Metzorah: Purification

Thazriah, last weeks parsha, dealt primarily with diagnoses of various forms of tzoraath.  This week's parsha deals  with the post cure ritual: birds, blood, string, wood, water and animal sacrifices. This ritual does not cure the physical problem. The ritual attaches meaning to the emergence from the state of  sick pariah, reintroduction to normal life.

After the tragedy of the illness, after the  questions of theo - decency, after the vindication, there is the question of what happened? Why the tzoraath, why the isolation, the (temporary) death? In that time of isolation, when a person reviews his life, she certainly found a misspoken word, an inappropriate glance, a thought that should have been banished. Now, despite the culpability he is cured!

The ritual make sense of it all because the ritual is nonsense. It does not work on a rational level and its actions in the metaphysical realm are inexplicable.  The ritual evokes, it does not state. Like music or perfume, it has no words.

The dipping of the live bird in the mixture of water and blood of the dead bird is the most odd and moving part of the ritual.  The Haftorah of the desperate lepers who find the invading army conquered by hoof-beats and save their people ( who banished them) from the famine, parallels the liberation of the living bird after its immersion in the blood of the dead.  Is this the story of the  modern state of Israels?