Hachnasat Holim: The Welcoming of the Sick Tazria 5771

Giving the D’var Torah on Parashat Tazria is sort of like presenting at a dermatology convention. It’s late in the morning, people are getting hungry, and it is your job to show them a bunch of slides of differing skin diseases. So here goes:

Slide #1: S’eit: Our first skin disorder from this morning’s parasha is a localized swelling; a generic inflammation or growth, likely similar to our modern day boil or mole.

Slide #2 Please: Sapakhat: Sapakhat is often translated as a rash, which indicates a breaking-out of the skin, often spreading to other areas.

Slide #3: is Baheret. A discoloration, a white, shiny spot upon the skin, which can also spread around the body.

Slide #4: is the generalized Nega’ – literally meaning ‘touch’; in our parasha it connotes an affection of the epidermis, a generic term for a plague or a skin ailment.

Finally there is Slide #5: This one is particularly nasty. This is the ailment known in the Torah as Tzara’at; and often translated as leprosy. Scholars maintain that Tzara’at was not indeed leprosy, the laymen’s term for a condition known as Hanson’s disease, but it was certainly not pleasant. A scaly abrasion of the skin, highly contagious it seems, and even able to affect inanimate objects such as our clothing and our dwelling places.

Ready for lunch yet?

But there is one more slide to go:
As our parashah states:

וְהַצָּרוּעַ אֲשֶׁר-בּוֹ הַנֶּגַע, בְּגָדָיו יִהְיוּ פְרֻמִים, וְרֹאשׁוֹ יִהְיֶה פָרוּעַ, וְעַל-שָׂפָם יַעְטֶה; וְטָמֵא ׀ טָמֵא יִקְרָֽא:

This slide demonstrates to us the Biblically-prescribed course of treatment for the Tzaru’a’, the one affected with Tzara’at. This slide depicts a man recently diagnosed with tzara’at. Here he stands beginning his treatment – his clothes rent, his head shaved bare, his upper lip covered, shouting for all around him to hear “I am unclean, I am unclean!” And our parasha continues:

כָּל-יְמֵי אֲשֶׁר הַנֶּגַע בּוֹ, יִטְמָא טָמֵא הוּא; בָּדָד יֵשֵׁב מִחוּץ לַֽמַּֽחֲנֶה מֽוֹשָׁבֽוֹ:
We see him here, as he dejectedly walks out of the camp, into his quarantined quarters; until his ailment passes after an indeterminate period of time.

Here’s the part where I tell you how far we have come in diagnosing these ailments; and aren’t we glad. We live in a modern society which has developed fabulous talents at diagnosing specific skin rashes, catching them at an early stage, and curing them with a variety of prescription creams and other remedies. So we read a parashah like this one and say, ‘Wow, those Israelites sure did overreact about a little ‘ol rash!”

Also, looking down from the lofty perch of our modernity we can be quick to criticize the Torah’s methodology of recovery. The Torah’s mandatory quarantine of the Tzaru’a seems like a harsh over-reaction. A person breaks out in a rash and they are banished from their community and made to live in total isolation?
In fact, it seems that this particular treatment might indeed be worse than the malady itself!

Picking up on this theme the Talmud explains that “M’tzora chashuv ka’met!” (Nedarim 54a) “A person suffering from Tzara’at is thought of as though they are dead.” How can this be asked Rabbi Meir Simcha HaKohen of Dvinsk? How could the sages of the Talmud say that a person who is simply sent off from the community in order to heal is really considered as though they are dead? His answer:

כיוון שהוציאו אותו מחוץ למחנה ואין לו שיח ושיג עם הבריות, הרי חייו אינם חיים.
Since they sent him out of the camp, and since he has no opportunity to converse with or interact with another human being, then his life is not truly a life.

And ending with a famous quote from the G’marah, Rabbi Meir Simchah haKohen says:
או חברותא או מיתותא!
“Give me companionship or give me death!” (Ta’anit 23a)

In this light, the Biblically mandated quarantine for a person suffering from Tzara’at found in our portion today, is one which we as moderns must look at and say – ‘Boy I’m glad I don’t live in the ancient world!’

