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In most years the Torah reading called Tazria is read alongside the reading of Metzorah but because this year is a Jewish leap year, the readings are separated and we will go over Metzorah next week.
Although one’s actions can make one clean or unclean, certain bodily functions and natural bodily processes can also impart uncleanness on a person for a period of time. Being in a state of uncleanness is not a proof of one’s moral failings.
Why are the instructions for purifying childbirth bundled with instruction for cleansing the “walking dead” and why are these instruction sandwiched together between a massive failing of the priesthood and the Day of Atonement?
For example, the process of childbirth makes the mother temporarily unclean. Pregnancy is a natural bodily function of the adult human female, yet going through childbirth will make the mother ritually unclean and unable to involve herself in the activities of the tabernacle for a period of time.
We also wonder why the miracle of birth requires a sin offering? What is it about the birth of a baby girl that doubles the time the mother is excluded from the Tabernacle? This is very bizarre. The mother’s role is to raise up life and prepare her children to launch into the world. But the sin offering is an acknowledgment that all of us have been born in a world separated from the Creator of Heaven and Earth.
Another bodily function that makes a woman temporarily unclean is the process of menstruation.
There’s a repeated refrain about whether the leprosy is “skin deep” and we have a saying that “Beauty is skin deep.” Not only is there an elaborate diagnosis process to confirm that a person is a “leper” but there’s also an elaborate ceremony to return the “leper” to the community when the priest confirms that the leper is healed. The leprosy the Torah described here is a spiritual illness with a physical manifestation, one might use the term psychosomatic to describe it. This “leprosy” The outward wounds of leprosy are a symptom of a spiritual problem. The rebirth of the leper is similar to the resurrection from the dead. Since the condition could only be diagnosed by a priest and only a priest could declare a “leper” healed of the affliction, it’s a condition we do not witness in our time.
God is holy, He is separate from the world, yet He longs to live near us and it’s our honor that God loves us so much that He wants to live as close to us as possible without killing us with His holiness. He wants to be able to live with us as He lived with Adam and Eve in the garden before they sinned. This will happen when the New Jerusalem comes down from heaven onto the earth.
All believers in Yeshua are commissioned by the Creator of Heaven and Earth for a massive task to bringing the people within our influence to the Messiah and back to the Creator.
In Acts 10, God used a vision of unclean animals to teach Peter that he was not to dismiss gentiles as unworthy of the message of the kingdom just because of their ethnicity.
Right after the vision, the messengers from Cornelius came to call him to teach his message of the Messiah to Cornelius and his family. Here was a Roman centurion, stationed in an area of the Roman Empire that was not considered sophisticated. The Jews were subjects of Rome, not citizens of Rome. They were second class citizens in their own land and their God was treated that way by the majority of the Roman leaders, yet Cornelius saw that the God of these subjugated people was the God he should serve, not the Roman pantheon, or the emperor cult. Once Peter met with Cornelius face to face and saw how the holy spirit came up him in the same way He did on those who gathered in Jerusalem at Pentecost, Peter knew that God was working to make gentiles fit to approach Him.
God could make children of Abraham out of the stones, so just because you are born into a particular ethnic group, doesn’t make you superior to another. The covenant has to be renewed in every generation.
We see this in the generation of the Exodus. The first generation didn’t trust God enough to follow through with the covenant by circumcising their sons so the second generation submitted to circumcision when they were preparing to enter the Promised Land.
We should filter every thought that comes to us from the world through the algorithm of God’s word.
The physical manifestation of mold and mildew on the house was a physical symptom of rot, just as much as the physical manifestation of tzarat was on the person.
Naaman’s leprosy was transferred to Gehazi because of his deceit. Ghazi’s sin was not just skin deep. We see the same thing with Miriam who was gossiping against Moses trying to drag him down and elevate herself. We would call this defamation or slander.
“‘You shall not go about as a slanderer among your people, and you are not to act against the life of your neighbor; I am the LORD.” (Leviticus 19:16 NAS95)
A slanderer is a merchant of fake news. They spread words that tear down others, rather than building them up. In Deuteronomy, there’s a section about murder that includes perjury, slander, defamation and character assassination. When you speak deceitfully against someone, you are speaking against their life.
“Come, you children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the LORD. Who is the man who desires life And loves length of days that he may see good? Keep your tongue from evil And your lips from speaking deceit. Depart from evil and do good; Seek peace and pursue it.” (Psalm 34:11–14 NAS95)
Suffering servant of the Lord, the Leper Messiah
“Surely our griefs He Himself bore, And our sorrows He carried; Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, Smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, And by His scourging we are healed. All of us like sheep have gone astray, Each of us has turned to his own way; But the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all To fall on Him.” (Isaiah 53:4–6 NAS95)
Either the servant suffered on behalf of the speakers, or he suffered along with the guilty, even thought he himself did not share in the cult of his fellow Israelites. The former idea such as the notion of vicarious suffering would be unusual for the bible…
The lesson we get from the plain reading of the Bible is the people cannot carry away their own sins. That’s why there are two goats on the Day of Atonement, one goat is sacrificed to cover the sins, the other goat carries them away.
Summary: Tammy
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