By Marco Del Monte
These parashot tell of the person struck by tzara'at, who is excluded from the camp, placed far from men and, apparently, also from G-d. The one who declares this person impure is not a doctor, but the Cohen, a purely spiritual figure.
The Midrash and the Talmud explain to us that tzara'at is no ordinary illness. It represents the union between body and soul, between spirit and matter, since among the causes, perhaps the primary one, from which it stems we find lashon hara – the negative, corrosive speech that divides and wounds. And this is why the "person afflicted with tzara'at" is placed in isolation: because he sought to sow division among others, highlighted their "plagues", and isolated them. This is well known, but what is the solution to this? What does the difficult therapy consist of? The task now is to rediscover the speech that unites. It is interesting to note that even the "diagnosis of tzara'at" takes place through speech, the declaration of the Kohen: His state of impurity is not established unless the Priest pronounces the word "Impure". In the parashot, not by chance, the brit milah is discussed, which is read not only as circumcision but as the "Covenant of Speech", as if to say that the subject introduced in these contexts is not accidental. Issues relating to tzara'at are discussed in the order Tahorot, in the tractates of Nega'im (Plagues, laws of tzara'at, concerning persons, garments, and houses) and Ohalot (Tents, laws of impurity deriving from contact with the dead, in structures that "transmit" impurity), which are considered among the most complex, difficult, and technical; as if to say that the cause of these consequences, namely lashon hara, is a situation into which it is very easy to fall, but equally difficult and complex to emerge from, in order to purify oneself. Yet, in the Yalkut Shimoni we find an extraordinary passage: "(King) David said before the Kadosh Baruch Hu: Ribono shel Olam, Master of the world, is it not clear before You that when Israel recites the Tehillim they do not do so to receive a reward, nor to study the laws of impurity and purity... but may it be Your will that You consider them as if they were studying Nega'im and Ohalot." King David's request to Hashem is surprising: even when the people cannot manage to attain the most technical study, may their words of prayer count as engaging with the purest and most difficult part of the Torah. The Psalms are not simple poetry. They are Torah in the form of supplication, praise, weeping, hope; not by chance are they divided into five books like the five books of the Torah. When a person is angry at the world and is isolated – or rather, isolates himself with his thoughts, as is written "Ki yihyeh vo nega berosh", "when the plague is in his head", that is, in his mind, and he does not know how to get out of it – there is a simple yet intense solution, as elevated and complex as the most difficult Mishnah tractates: The singing of Tehillim. When life seems to confront us with difficult situations in an alien world, foreign to us, and we are part of the problem, one can recite one of the Tehillim, and Hashem will listen and consider every word as if he were studying and living the practices of the tractates of Purification. The Kohen at that point welcomes him back, God listens to him. The Psalms thus become the voice that breaks the isolation and mends the soul and souls. When you cannot manage to study, recite Tehillim; when you feel "impure", recite Tehillim; if you feel far from many situations, recite Tehillim, because every verse is a key, every word is a brit, a covenant, between your tongue and the Kadosh Baruch Hu; the Tehillim purify the air, and if the problem is not internal but external they also help to purify the house, that is, the world in which we live.
Shabbat Shalom Umevorach
Translated from the Italian with Google Gemini. The Italian text is the original.