Tazria-Metzora: There's Nothing New Under the Sun...

Did you see my title for this blog post? Are you familiar with that quote? My good friend and congregant, Ruth Kaplan, and I like to quote this line back to one another.

It comes from the Book of Ecclesiastes, chapter 1, verse 9. I've written about Ecclesiastes before (and likely will again), but the main reason I'm mentioning it here is because Ecclesiastes basically says, "people think whatever they are going through is new, radical, amazing, unique, and wholly & completely one-of-a-kind." "No," responds Ecclesiastes; "everything has happened before, all of existence is cyclical... and there's nothing new under the sun." And this week's Torah portion reminds us that even the coronavirus and COVID-19, which we imagine(d) was SO unprecedented and unthinkable before now, has actually also been seen before. There really is nothing new taking place here on earth.

We get distracted though, don't we? The pattern of this virus, its origin, its scope, and the repercussions on our individual and collective lives feel so new TO US that we are tempted to say there has never been ANYTHING like this ever before.

And ok, our Torah doesn't know "coronavirus" per se, but this week we are reading about how diseases impact the individual AND how they impact the community. Our parashah talks about skin diseases, known as Tzara'at, and various discolorations on people's bodies, but also similar discolorations on their clothing and even on their homes. Sounds weird... until you think about our similar concerns about the virus "living" on clothing and surfaces, and these too then become sources of concern and contagion. The Torah also talks about periods of quarantine following illness, which - of course - feels a little too "on the nose" right now as well.

As if all of these "subtle" connections between ancient skin disease and modern-day pandemic weren't enough, I then found myself stuck on one particular (and truly eerie...) verse. The Torah informs us: "As for the person with a leprous affection, his clothes

shall be rent, his head shall be left bare, and he shall cover over his upper lip; and he shall call out, 'Impure! Impure!'" (13:45) You might have thought I wanted to comment on the last part, where the person needs to shout aloud "Impure! Impure!" No, that isn't actually what I wanted to focus on, but it IS interesting to note that the affected person is implored NOT to let shame take over, and allow it to silence them. We - the community - NEED to know who is affected; without judgment, without blame, and without accusations. For the good of the community, this information MUST be public... but that also requires us all to resist finger-pointing and public shaming. Diseases and positive tests simply ARE; we don't have to compound their damaging effects by adding humiliation on top.

No, that wasn't what I wanted to focus on, actually. I was curious about the phrase, "cover over his upper lip." What might that have meant?? I searched through a number of commentaries, and soon found this statement by the 12th Century Spanish rabbi, Abraham Ibn Ezra: "he shall cover with his garments. The point is that he should not infect others with his breath."

Ummm... does anyone else find it creepy that a rabbi writing 800 years ago seems to be describing using a cloth face mask to cover over one's mouth and nose... so as not to infect anyone else with his/her breath?? What I'm simply trying to say is, while this pandemic is indeed new to all of us, and feels earth-shatteringly novel and unimaginable; people living "under the sun" have dealt with plague and risk of transmission before. It may feel unsettling to acknowledge this, but I hope it is also oddly comforting, to know we've endured hardship and uncertainty before, and we can weather the storm yet again. The texts of our tradition, and the Sages who came before us, may indeed have thoughts to offer us on how to manage in these unfamiliar times. Admitting that this too fits into Ecclesiastes' broad statement can help us gain perspective and be a bit more level-headed. And then we keep on taking it one day at a time; all of us here toiling together... under the same sun.


CC images in this blog post, courtesy of:
1. pexels.com
2. Colonel Warden on Wikipedia
3. Michael Hofner on Wikipedia
4. Mikayla Heineck on US Airforce Website "Team McChord"