just" being a man of few words, my father had a practiced way of being humble. If I learned humility from my father, it was from his actions. Words would not suffice. When we stray from humility, we need a dose of hyssop.

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Twerski, Abraham. Living Each Week, Mesorah Publication, 1992.