Tzaraat, Stains of a Tarnished Soul

I recently discovered the book Talks on the Parsha by Rabbi Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz. I love Rabbi Steinsaltz’s way of thinking and style of writing- some of my favorite pieces are by him- so I was excited to find this book. I read his essay on this week’s parsha, Tazria, and was so struck by his points that I wanted to discuss them further here. You can actually read the whole essay yourself, if you like, as it is published in its entirety at this link.

When we are children, we are typically taught that tzaraat, a form of leprosy (but not a physical ailment, a spiritual one) occurs due to the sin of lashon hara, evil speech. This is not entirely accurate. Our sages say that “haughtiness, arrogance, miserliness” and many other faults can cause it as well (see Tanhuma, Metzora 10). Steinsaltz clarifies that per Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, tzaraat “is an affliction that strikes only the most exalted individuals (217).”

Only someone who is on a high spiritual level is eligible for and in need of such a sign. The Talmud says that the tzaraat marks are an “altar of atonement.” Hence, to receive such a mark is truly indicative of a high level, of which the receiver must be worthy. In this connection, our sages note that in principle, the nations of the world should never be afflicted with boils. In practice, though, non-Jews nevertheless do experience this malady, so that they should not be able to claim that the Jews are “a nation of people afflicted with boils.”

Clearly, not everyone who speaks slander gets tzaraat; for if that were the case, it would be very hard to find people who are tahor. The list of people in Tanach who experienced tzaraat is quite impressive, ranging from Moses and Miriam to Naaman, Gechazi, and Uzziyahu. When Miriam speaks slander, she gets tzaraat, and when Moses slanders Israel, he, too, perhaps deserves tzaraat. Naaman “was important to his master and held in high esteem, for through him G‑d had granted victory to Aram. He was a mighty man of valor, but a metzora.” Uzziyahu was a great king “who did what was right in G‑d’s sight,” and “G‑d made him prosper.” Gechazi not only attended Elisha but was a great man in his own right.

-page 217

So why and when does someone receive tzaraat?

Steinsaltz draws a comparison between the Talmud in Kiddushin 20a and our section. Chapter 25 of Leviticus is read progressively- a person can act improperly without realizing, which is why God causes him to “suffer a minor blow (218).” If he still does not realize that he has done wrong, God brings another blow upon him and then yet another blow.

Similarly with tzaraat, so long as a person

does not stop acting improperly, the tzaraat continues to spread. This applies to many different areas. Every person sins at some point in his life, for “there is no one so perfectly righteous on earth who does [only] good and never sins” (Ecclesiastes 7:20). But when this happens, the sinner must recognize his error and stop himself from sinning further. If, however, he allows the stain to grow, it will become malignant tzaraat, which must be burned, destroyed, and eradicated.

-218-219

Reading this, I was immediately put in mind of The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. The book tells the story of a man entranced by his own youth, wealth and power, a man who is led astray and descends into evil. There is a portrait painted of him, and it is the portrait that bears his sins- not himself. When you meet him, he looks the very picture of innocence- but all the damnable things he has done are etched on the portrait.

When Dorian commits his first grave sin in Chapter 7, acting unspeakably cruel to Sibyl, the woman to whom he was engaged, we read

Finally, he came back, went over to the picture, and examined it. In the dim arrested light that struggled through the cream-coloured silk blinds, the face appeared to him to be a little changed. The expression looked different. One would have said that there was a touch of cruelty in the mouth. It was certainly strange.

He turned round and, walking to the window, drew up the blind. The bright dawn flooded the room and swept the fantastic shadows into dusky corners, where they lay shuddering. But the strange expression that he had noticed in the face of the portrait seemed to linger there, to be more intensified even. The quivering ardent sunlight showed him the lines of cruelty round the mouth as clearly as if he had been looking into a mirror after he had done some dreadful thing.

