In the previous two sections we discussed two different concepts that are alluded to in the portion of Tazria: the spiritual roots of disease and the Messianic redemption. Although both have the theme of purity and impurity in common, there does not seem to be any other link between them. In this section we will shed light on the connection between these two seemingly unrelated matters.
The link between these subjects is found in an enigmatic Talmudic discussion (Sanhedrin 98a). The Talmud symbolically depicts Mashiach as a metzora (one stricken with the disease of tzara’at) sitting with the other outcasts at the entrance to Rome. One of the Sages asks how Mashiach can be distinguished from all the other poor and sick people gathered there. He is told that all the others when changing their bandages remove all of them at once and then replace them one by one. Mashiach takes off one bandage at a time and then replaces it before changing the next one. Why does do this? So that if God calls upon him to reveal himself, he can do so without delay.
The fact that Mashiach is depicted as a metzora is exceedingly noteworthy, as the prophet Isaiah describes the future redeemer as afflicted with sickness:
He was despised and isolated from men, a man of pains and accustomed to illness. As one from whom we would hide our faces; he was despised, and we had no regard for him. But in truth, it was our ills that he bore, and our pains that he carried – but we had regarded him diseased, stricken by God, and afflicted! He was pained because of our rebellious sins and oppressed through our iniquities; the chastisement upon him was for our benefit, and through his wounds, we were healed. (Isaiah 53:3-5)
Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh explains that being stricken with a sickness is an opportunity for personal growth; such an experience enables us to atone for our misdeeds and learn the important lesson of empathy, as discussed in the first section of this portion. Throughout the ages, tzaddikim (righteous and holy individuals) used their afflictions to both identify and empathize with the suffering of others as well as to elicit compassion from Heaven for the world’s plight. Each person in fact has the potential to act like a tzaddik and transform sickness into a catalyst for rectification. Mashiach, the quintessential tzaddik, will be able to take his suffering and transform it into healing energy that will envelope the nation of Israel and the whole world.
The following verse describes tzara’at in four ways: “When a man shall have in the skin of his flesh a swelling, a scab, or bright spot and it be in the skin of his flesh, the plague of tzara’at” (Leviticus 13:2). The Midrash connects these four descriptions with the Jewish people’s four archetypal exiles: “‘a swelling’ is Babylonia; ‘a scab’ is Persia; ‘a bright spot’ is Greece; ‘a plague’ is Rome'” (Vayikra Rabbah 14:9).
These correspondences between the Jewish people’s exiles and tzara’at and the Talmudic story depicting Mashiach as a metzora suggest that on a mystical sod level, tzara’at serves as a parable for that which will befall the Jewish people. Furthermore, even on a peshat level, this correspondence can be sensed as the metzora is exiled from the camp for seven days and only returns when he is healed.
As we saw in the previous section, the birth of a son symbolizes the Messianic redemption. Continuing in the same vein, we can explain that a woman giving birth allegorically represents the Jewish people’s mission to redeem the world; and, thus, the seven days of impurity following the birth symbolize the long and harsh history of exile and persecution the Jewish people have suffered in persevering with this mission. (This suffering is, of course, also symbolized by tzara’at.) Circumcising the male child on the eighth day signifies the covenant between God and His people that will ultimately be realized and finally consummated, when the Jewish people and the entire world are fully redeemed when Mashiach comes.
