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Our Rabbi's Message
April 11th 2008
By Rabbi Aaron KriegelThe portion that we read in the Torah this week is about leprosy. For us leprosy is somewhat of an antique religion. We do not know anyone who suffers from that malady, and those who do suffer live so far away that we never have the opportunity to meet them. The closest that we get to leprosy is this section of the Torah and other stories of the Bible which mention leprosy clearly showing that it was not only a scourge, but also the cancer of Biblical times.
Leprosy raised a number of problems in the community. How, our forefathers asked, could God bring such a tragedy upon people? What could people do to be worthy of such a punishment? How does one treat the leper? Is there medicine or a regimen of food that can make the leper better?
Of course all of those questions miss the central question that leprosy places before us healthy people. How can we integrate the leper into our society? Every generation has its own lepers. Some might think of the mentally unstable as a leper in society. Some might think of the former felon as a leper. Others look to those with deforming and incurable sickness as lepers. Many in our society took at those who do not have green cards as modern day lepers and keep them from society.
Too often we forget that all people, no matter how they look or what language they speak are people. Lepers are but a category of people and the leprosy they bear does not make them any better or any worse than you and I.
The biblical challenge, a challenge handled by the priesthood, and the modern challenge is but this. We have an obligation to find a way for all people to be recognized as the children of God. We have an obligation to recognize that a person should not be ranked by his or her deficits, but just by the fact that he or she is a person.
Leprosy in the Bible and in modern times is a curse for those who cannot find a way to fit the leper into their society than it is for the leper who never forgets that he/she is a person created in the image of God. All people have to learn not to judge others by what is not appealing to themselves.
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