Pity poor Rabbi Akiva. He had a difficult youth and a dreadful death, but at least he enjoyed the respect of his colleagues, right? In Bavli Sanhedrin 38b Reish Lakish claims that God gave Adam the First a preview of all the sages to come, and when he reached Akiva, Adam rejoiced in his Torah,…
Category: Metzora
The Courage to Recover from Death to Life: Tazria-Metzora 5777
Jewish consciousness in the coming months will be dominated by major anniversaries related to Israel–the fiftieth anniversary of the Six Day War, the centennial of the Balfour Declaration, the 70th anniversary of the UN partition vote, and then, next April, the 70th anniversary of Israel’s declaration of independence. Each of those markers has complex associations…
Tzaraat and Sex Trafficking: Tazria Metzora
The double parashah of Tazria-Metzorah this Shabbat draws us into the strange realm of negaim, blemishes of the body, clothing and even homes that signal impurity and require urgent attention. This topic was considered to be one of the most complicated areas of Jewish law in antiquity, and it remains challenging for us today. We often associate this…
Magic or Morality? Metzora 5774
Ritual is essential to religious life, but what does it actually accomplish? Is our elaborate system of gestures and taboos purely symbolic, or does it effect some sort of spiritual shift in reality? In our portion, we are told that the priest purifies a person or a home that has been afflicted with tzara’at by…