Metzora

📜 The Story

This week's parsha, Metzora, teaches us how a person who had tzaraat, a special skin condition, becomes pure again and can return to the camp. When the metzora was ready, the kohen would go outside the camp to check on him, because the metzora himself was not allowed to come in until he was declared pure.

The kohen performed a beautiful and unusual ceremony. He took two live kosher birds, a piece of cedar wood, a scarlet thread, and hyssop. One bird was slaughtered over fresh water in a clay pot, and the other bird was dipped in the blood mixed with the water and then set free to fly away over an open field. This showed how the metzora, once stuck outside the camp, was now being set free to return.

After that, the metzora shaved off all his hair, washed his clothes, and immersed in a mikvah. Seven days later he did this again, and then he brought special offerings to the Mishkan, including an asham, a chatat, and an olah, along with a log of oil that the kohen sprinkled and placed on his ear, thumb, and big toe, just like at the inauguration of the kohanim.

The parsha then teaches about a different kind of nega, tzaraat that can appear on the walls of a house. This would happen after Bnei Yisrael settled in the Land of Israel. The kohen would examine the house, and sometimes stones had to be removed and replaced. If the tzaraat did not go away, the whole house had to be taken apart.

Our sages teach that tzaraat often came because of lashon hara, speaking badly about other people. The whole process, being sent outside the camp and then slowly welcomed back, reminds us how important it is to think before we speak and to always talk kindly about others.