Metzora (Shabbat Ha-Gadol): Plague vs. Plague vs. Plague

At first, I couldn’t see any connection between this week’s Torah portion and the upcoming holiday of Pesach, which starts (gulp!) next Friday. But then a particular word caught my attention, and I started to ponder some similarities and differences in its usage on a few different levels. So, our parashah is one of the oddest ones in the whole Torah, focusing on bodily discharges, weird stains and mold on houses and on clothing, as well as other private, intimate, often uncomfortable topics. You can probably see how that would be tough to connect to Pesach! But the text refers to a lot of these physical symptoms - on bodies, clothing, and walls - as “plagues.” And that word sounded awfully familiar, both because of Passover and because of something much more current…

Now, the words that both amount to "plague" in English are not the same in Hebrew. I would even add a third version of this word - in English and in Hebrew - which is a euphemism for pestilence, disease, or even - you guessed it - pandemic. Despite these various synonyms, the images they each conjure up are similar, as they involve illness, quarantine, and potential death, and they all also ideally warrant introspection and behavior change. But more on that last part a little later. So let’s examine these concepts a bit closer, shall we? The word in our Torah portion of Metzora, is “Nega,” (e.g. Leviticus, 14:34), and it’s often used with a variation on the name of the parashah, “Tzara’at.” A “Nega Tzara’at” is sometimes translated as an “eruptive plague.” It’s interesting, though, that the root of the word “Nega” is also the verb “to touch,” and it’s used in that form repeatedly in our reading as well (e.g. "do not 'touch' (Noge'a) that 'plague' (Nega)!"). Based on that connection, I envision this type of plague as more personal, embarrassing, unpleasant, and touching/affecting the individual deeply. Certainly the plagues of Egypt - from the Passover story - are horrible too, but they also seemingly manifest differently.

That kind of plague is referred to as a “Maka” or “Makot” (pl.). Interestingly, the Torah doesn’t refer to them by that name in the Exodus story itself. Within the narrative, it just refers to the specific scourge of each plague. In Deuteronomy, however, God talks about inflicting “Makot” on the Israelites if they do not follow God’s laws, like the ones rained down upon the Egyptians (Deut. 28:59-60). The root of this word is a “blow” or a “strike.” We still translate them as “plagues,” but I see these as connoting national or widespread affliction; more than just an individual attack on a person or someone’s home. And then, of course, we need to add in the word for our current “plague,” namely the Covid pandemic, which in Hebrew is referred to as a “Magefa.” The root of that term is “Guf,” which means “body,” so both affecting the individual person’s body, but also widespread across an entire population.

So what do we make of all this information? Well, I think it’s both true that there are a multitude of calamities that can affect us on many different levels, and yet all of them should make us pause, reflect, and consider our own actions. In each case, we could argue that the individual(s) didn’t cause the plague. It would, perhaps, be easy to just say, “Not my fault,” and wash our hands of the whole thing. But even when we may not have caused something, it may be a good opportunity to consider our role in the wider environment. God repeatedly reminds the people that these physical manifestations are externalized symptoms of something hidden inside. And sometimes, the only way to deal with something unpleasant, that we don’t want to look at, is to bring it out into the light and force ourselves to confront the pain. We may give them different names, and we may think of these various plagues as unrelated and certainly not of our own making… and yet we are nevertheless impacted and troubled by them. We suffer the repercussions and have to deal with the fallout, so it seems to me that we should use the opportunity to learn something here. Maybe we should focus less on the details and differences, and more on how we can reflect and grow as individuals and in our societies. That, perhaps, is the real remedy; regardless of the particular plague with which we are, well, plagued.

CC images in this blog post, courtesy of:
1. Sec c sonam on Wikimedia Commons
2. Leo Reynolds on Flickr
3. Wellcome Images on Wikimedia Commons
4. Ivabalk on Pixabay