“Adonai spoke to Moses. This shall be the ritual for a metzora at the time that he is to be cleansed, when it has been reported to the priest.” (VaYikra 14:1-2)
Parashat Metzora centers on the elaborate ritual by which the priest purifies someone who has contracted the skin ailment of metzora, often translated into English as leprosy. The inflicted person is to be taken outside the camp and checked by the priest before a special offering is made and the blood of the various animals offered are sprinkled over the person to cleanse them. Our ancient rabbis, however, read these sections of the Torah to refer to spiritual decay rather than physical, bodily decay.
In a Talmudic passage found in Arachin (15b), Resh Lakish teaches that the meaning of the ritual of the metora is that it refers to one who is motzi shem ra, one who brings out a bad name. In this metaphorical reading, leprosy becomes symbolic not of a physical disease, but of the character defect of speaking badly of another person. Metzora becomes an acronym for the “one who brings out the bad name.”
With this reading, the rabbis also transform the ritual of purification found in this week’s parasha from one developed for hygienic purposes into a ritual meant to spiritually purify the soul of the one who has spoken badly of others.
Speech is a powerful tool, one that may be used for positive and negative purposes. In Judaism, the prohibitions against slander and defaming others are of central importance and the laws of lashon hara are well known. In Tractate Bava Metzia, our sages go so far as to equate speech that embarrasses another with murder. Just as blood rushes out of one who has been killed, so too does it rush out of the face of one who has been embarrassed.
Perhaps the need to guard against such evil speech is what inspired Mar bar Ravina to compose the prayer that is found in Brachot 17a and now serves as the meditation we say following our quiet recitation of the Amidah. “My God, keep my tongue from evil and my lips from speaking evil.”
Shabbat Shalom