Tag: Parashat Tazria

Categories
Discussions Prophets and Writings Torah

Born separated from God, made pure: How Israel’s offerings for childbirth and ‘leprosy’ teach us about Messiah’s cleansing of humanity (Leviticus 12–13)

Born separated, made pure: How Israel's offerings for childbirth and leprosy' teach us about Messiah's cleansing of humanity (Leviticus 12-13). Adobe Firefly-generated artwork shows an ancient Israeli woman holding a newborn girl.

People are often repulsed by the Torah descriptions of “leprosy” and skin diseases in Torah readings Tazria (Leviticus 12–13) and Metzorah (Leviticus 14–15) because they focus only on the physical aspects and miss the weightier spiritual lessons. This study explores how “leprosy” here represented a condition of spiritual rot from separation from God.

While unpleasant to consider physically, examining it spiritually reveals how humanity is born in a state of separation since Eden — also taught via the sin offering for childbirth in Tazria — and God’s gracious provision to redeem and purify people through faith in him. Messiah (Christ) takes this spiritual rot and separation upon Himself to cleanse all who trust in Him as Heaven’s lifeline to the world.

Categories
Discussions Prophets and Writings Torah

Good character is more than skin deep (Leviticus 13)

Good character is more than skin deep (Leviticus 13)

Some people studying the Torah portion תזריע Tazria (“she will conceive,” Leviticus 12–13) enjoy picking apart the descriptions of the צָרַעַת Tzaraat, commonly translated as “leprosy,” to see how they similar to or different from skin ailments that are known in our modern age.

But such speculations distract us from the most important lesson of Tzaraat: It was primarily a spiritual disease, not a physical ailment. God used it to correct those with לשון הרע lashon ha-ra the “evil tongue”: gossips and slanderers. Those actions came either temporarily, as He did to Miriam, the sister of Moses, or as a life sentence as he did to King Uzziah and Gehazi, the servant of Elisha.

Categories
Discussions Torah

How the Messiah breathes life into ‘the walking dead’ (Leviticus 12–15)

Birth and “the walking dead,” aka lepers. The two couldn’t be more different different. The first brings life into the world, and the latter is a mark of life that is headed out of the world. Yet in human body’s sometimes gross processes of fostering the new, we see similarities with the indeed gross processes that unravel the body, making it waste away.

The Torah readings תזריע Tazria (“she will conceive,” Leviticus 12–13) and מְּצֹרָע Metzora (“leper,” Leviticus 14–15) weave a thread of Heaven’s wisdom between the realms of life and death, showing us in stark imagery how Yeshua the Messiah (Jesus the Christ) indeed is making this happen: “The last enemy that will be abolished is death” (1Corinthians 15:26–27 NASB).

Categories
Discussions Torah

Leviticus 12-13 and Passover: God of the newly living, Healer of the ‘walking dead’

It seems bizarre that the Bible packages instructions for purifying new bothers and newborns together with what look like public health instructions for dealing with chronic skin diseases and toxic mold. And this passage in Leviticus 12–15 (Torah readings Tazria and Metzorah) comes between a big failing of the priesthood (deadly use of “strange fire” in Leviticus 10) and Yom haKippurim (Day of Atonement, Leviticus 16). Discover the important messages that come from these passages, unwrapped as a packaged set. Why are the instructions for purify childbirth packaged together with those for cleansing the “walking dead?” Why does the miracle of birth require a sin offering? What is it about baby girls that doubles the exclusionary period from the Tabernacle? Why is there an elaborate ritual for the cleansed leper? How is the rebirth of the leper similar to the resurrection of Israel from the house of bondage?So we can start to see links to Pesach (Passover) and the forethought, continued caring and compassion of God and the one and only Son of God, the Lamb of God.

Categories
Discussions Torah

Leviticus 12–15: Dishing and spreading the dirt is easy; preventing its spread is hard

A closeup view of Mycobacterium leprae bacteria inside human body. The bacteria causes Hansen's disease, aka leprosy. (COMPOSITE OF FREEIMAGES.COM/ANDRZEJ POBIEDZIŃSKI & RDMAG.COM/AP)

What does childbirth have to do with leprosy? Why do new mothers and babies need sin offerings? How is leprosy connected to gossip and slander? In this study of Leviticus 12–15, we will be taking a step up and a step back the topics discussed. Some of it is unsettling, and it is easy to lose ourselves in some of the more distasteful details, while forgetting the important life lessons the Holy One of Yisra’el is communicating to us.

Categories
Discussions Torah

Leviticus 12-13: Profanity makes one a leper

Cleansing of the Ten Lepers from the Codex Aureus Epternacensis (WIkimedia Commons image)

Life starts with contamination. It starts out dirty. Childbirth is messy. It’s not sinful; it’s just a fact of life.

The general Bible term for infections of skin and surfaces is “leprosy,” but it covers a host of conditions. It’s also a good parable for “rot” in our character — if the lesson isn’t taken too far.

The Torah reading תזריע Tazria (“she will conceive,” Leviticus 12–13) is concerned about what is physically dirty vs. clean, but the LORD’s lesson for us is more than skin-deep.

Categories
Discussions Torah

Leviticus 13: Leprosy of the soul

In Leviticus 10, Aharon (Aaron) and his sons were ordained as priests. In Leviticus 11-12, they are charged with teaching the people of God to distinguish holy from unholy, “clean” from “unclean.” Once we have been taught by our High Priest, Yeshua the Mashiakh (Jesus the Christ), about what is holy and clean, we need to live in that truth. From this we learn how holiness can be just skin-deep if the heart doesn’t change.