But, if we are really being honest with ourselves we must admit, that while our tools for diagnosis may have evolved – our style of treating of various diseases actually remains hauntingly the same.
I remember learning this lesson on my first day of chaplaincy training at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York. Our supervisor explained that there are only two places in modern society where you are admitted, given an identity bracelet, have your clothes taken away from you, are made to live on someone else’s time schedule, and you have to stay there until they tell you that you are free to go. The first is the hospital, the second is prison.

It’s true. Illness can be a lonely and isolating experience; leaving the affected with the sense that they are left apart from their family, their friends, their community. When we recognize this unavoidable element of our human condition, we come to understand that Parashat Tazria is simply reflecting that feeling isolated was a reality of ancient illness – a reality we still experience today in our modern world.

What do I mean?
Well let’s start with this slide depicting our dealing with the continuing global epidemic of AIDS: Here you can see an individual living with AIDS, one of an estimated 35 million people world-wide. Although modern medicines mean those diagnosed with AIDS can now live a relatively normal life; here at home and around the world, people with AIDS are still being shunned by their families, separated from their friends and ostracized by their communities.
This next slide depicts a person in our community battling cancer. In addition to the stunning fear which accompanies the diagnosis, there are the additional challenges of the treatment and the isolation it brings. The chemotherapy makes those fighting cancer weak, tired and nauseous. Just as the Tzaru’a in our parasha, their heads become bald as the drugs attack all of the body’s rapidly-reproducing cells – the bad ones and the good ones. And a low white-cell count means they are highly-susceptible to contracting infections, forcing them into further isolation from friends and community.

And I have a countless number of other slides depicting additional illnesses which cause one to be secluded from the embrace of community: both the diseases that you can see: physical handicaps or deformities; as well as those you cannot: such as mental illness.

So, the bad news is that despite thousands of years of progress in terms of our ability to properly diagnose and medically treat any number of diseases – loneliness, quarantine and isolation remain part and parcel of the experience of illness.

But the good news is that there is something we can do; both in our world at large, as well as within our own close-knit community.

The truth is that our world has become smaller and we can indeed find ways of helping those who are suffering from illness, even if we do not know them. Perhaps you might feel moved by the life’s work of the now-late Elizabeth Taylor, who dedicated her volunteer life to fighting for, and reaching out to those who suffer from AIDS around the world. One example of something we all can do here at Temple Emanu-El is participate in the AIDS Orphan Care Pesach Flower Arrangement Fundraiser, conceived of and run by our very own Kutenplon-Rayess family. Last year, simply by ordering beautiful flowers for your seder table, they raised $1400 for orphans in Lesotho, battling the disease of AIDS and the loneliness it causes.

And closer to home there is so much that we can do for those who are battling illness and disease; particularly the various forms of cancer which attack our bodies and threaten our lives and our peace of mind. The fact is that Judaism mandates that each of us is Hayyav, obligated to perform the Mitzvah of Bikkur Holim, of visiting the sick; and while this certainly means a physical visit, it can also mean a phone call to check in, a card in the mail, or a posting on a website like caring bridge; which all serve to let the one who is ill know how much love and support there is behind them. And of course, there is the very act of saying a prayer on their behalf – The Misheberach L’Cholim, the Prayer for Those in Need of Healing, we recited just minutes ago. Rabbi Franklin and I cannot tell you how often we are told by those who are sick how important it is for them to know that their name is being said at shul, by those who love them.

But this morning, I would like to add one final obligation to our role as a caring community, and in the process coin a new mitzvah: Hachnasat Cholim. That is; the welcoming of the cholim back into our community as they feel better and more comfortable. Let us be sure to tell them that we missed them. Let us make certain to give them a long hug, some much needed conversation and physical warmth. And let us succeed in making our society as a whole and our community here at Emanu-El one which understands that while loneliness and isolation are a part of the human condition that is illness; given the choice between mituta or hevruta, between a loneliness as frightening as death – and the embrace of companionship - Let us choose companionship every time.

Shabbat Shalom and Refuah Shleimah.