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humanity’s most sacred morals and values. Yet when sexuality is
awakened in a context of holiness it can bring with it deep love,
intimacy, and true satisfaction. This type of arousal returns us to the
very beginning of the portion of Tazria: “When a woman conceives
and gives birth….” (Leviticus 12:1). The Torah, through the laws of
family purity, attempts to channel sexual arousal, and, in fact, all of
humanity’s primal forces, in order to help human beings reach the
highest levels of goodness, pleasure, and intimacy with each other as
well as with God.
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for repentance, atonement, and rectification. Yet, they only have
this effect if the sufferer comprehends their true meaning and relates
to them accordingly.
Given the spiritual roots of disease, it is not surprising that the
Hebrew words for “pardon” (mechilah) and beseeching God (vayachel)
– used to depict Moses’ prayers after the sin of the Golden Calf – also
contain the same two-letter root. In a broader context, the latter
Hebrew word means “to pray”; thus, it alludes to the very positive
effect prayer has on the processes of repentance and healing (Body,
Mind and Soul, pp. 127).
Rabbi Nachman of Breslov often emphasized that sadness and
depression are at the root of virtually all physical and mental
ailments. Indeed, the evil inclination is more interested in the
depression following the sin than in the act of sinning itself, for
nothing is as spiritually, and even physically, debilitating as ongoing
sadness and depression. In order to counter the despair, guilt, and
overwhelming sense of worthlessness that accompany depression,
Rabbi Nachman taught that the greatest antidote and ultimately
the strongest preventative medicine one could take was to adopt a
positive outlook on life, filling one’s days with joy and optimism.
These teachings written two hundred years ago were extraordinarily
perceptive, as they diagnosed the root causes for so much of
contemporary disease.
Understanding the true nature of tzara’at enables us to arrive at a
genuine appreciation of the Torah’s immense wisdom and allows us
to perceive its contemporary relevance in teaching us how to prevent
and cure disease.
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