Tuesday, April 12, 2005

FYI: Leprosy

Last week's and this week's torah portions talk about "Leprosy" but the affliction is not actually leprosy. A lot of Bible's have stopped translating it as leprosy and are translating it as infectious skin disease. But I don't know if that's exactly accurate either. It seems very supernatural. The Hebrew word is "Tzara'at." There are various kinds. Here's some info about tzara'at you may not have known or really thought about.

Tzara'at not only affects a person's skin, but it can appear on clothing (or anything made of wool, linen, or leather), and it can appear on the walls of houses (in the land of Israel).

Tzara'at on the person takes on various forms and each has different rules. It can appear as a discoloring, a scab, a bright spot, a raised spot, a burn, a boil, a sore on the scalp or beard. It can be a small spot (that a person might hide) or it could cover the whole body.

A person (or clothing or house) with tzara'at is not unclean (or clean) until a priest says he/she/it is unclean (or clean).

There is no law against touching a metzora (person with tzara'at). Priests had to do it all the time when examining the metzora. Tzara'at is not contagious. Lev. 13:11 says that a person with a chronic tzara'at is not to be put in isolation.

If every bit of a metzora's body is covered with tzara'at, they are clean. If a little bit of normal flesh later appears, then the metzora is unclean. I think, when Jesus healed the 10 lepers and only the one Samaritan leper came back to thank him, that Jesus made them all covered with tzara'at and thus clean, then when the one came back and Jesus said, "Your faith has made you well" then all of the tzara'at was completely removed from that man. Just my opinion.

Only a bald man with red and white tzara'at on the bald part of their head has to cover up and yell "unclean, unclean" and live alone outside the camp.

Interesting?

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