{"id":45099,"date":"2018-12-03T08:02:17","date_gmt":"2018-12-03T06:02:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=45099"},"modified":"2022-06-28T17:49:37","modified_gmt":"2022-06-28T14:49:37","slug":"long-boring-and-exceedingly-relevant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/long-boring-and-exceedingly-relevant\/","title":{"rendered":"Long, Boring And Exceedingly Relevant"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[366,455,377],"acf":{"old_id":"45099","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":33859,"related_cahpter":"103","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"The plagues brought on by looking on the world and our fellows with narrowness and jealousy","content":"

Reading through chapter 13, it\u2019s hard not to think about how long it is. And, frankly, boring. And yucky, and most mysteriously, utterly needless. Who needs all this information about skin, clothing and house ailments? It\u2019s tempting to suggest that this is an early beta version of WebMD, democratizing medical knowledge, allowing your average Joe Jew to be empowered with information about his condition. <\/span><\/p>\n

But the empowerment is severely limited by the Torah\u2019s insistence that the status of a \u2018<\/span>metzora<\/span><\/em>\u2019<\/span><\/i> is not so much diagnosed by the Kohen as it is created by his decision. <\/span>Tzara\u2019at<\/span><\/em> is not something that can be self-diagnosed; it doesn\u2019t exist halachically until it is so declared by a licensed professional (more on this tomorrow).<\/span><\/p>\n

The Rambam didn\u2019t write 59 verses about <\/span>tzara\u2019at<\/span><\/em>. He recorded its laws over a span of <\/span>sixteen<\/b> (!) chapters. For the very courageous few who make it to the end (or those like me who skip to it), in the very last halacha, Rambam the physician explains that the hundreds of detailed laws of <\/span>tzara\u2019at<\/span><\/em>, which at most, theoretically, have relevance only to priests, have nothing to do with physical, medical occurrences. Even the arch-<\/span>pashtan<\/em> <\/span>(literal, contextual interpreter) Rashbam, who almost always prefers to lay aside rabbinic Midrash in order to explicate the simple meaning of the text, admits that here, there is no such thing here as \u2018pshat<\/em>\u2019. There is no credible, logical explanation other than what is offered by the rabbis (See his commentary to 13:2).<\/span><\/p>\n

That explanation is at once well-founded and deafeningly absent in the text. A <\/span>metzora<\/span><\/em>, explains Resh Lakish, is a fellow with a social disease, a physical reflection of the moral repugnance of the “<\/span>motzi shem ra”<\/span><\/em>. Humankind\u2019s first task was to look at God\u2019s good world and to name it. The <\/span>\u2018motzi shem ra<\/span><\/em>\u2019<\/span><\/i> does precisely the opposite, looking with narrow, jealous eyes at the world. And so gossip, idle chatter, recreational character assassination, a daily or hourly activity for many, the topic of countless posts, emails, and amusing messages of various forms, are treated by the Torah to an exorbitant level of attention, verses upon verses, laws upon laws, forcing us to spend time and pay attention to the plagues and destruction this behavior brings, and the ways to repair it.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe [<\/span>tzara\u2019at<\/span><\/i>-]afflicted house never was and never will be. Why was it written? Study it, and you will be rewarded\u201d (Sanhedrin 71a).<\/span><\/p>\n","image":{"ID":92209,"id":92209,"title":"pro4-gossip","filename":"pro4-gossip.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/pro4-gossip.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/doing-good-isnt-enough\/pro4-gossip\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"pro4-gossip","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":92208,"date":"2021-04-16 12:47:31","modified":"2022-06-28 14:49:33","menu_order":0,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","type":"image","subtype":"jpeg","icon":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-includes\/images\/media\/default.png","width":292,"height":366,"sizes":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/pro4-gossip-150x150.jpg","thumbnail-width":150,"thumbnail-height":150,"medium":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/pro4-gossip-239x300.jpg","medium-width":239,"medium-height":300,"medium_large":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/pro4-gossip.jpg","medium_large-width":292,"medium_large-height":366,"large":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/pro4-gossip.jpg","large-width":292,"large-height":366,"1536x1536":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/pro4-gossip.jpg","1536x1536-width":292,"1536x1536-height":366,"2048x2048":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/pro4-gossip.jpg","2048x2048-width":292,"2048x2048-height":366,"post_full_size":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/pro4-gossip.jpg","post_full_size-width":292,"post_full_size-height":366,"home_baner":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/pro4-gossip.jpg","home_baner-width":292,"home_baner-height":366}},"embedded_video":"","video_duration":"","show_fb_comments":true,"credit_media":""},"tile":{"top_caption":"","main_caption":"Long, Boring And Exceedingly Relevant","main_caption_size":"1","sub_caption":"The plagues brought on by looking on the world and our fellows with narrowness and jealousy","preview_embedded":"","preview_image":{"ID":92209,"id":92209,"title":"pro4-gossip","filename":"pro4-gossip.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/pro4-gossip.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/doing-good-isnt-enough\/pro4-gossip\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"pro4-gossip","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":92208,"date":"2021-04-16 12:47:31","modified":"2022-06-28 14:49:33","menu_order":0,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","type":"image","subtype":"jpeg","icon":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-includes\/images\/media\/default.png","width":292,"height":366,"sizes":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/pro4-gossip-150x150.jpg","thumbnail-width":150,"thumbnail-height":150,"medium":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/pro4-gossip-239x300.jpg","medium-width":239,"medium-height":300,"medium_large":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/pro4-gossip.jpg","medium_large-width":292,"medium_large-height":366,"large":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/pro4-gossip.jpg","large-width":292,"large-height":366,"1536x1536":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/pro4-gossip.jpg","1536x1536-width":292,"1536x1536-height":366,"2048x2048":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/pro4-gossip.jpg","2048x2048-width":292,"2048x2048-height":366,"post_full_size":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/pro4-gossip.jpg","post_full_size-width":292,"post_full_size-height":366,"home_baner":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/pro4-gossip.jpg","home_baner-width":292,"home_baner-height":366}},"preview_video":"","external_link":"","link_for_pay":false,"tile_gallery_items":false,"credits":""},"alternate_tile":{"top_caption":"","main_caption":"","main_caption_size":"1","sub_caption":"","hide_media":false},"tile_group":{"preview_image_url":false,"main_caption":"","sub_caption":"","":null,"popup_package_extra_content":"","read_time":""},"home_color":"","home_gallery_top":"","home_gallery_middle":"","home_gallery_book":"","home_gallery_bottom":"","seo":{"seo_title":"","seo_description":"","seo_default_title":"","seo_default_description":""},"links":false,"send_noty":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45099"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45099"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45099\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":106028,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45099\/revisions\/106028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}