Thazria-Metzora: Quarantine

This year, as we are quarantined against a potentially fatal infection, we can identify, more than usual, with the main subject if this week's double parsha, tzaraath.   Tzaraath is  the impetigenous  disease that that the King James committee dubbed leprosy. I think they called it leprosy, in part  because  of the white patches; but mostly, they wanted to impart the idea of a terrible disease that is unlikely to remit - a malady that merits a colony,. They wanted to evoke a condition that the ancients recognized as contagious,  so communicable that contact with the afflicted require extraordinary [saintly] courage. Leprosy was a disease from which few recovered.  It is not clear to me how apt this rendering of tzaraath as leprosy was, but some of the ideas do seem to apply. 

Most years, these chapters that deal with the diagnosis ( testing), isolation, and recovery ritual of the victim seem quite remote.    But this year we have a small taste of some aspects of the misfortune, and begin to understand how it impacted the victim and her contacts. 

The patient becomes an outcast. His touch, her clothing, his fluids are terrifying, and potentially lethal. 

כָּל־יְמֵ֞י אֲשֶׁ֨ר הַנֶּ֥גַע בּ֛וֹ יִטְמָ֖א טָמֵ֣א ה֑וּא בָּדָ֣ד יֵשֵׁ֔ב מִח֥וּץ לַֽמַּחֲנֶ֖ה מוֹשָׁבֽוֹ׃ (ס)

He shall be unclean as long as the disease is on him. Being unclean, he shall dwell apart; his dwelling shall be outside the camp.

She is the outcast.  In our times, those who attend the infected are separated by gowns,  gloves, masks, face shields - whatever protection is currently available .  Those who succumb, die alone

The Covid pandemic puts every person in a modicum of isolation. I have heard people say that this time of staying home is an opportunity to explore the inner self, perhaps to self-actualize  dreams that were suppressed by mundane tasks and concerns. That kind of optimization is extraordinarily hard.  The suggestion that this time might be put to use for life changing  projects quickly becomes depressing as the barrage of news - the death of friends, infected coworkers, idiotic pronouncements - invades my consciousness.  And the dreams are so hard to actualize! It is not just the hard work, it is the improbability of success. 

 We begin to understand what it means not to be able to work.  We, like the leper, have time on our hands.  Time to worry about all of our futures.  The immediate future of bills with no income. The intermediate  future  of an indefinite period of the same.  The (perhaps) longer future of decline and death. 

We have time to consider the transgressions that brought us, the leper and the covider, to this place.  (Aruchin 16a)

א"ר שמואל בר נחמני א"ר יוחנן על שבעה דברים נגעים באין על לשון הרע ועל שפיכות דמים ועל שבועת שוא ועל גילוי עריות ועל גסות הרוח ועל הגזל ועל צרות העין

§ Rabbi Shmuel bar Naḥmani says that Rabbi Yoḥanan says: Leprous marks come and afflict a person for seven sinful matters: For malicious speech, for bloodshed, for an oath taken in vain, for forbidden sexual relations, for arrogance, for theft, and for stinginess.

These Divine punishments, that come without formal charges and without a trial that we can recall, make the justice a speculation. What did we do? We can easily identify any number of transgressions, but we had been doing them for years - what changed? 

We wanted time. Now we have nothing but. We wanted an opportunity to think. Go ahead! We deserved retribution for our sins. Here is a taste. We wanted privacy to cover our transgressions.  We got isolation. 

This plague will get better. We will come to a viable situation.  The world will be different.  A few lepers will remain. Corornovirus ( and other infections) will remain a manageable threat. Don't blame the victim. Deal with the Divine