Connecting the First to the Last
These are parshiot of tumah. Specifically, pasuk after pasuk about the laws of tzaraat, and the negaim, the afflicted marks, which appear on skin and clothes and houses. These laws are bookended at the beginning and the end by the laws of tumah and taharah, relating to the realities of the sexual nature of our bodies. We can almost feel the echo of the awkward days of a preteen, and the hours of dealing with blemished skin and awkward outfits, and the changes of puberty. A deeper look at the Midrash Rabbah reveals that this is not as far off as it may seem.
The Midrash opens up the parsha for us, as it usually does, with a pasuk that appears at first random and unconnected, but which proves to be the key that reveals the beauty and depth of the section. Vayikra Rabbah 14:1 begins with the words of Tehillim 139:5, “Last and first you encompassed me.” It reads these words as a description of our nature as humans. We are last because our bodies were created on the sixth day, after everything else in creation had already been formed, to give us humility. In the words of the Midrash, even the tiniest mosquito can lord over us that he was created before us. We are also first, because the soul that Hashem blew into our body was the spirit that was hovering over the waters on the first day. Our soul, our connection to Hashem, came before everything else.
What does this have to do with our parsha? The Midrash teaches that just as we humans were created last, after the creation of the animals, our Torah was given last as well. Parshat Shemini ends with the words “this is the Torah of the animals.” Only after that does our Torah begin, in Parshat Tazria, with the laws of purity of a woman after she gives birth, the brit milah, and then the laws of tzara’at. This is perplexing on many levels, not least of which is that it calls into question the Torah of the first two and a half books, until this point. Are Bereisheit and Shemot not the laws of humanity?
The Shem MiShmuel answers this question in a fascinating way. The Torah until now has been addressing itself to our soul. This Torah, the Torah of tumah and tahara, is the Torah of our body. It begins at the beginning, with the entrance of our body into the world, and it tells us that our entrance into the world is unique, different than that of any animal. Our entrance into the world brings with it tumah.
This is actually a direct result of our actions in Gan Eden. Hashem informs us that the result of Chava’s choice to eat from the eitz hada’at tov v’ra was “in sadness you will give birth.” All sadness comes into the world through the sitra achra, through the forces of impurity. Once we open ourselves up to the world of the eitz hada’at, our physical reality exists together with tumah.
All this can sound depressing, but only until we open ourselves up to a deeper level of understanding. Ramban’s explanation of tzara’at gives us insight. He explains (on Vayikra 13:47) that tzara’at is unlike any illness in the world. It creates negaim, marks on our bodies and our physical possessions, but they are not the marks of illness. When Bnei Yisrael is in a state of wholeness, a state of unity between soul and body, our divinity flows outward. This creates beauty not only in our bodies, but even in the parts of the material world that are connected to us. Beauty is our natural state, the way we were created. The nega is the result of a disruption of that flow from our soul to our body.
Rav Schorr explains that each of us has an inner form, the 248 limbs of our soul. The 248 limbs of our body cover our inner form. When our physical body is in tune with the spiritual needs of our soul, the light of our soul shines out through our skin. We saw this in action when Moshe came down from Har Sinai with rays of light shining brightly through the skin of his face. Our original state of being in Gan Eden was that we were covered with ohr, skin, spelled with an ayin, which was also ohr, light, spelled with an aleph.
After we ate from the eitz hada’at we changed the nature of our skin, so that it hides our inner light. This is the tumah that enters the world with us. Sin causes an inability of the light of our soul to shine through our bodies. When we live in a state of closeness to Hashem in Eretz Yisrael we see the results of our actions in real time. The nega of tazra’at is the ugliness that happens when our inner light is unable to shine through our physical selves. This is something which is unique to humans. We only have tumah because we have tahara, because we have the ability to connect our bodies to our soul. We only have negaim in the land of Israel, where we are living in connection to Hashem.
The sins that cause negaim to appear on our bodies are sins in which we separate ourselves from our inner self and from others. The Torah teaches us the proper response to this reality. A person with tzara’at goes into personal galut. Through this time alone, he can heal his relationship with Hashem and with himself. The end of the process of tumah is a korban, connected to the word kiruv. We come out of tumah with an expression of closeness to Hashem.
Sefer Yetzriah (Re’eh 2:4) teaches that there is nothing higher than oneg and nothing lower than nega. Nega and oneg are two opposites of the same coin. The nega is caused by separation from the Divine, and it brings with it the sadness of the sitra achra, the forces of impurity. Oneg is the pleasure, bliss and delight that comes through connecting the aspect of ourselves which is last, our bodies, to the aspect of ourselves which is first, our soul. This is why the midrash taught that the key to our parsha is “last and first You encompassed me.”
The Torah of our bodies, which is taught in these parshiot, is a Torah that recognizes the messy and difficult aspects of ourselves. Our bodies can hide the light of our souls, and our bodies can bring that light to expression in this world. Like puberty, coming face to face with the reality of our bodies can be a messy process. However, the end of this process leads to joy.
We don’t have the bracha of a physical sign on our skin to immediately warn us when we are veering into a state of separation. But we do still have the spiritual influence of each parsha that we read. In this time of sefirah, a time of working on our personal details, the week of Tazria-Metzorah is a wonderful opportunity to take some time to sit in silence, to reconnect to our inner light, and to allow it to bring us oneg, pleasure and delight.