Dear Friends,
“Impure! Impure!”
Such was the charge to the leprous person in biblical days: to rend one’s clothes, uncover one’s head, cover one’s lip, and march about calling to all in earshot, “Impure! Impure!” (Leviticus 13:45)
Now, one could argue it is a just warning—that all others should stay away from the infected person.
Or, we could say, “How awful!” What a terrible stigmatization and seeming punishment to one who simple became ill with an intractable and terrifying disease.
Fascinatingly, although later medieval sages opted to explain the proclamation as a warning, the Talmud, a compilation of discussions of the earlier sages, read it more sympathetically 500-600 years prior:
The verse states with regard to one diagnosed with leprosy: “And the leper in whom the plague is, his clothes shall be rent, and the hair of his head shall go loose, and he shall cover his upper lip, and he shall cry: Unclean, unclean” (Leviticus 13:45). Not only must the leper suffer from the leprosy itself; he must undergo further embarrassment by publicizing his condition. This is akin to the aphorism that poverty follows the poor. (BT Bava Kamma 92b:1)
Why did the much earlier text written by the Talmudic rabbis offer a kind, humanistic rendering, whereas the later scholarly commentators take a more severe approach?
My intuition is that we develop compassion when we sit, learn, and work together. When people share their blessings and their sorrows, when we listen to different stories and conditions, we are more likely to empathize and offer generous magnanimity. However, when one studies and writes alone, no matter how scholarly and erudite one may be, one misses the humanity found in group discourse.
Hence, many in our synagogue community have found meaning in reading accounts of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim women learning together, or among our Sisterhood, many are reading together, Wise Aging. Shared experience yields shared kindness.
Lessons are still learned from those Talmudic rabbis pondering and considering!
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Douglas Kohn
“Impure! Impure!”
Such was the charge to the leprous person in biblical days: to rend one’s clothes, uncover one’s head, cover one’s lip, and march about calling to all in earshot, “Impure! Impure!” (Leviticus 13:45)
Now, one could argue it is a just warning—that all others should stay away from the infected person.
Or, we could say, “How awful!” What a terrible stigmatization and seeming punishment to one who simple became ill with an intractable and terrifying disease.
Fascinatingly, although later medieval sages opted to explain the proclamation as a warning, the Talmud, a compilation of discussions of the earlier sages, read it more sympathetically 500-600 years prior:
The verse states with regard to one diagnosed with leprosy: “And the leper in whom the plague is, his clothes shall be rent, and the hair of his head shall go loose, and he shall cover his upper lip, and he shall cry: Unclean, unclean” (Leviticus 13:45). Not only must the leper suffer from the leprosy itself; he must undergo further embarrassment by publicizing his condition. This is akin to the aphorism that poverty follows the poor. (BT Bava Kamma 92b:1)
Why did the much earlier text written by the Talmudic rabbis offer a kind, humanistic rendering, whereas the later scholarly commentators take a more severe approach?
My intuition is that we develop compassion when we sit, learn, and work together. When people share their blessings and their sorrows, when we listen to different stories and conditions, we are more likely to empathize and offer generous magnanimity. However, when one studies and writes alone, no matter how scholarly and erudite one may be, one misses the humanity found in group discourse.
Hence, many in our synagogue community have found meaning in reading accounts of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim women learning together, or among our Sisterhood, many are reading together, Wise Aging. Shared experience yields shared kindness.
Lessons are still learned from those Talmudic rabbis pondering and considering!
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Douglas Kohn
