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Orchard of Delights 12
Following these steps, on the eighth day, the metzora brought
a number of sacrificial offerings accompanied by olive oil. The
cohen took the sacrificial blood and olive oil and placed some on
the metzora’s right ear, thumb, and toe. The remainder was placed
on the metzora’s head. The sin and elevation offerings were then
brought and with this the purification and atonement process was
completed.
Rashi explains that each component of the ritual is highly
symbolic. The birds, which constantly chirp, represent the two sins
that stand out as the primary causes of tzara’at: slander and gossip.
The wood, taken from the cedar, the tallest of Middle Eastern trees,
symbolizes the metzora’s haughtiness and over-inflated ego that led
him to sin. Both the hyssop (a plant that grows close to the ground)
and the crimson thread (dyed in worm’s blood), represent the state
of humility the metzora must adopt in order to be healed. The Torah
refers to the springwater, in which the metzora immersed, as “living
waters,” and Jewish tradition ascribes the characteristics of purity
and rebirth to them, not to mention using the phrase “living waters”
to denote the Torah itself.
The symbolic import of the ritual described in the Torah in this
portion sheds light on the processes of rectification, teshuvah, and
healing in the broadest sense. The Ba’al Shem Tov’s insight that
every process, whether material or spiritual, contains three stages
– submission (hachna’ah), separation (havdalah), and sweetening
(hamtakah) – delineates the process through which the metzora is
healed beautifully. The first stage, submission, relates to the humble
position the person suffering this disease finds himself in. The second
stage, separation, is manifest in the sufferer’s physical separation from
the rest of the people when he is exiled from the camp. During this
exile, he must engage in deep reflection and soul searching attempting
to figure out and then divorce himself from those behavioral patterns
that brought him to this point. Finally, the third stage, sweetening,
is reached by performing the symbolic ritual described above. The
emotional impact of undergoing this ceremony and being proclaimed
pure and atoned for paves and “sweetens” the way for reintegration
into the community.
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The most powerful part of the ritual centers on the rites performed
with the two birds: one of which was slaughtered and the other which
was set free to fly away. Having just endured this terrible affliction
and the accompanying social isolation, the act of dipping the live bird
in the blood of the slaughtered bird and then letting it fly free must
have evoked the same emotion expressed by King David in Psalms
(124:7-8): “Our soul escaped like a bird from the hunter’s snare; the
snare broke and we escaped. Our help is through the name of God,
Maker of heaven and earth.” What an exhilarating feeling the recent
sufferer must have had as he saw the bird fly off. Identifying his own
fate with that of the bird, he must have thrilled at the freedom to
begin anew, relieved of his oppressive circumstances.
In Kabbalah and Chassidut the two birds used in this ritual are
compared to the two goats taken on Yom Kippur:
He shall take the two goats and stand them before God, at the
entrance of the Tent of Meeting. Aaron shall place lots upon the two
goats: one lot ‘for God’ and one lot ‘for Azazel.’ Aaron shall bring
near the goat designated by lot for God, and make it a sin offering.
And the goat designated by lot for Azazel shall be stood alive before
Hashem, to provide atonement through it, to send it to Azazel to the
wilderness. (Leviticus 16:7-10)
In both cases the Oral Torah dictates that the two birds and the two
goats must look identical in all respects. The fate of the goats is explicitly
decided by lottery: one for God and one for Azazel (the archetypal figure
of evil and negativity). The signal difference between the two rituals is 24107-EYAL - 24107-EYAL | 12 - A | 18-01-28 | 12:12:05 | SR:-- | Magenta
that the goat sent into the desert goes to its death while the bird that #24107-EYAL - 24107-EYAL | 12 - A | 18-01-28 | 12:12:05 | SR:-- | Yellow 24107-EYAL - 24107-EYAL | 12 - A | 18-01-28 | 12:12:05 | SR:-- | Black 24107-EYAL - 24107-EYAL | 12 - A
is set free lives. This difference accentuates the themes of renewal and
healing underlying the purification process of the metzora.
Notably, just as this ceremony reflects renewal and healing on a
private level, it likewise symbolizes the same concepts on the Jewish
national and universal levels as well. Allegorically it can be read as
alluding to the epic themes of exile and Messianic redemption (just
like the case of the woman who gives seed discussed in “Arousal and
Conception” in Tazria). In fact, the Ohr HaChaim commentary on the
Torah, written by Rabbi Chaim ben Attar, a great teacher and the Ba’al
Shem Tov’s contemporary, allegorizes the entire process of tzara’at,
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