12 min

R. David Kasher on Parashat Metzora: Like a Leper Messiah Ta Shma

    • Giudaismo

We Jews, who have been perennial outcasts, ought to read the Torah’s account of the leper with particular care.“Leper,” we should note from the outset, is not really an accurate rendering of the Hebrew, מצורע (metzora). The biblical affliction of tza’arat is clearly different from what we today call “leprosy,” most obviously so because it can only be fully cured by spiritual means. Yet the King James translation is helpful in its way, not only because it reminds us of similar symp...

We Jews, who have been perennial outcasts, ought to read the Torah’s account of the leper with particular care.“Leper,” we should note from the outset, is not really an accurate rendering of the Hebrew, מצורע (metzora). The biblical affliction of tza’arat is clearly different from what we today call “leprosy,” most obviously so because it can only be fully cured by spiritual means. Yet the King James translation is helpful in its way, not only because it reminds us of similar symp...

12 min