He winced and, taking up from the table an oval glass framed in ivory Cupids, one of Lord Henry’s many presents to him, glanced hurriedly into its polished depths. No line like that warped his red lips. What did it mean?

He rubbed his eyes, and came close to the picture, and examined it again. There were no signs of any change when he looked into the actual painting, and yet there was no doubt that the whole expression had altered. It was not a mere fancy of his own. The thing was horribly apparent.

He threw himself into a chair and began to think. Suddenly there flashed across his mind what he had said in Basil Hallward’s studio the day the picture had been finished. Yes, he remembered it perfectly. He had uttered a mad wish that he himself might remain young, and the portrait grow old; that his own beauty might be untarnished, and the face on the canvas bear the burden of his passions and his sins; that the painted image might be seared with the lines of suffering and thought, and that he might keep all the delicate bloom and loveliness of his then just conscious boyhood. Surely his wish had not been fulfilled? Such things were impossible. It seemed monstrous even to think of them. And, yet, there was the picture before him, with the touch of cruelty in the mouth.

As Dorian continues down a path of evil, the painting becomes a monstrosity.

“So you think that it is only God who sees the soul, Basil? Draw that curtain back, and you will see mine.”

The voice that spoke was cold and cruel. “You are mad, Dorian, or playing a part,” muttered Hallward, frowning.

“You won’t? Then I must do it myself,” said the young man, and he tore the curtain from its rod and flung it on the ground.

An exclamation of horror broke from the painter’s lips as he saw in the dim light the hideous face on the canvas grinning at him. There was something in its expression that filled him with disgust and loathing. Good heavens! it was Dorian Gray’s own face that he was looking at! The horror, whatever it was, had not yet entirely spoiled that marvellous beauty. There was still some gold in the thinning hair and some scarlet on the sensual mouth. The sodden eyes had kept something of the loveliness of their blue, the noble curves had not yet completely passed away from chiselled nostrils and from plastic throat. Yes, it was Dorian himself. But who had done it? He seemed to recognize his own brushwork, and the frame was his own design. The idea was monstrous, yet he felt afraid. He seized the lighted candle, and held it to the picture. In the left-hand corner was his own name, traced in long letters of bright vermilion.

It was some foul parody, some infamous ignoble satire. He had never done that. Still, it was his own picture. He knew it, and he felt as if his blood had changed in a moment from fire to sluggish ice. His own picture! What did it mean? Why had it altered? He turned and looked at Dorian Gray with the eyes of a sick man. His mouth twitched, and his parched tongue seemed unable to articulate. He passed his hand across his forehead. It was dank with clammy sweat.

And by the time Dorian dies

A cry of pain and indignation broke from him. He could see no change, save that in the eyes there was a look of cunning and in the mouth the curved wrinkle of the hypocrite. The thing was still loathsome—more loathsome, if possible, than before—and the scarlet dew that spotted the hand seemed brighter, and more like blood newly spilled. Then he trembled. Had it been merely vanity that had made him do his one good deed? Or the desire for a new sensation, as Lord Henry had hinted, with his mocking laugh? Or that passion to act a part that sometimes makes us do things finer than we are ourselves? Or, perhaps, all these? And why was the red stain larger than it had been? It seemed to have crept like a horrible disease over the wrinkled fingers. There was blood on the painted feet, as though the thing had dripped—blood even on the hand that had not held the knife.

It occurred to me that this is how tzaraat should be taught - not as leprosy, but as a malignant, creeping disease that stains the body as a way of revealing a diseased soul. Before there was Dorian Gray, there was this malady in our Torah. Rabbi Steinsaltz has a line where he talks about the tumah [impurity] of one who has tzaraat and he explains, “A wicked person’s tuma derives from the fact that he is essentially a dead creature…a person can die before coming to the end of his physical life; he can continue walking among us and nevertheless be a corpse (219).” Indeed, like a corpse “a metzora conveys tuma by being together with someone or something under the same roof (219).”

