Metzora, מְּצֹרָע  "Leprous" (from something like leprosy but by Divine decree instead and non-contagious) Leviticus 14:1-15:33

Metzora and Pesach 5782

Poetic notes on the parashat Metzora*

Why do the heathen rage

And the peoples imagine a vain thing?

It is because they try to live and dream in this world carcass

Where is there salvation from the corpse of this world?

Unlike Abraham,

the nations forget and deny

that the body of this world

had such beauty of promise, but now begins to putrefy

The savage nations kick at the earth,

for it is the bands of HaShem's Anointed, 

and claw at the stars

for they are the cords through which HaShem binds them,

while they deny that Adam and Eve wrested their hand suddenly

from the hand of God

and took the hand of the serpent

Who will raise the bones of this world from the dead?

Even then, Eve made a human being together with God, 

and then suddenly she was without God again, 

a woman gasping in pain at the threshold of death, 

without the miraculous following on with her, 

to turn the blood and aftermath of that miracle into eternal glory

Before they’d sinned, 

the man and woman had done everything with God, 

thought every thought with God 

Now, even in this corpse of a world, 

the woman had a living child 

Immediately she was found in her blood alone,

pleading in prayer to know 

what HaShem's decree would be concerning her child 

Until one day, 

Over there were the Egyptians without promise 

And over here were their Israelite slaves with promise 

And HaShem was in between 

The woman, even in a world of death, 

had been able to have a living child

Then the man and woman had looked into one another’s eyes

They saw love slowly aging, 

darkness slowly rising

Without God, each of them was alone

There was nothing to do but try to survive 

And just trying to survive there was nothing to do

but be self-centred 

On the day they sinned

their spirit began to slowly flow out of their bodies

From the day they sinned,

from evening to morning their spirit was slowly wasting away

and there was no new day that came to stop

the outflow of their life into death

But they could hope in the miracle of childbirth

which had been preserved for them 

They had the hope of HaShem’s presence 

being there with them in the birth of the child 

They could do nothing but try to survive in the tumah tragedy*

into which they had fallen

But for God it was not so 

Nothing had changed in God’s view 

He still saw everything as he always had 

When the man and woman looked into one another's eyes

God saw that they were one,

one in their lonely tears where everything dies, 

one in their mourning for the lost world of their beginning,

one in the hidden eternal skies

He attached to them a portion of his Spirit 

so that they would remember his love for them

and hope a little,

when they looked into one another’s love 

Nothing at all changed in God’s view 

Over there were the Egyptians without promise 

And over here were their Israelite slaves with promise 

And he was in between them

He was the mediator between those with hope and those without

The tumah tragedy of Adam and Eve 

was the mark of the shadow of God's hand 

the mark with which he laid claim to Adam 

This was the promise of redemption hidden in a shadow

The mark of his claim upon Israel

So then, when Israel also sinned with an idol, 

a god of death and not life,

the tumah tragedy came on the house of God in full

For this shadow of tragedy was the hidden promise of hope

that Abraham found

from which he did not hide,

but learned from it to prepare himself for the calling of HaShem

Abraham found the shadow of tumah tragedy *

marked those whom God loved

Then Abraham believed HaShem

The promise of Adam's resurrection was in him

The secret of Adam's repentance would be unveiled in him

He taught his children and they kept the way of HaShem,

leaving Egypt behind, in order to know him in justice and judgment,

in order that he might be revealed to them 

and to all the nations

in the glory of his just and righteous mercy

HaShem came close to him and held him by the hand

and the Angel of Death had no power over him

He walked out of the land of tumah*

and every step he took was a step of taharah*

*Tumah is often translated as (ritual) impurity. Taharah is, correspondingly often translated as (ritual) purity.