Parsha_Push, Parshat Tazria-Metzorah

There is a reason why the sages of the Talmud, and many other commentators, connected ‘tzara’at” with sins or moral issues. The reason is that the Biblical leprosy always appears in the Bible with a critical message for the leper. Thus Moses was punished (albeit temporarily) when he refused the mission to Pharaoh, Miriam was punished when she disrespected her brother, Uzziah became leprous when his heart became prideful to the point of destruction, and Gehazi received Naaman’s leprosy (the celebrated army commander who thought highly of himself) when he disrespected the prophet and the message he tried to impart. Even with the four lepers in our haftarah, we can see the initial egoism of taking the spoils of Aram for themselves, before they remembered to care for others as well. And hopefully they were healed of their leprosy as a result.
Following these stories, it becomes clearer to us that leprosy is connected to a divine message, as the laws of leprous impurity seem to be part of the punishment itself – distance from the camp, the requirement to declare themselves impure, and the need to undergo a lengthy process to return to the camp and to God.
Maimonides suggests that even within the laws of leprosy one can identify a process, where if a person sins, they will first receive house leprosy; if they don’t correct their ways, it will transfer to their clothing; and if they still persist in their wrongdoing, it will reach their actual body. One could also suggest the opposite direction, that first the person is affected and can go through the process privately, and only in cases where that doesn’t help will the house be affected and their disgrace revealed publicly (and this is the order presented in the Torah).
It seems that the Torah itself implies a similar idea but in a slightly different way. Two of the leprous afflictions do not begin as leprosy but develop from other injuries – from a boil or from a burn. The development may be meaningless, but it’s possible that from the boil will come a leprous affliction. Perhaps the Torah is suggesting here that one need not wait for a ‘supernatural’ leprous affliction that goes beyond the ordinary in order to understand the hint and begin a process of correction. Any boil and any burn can become an opportunity for self-examination and for improvement, before the more obvious afflictions appear. Messages from heaven can come in different forms, and it’s better to solve problems while they’re still small.
In these days, many become “process identifiers,” knowing how to look back and identify the seeds of catastrophes that are about to emerge. Few know how to do this in relation to themselves as well – to identify points of deterioration, and perhaps even stop it before it’s too late.