Rabbi Steinsaltz also has a brilliant explanation of how healthy skin found within tzaraat is actually a sign of impurity, something that seems puzzling. He explains that “if vitality begins to emerge from the tzaraat itself, if the life that a persron experiences flows from the mark, this, too, is a sign of tuma (220).”

He gives an amazing example of what this looks like in real life.

This resembles a common sequence of events in a person’s spiritual journey. At first, one simply cannot tolerate people who are unscrupulous regarding certain laws. He may react scornfully to people who neglect to perform the ritual washing of the hands, or who are careless when they trim their fingernails. As a result, he doesn’t want to be around them, so he removes himself from society. After a while, this scorn for others becomes a source of vitality and pleasure for him. Before, he may have slandered others simply because he was haughty, whereas now all of his vitality comes from this vice. When one’s fault becomes a flag and a banner, this is a much more serious problem. At first he viewed this character trait as a vice; now that he indulges in it enthusiastically, it is like putting a stamp of spiritual approval on an evil attribute.

-page 221

My favorite part of Rabbi Steinsaltz’s analysis is his incisive realization that when it comes to this malady, even the priest cannot help. As he words it,

There are some ailments for which a remedy exists, and there are some for which this is impossible. One who has become tamei by contact with a corpse must go to the Priest in order to be purified; one who has a different problem must go to the elders and sages for a solution. In the case of tzaraat, however, if one is already great enough to receive such an affliction, this type of treatment does not help him. Indeed, the metzora does not go to the Priest to be cured; he goes to the Priest only after he is cured, so that he should look at the mark and issue a ruling. In all the stages of the process that precedes this ruling, even the Priest cannot offer him any help.

The only recourse for the metzora is to sit alone. He must keep sitting for as long as it takes to discover what is wrong and to set things right. The metzora is sent out to think, to relieve him of his preoccupation with business, to stop him from giving public sermons. Until he rectifies his problems on his own, he remains a metzora, and if the mark intensifies, his tzaraat spreads.

To remain alone is one of the best ways to attain self-rectification. One begins to reflect more and more on oneself and on one’s path, the outer shells of one’s personality begin to fall off, and sometimes parts of a person that were hidden behind these shells are revealed.

-page 225

Elsewhere, Steinsaltz explains “some of the ways in which people erroneously categorize themselves are based on social structures. If one constantly contrasts himself with others, then it will always be possible to find someone who is smaller and more contemptible than he is, someone who deserves to be villified and slandered. It may then seem praiseworthy to oppress this other person physically, financially, and in any way possible. When one is isolated with his own tzaraat, one remains alone, and only then can one truly ponder one’s own faults (224).”

The genius of Steinsaltz’s approach is that he reframes the expulsion of the metzora to outside the camp. It is not simply a punishment, or even a tactic to increase empathy (which is how it is commonly framed when tzaraat is presented as a malady that occurs due to speaking lashon hara.) Instead, the expulsion is actually part of the rehabilitation process. Forcing the high-ranking individual or leader outside of the camp, outside of their public role, means they must sit alone with their thoughts. They must reflect on themselves and on the life they have lived. They must figure out how to change themselves, to get their soul back in order. And only when they have successfully fixed their faults will the blemishes on their skin fade away- as a manifestation of their spiritual growth.

When viewed this way, tzaraat becomes an incredibly meaningful experience. It’s something I wish I had. Who wouldn’t want a clear guidepost to help you make sense of when you have erred, when your pride or stubbornness or other negative character traits have caused you to veer off the path to God? The problem with most of us is that we can rationalize or justify anything away. As Steinsaltz says, we can always find someone who seems worse than we are, and look at ourselves as saints because we are better than that person. The stark marks of tzaraat on our skin would show us that no, this cannot be justified away. Something has gone wrong within my soul, within my behavior, and I must fix it- at all costs, I must fix it.