Parashat Tazria - Metzora: From Sorrow to Hope

This past April was perhaps the most intense month I can remember in recent years. I feel the need to share this reflection with you, because it was truly powerful.

We began with Pesach, celebrating a Seder with 120 people; n incredible number that would have seemed impossible just a few years ago. That night was proof of how we continue to rejoice in our Jewish identity and traditions together, blending friendship and mitzvot in a space that was both social and sacred.

Next came our Holocaust Lecture, with nearly 200 people in attendance. The brilliant Ariel Beth Klein led us through a moving and deeply personal journey into the making of her short film about her grandmother, a Shoah survivor.

Then, we witnessed a stunning performance by the Abcdario Dance Company from Argentina, an extraordinary display of movement and visual artistry. Sadly, it was met with a disappointingly small audience, which left me reflecting on the apathy that sometimes meets the tireless efforts of those who work so hard to bring light and beauty to our community. A special and heartfelt thanks to Marsha, Julie, and Ruth, who made the evening shine at Hamilton College’s Wellin Hall.

We closed the month with a joyful moment: welcoming two new members into our Temple Beth-El family. “Yehudim le’chol davar” (Jews in every sense) Kevin and Judy completed their Beit Din with strength and commitment. Mazal tov, and welcome to Am Israel.

Meanwhile, the intensity in Israel did not let up. As a people and a global Jewish family, we’ve just come through a week of raw and conflicting emotions. Yom HaZikaron, Memorial Day for Israel’s fallen soldiers and terror victims. Fires devastating the beloved forests around Jerusalem. And then, the need to celebrate 77 years of Israel’s independence, against all odds, and despite the pain. How can we celebrate when 59 of our brothers and sisters are still held in captivity? When families are mourning? The national and personal grief is overwhelming.

And as if in sync with these emotions, this Shabbat we read Tazria and Metzora, two of the most difficult Parshiot to read with modern eyes.

They speak of sores, bodily discharges, and rituals of purification. They confront us with ancient laws of purity and impurity, of oozing wounds and isolating blemishes. But when we move beyond the surface reading, we can hear the deeper melody of the Parasha. It speaks to us of the fragility of body and soul, of the pain of being cast out, and of the deep human longing to be seen, to return to the camp, to the home, to the community, to the “we.”

Impurity wasn’t punished with exile out of cruelty, but because it revealed something broken, something that required time, attention, healing. That’s why the isolation wasn’t permanent. The Torah insists: the priest had to go out of the camp to see the afflicted, to observe, to return, to walk alongside them in their journey toward healing.

The verse says: “Badad yeshev, michutz la’machaneh moshavo”, “They shall dwell alone; outside the camp shall be their dwelling.” This exile wasn’t a punishment. It was an acknowledgment of human vulnerability. The afflicted body became a symbol of social wounding.

Rabbi Tamara Eskenazi, in The Torah: A Women’s Commentary, a volume I highly recommend If you wish to find a modern, progressive, deep commentary of the Torah, writes with such tenderness:

“The ritual of purification is not punishment. It is a bridge, a way for those who have lived through rupture, bodily and relational, to reenter community life with dignity.”

Today, 59 of our brothers and sisters remain outside the camp—not because of impurity, but because of cruelty and terror. And just as then, we must not forget them. Like the priest, we must turn our gaze outward remembering them by name, praying for them, demanding their return. Because as long as they are outside, part of our collective body is also missing.

But these Parshiot don’t only speak of the body. They speak of words: words that wound. In rabbinic tradition, “Metzora” is linked to “motzi shem ra,” the act of slander. There is no leprosy without language. No exclusion without speech. We are called to be responsible for what we say and the impact of our words on others and on ourselves.

We live in a time when words can defile. When speech divides. When narratives dehumanize. Antisemitism is rising again, often like a silent plague, beginning with misinformation, a stray comment, a whisper of denial about our very humanity.

I want to share the words of another thinker, Rachel Adler, in “Those Who Turn Away Their Faces,” from Healing Through the Jewish Imagination, where she writes about diseased skin:

“Societies fear invasion, disintegration, and being overwhelmed. That’s why our borders, whether national or bodily, become sites of anxiety, places where integrity might be breached and order upended… Human skin is a vast, continuous frontier, the frontier of ourselves, the most basic border between our bodies and the world outside. Wounds to the skin (like tzara’at) are threats to that integrity. They leave raw flesh exposed, or display a body overtaken by something external…”

Societies live in fear of being overrun or torn apart. So they build walls, arm themselves, and shut out anything that might threaten their boundaries. People do the same: learning to mistrust, even despise, anyone whose skin or story is different. The “other” becomes a danger to the self, and so we exclude, isolate, erase.

This instinct to fortify ourselves against difference has raised generations who see conflict as the only way to protect their ideological, religious, or physical borders. We’ve been taught that the “others” contaminates us, taints us… and in fear, we try to eliminate them.

There’s a deep wisdom in the idea that when the skin is infected, the stain spreads to one’s clothing, then to the walls of one’s home… and so on, in widening circles. Rejection, fear, and contempt seep into everything: our homes, our friendships, our families, our communities. We’ve raised generations who build emotional fortresses to avoid being “infected” by what’s outside without realizing that this very isolation is what makes us sick.

The Hebrew word for flesh or skin is basar (בשר), a word that appears frequently in these Parshiot. Amazingly, the verb levaser (לבשר), to announce, to proclaim, shares the same root. And it is often used to herald good news.

As we sang in that final song of the dancing performance last Sunday, “Am Yisrael Chai”—alevai neda b’sorot tovot—may we receive only good news.

Let us not turn our faces away. Let us not grow numb to the exile of the other. Whether in Israel, in the diaspora, or in our own communities—there are always those who are “outside,” alone, unseen. The call of these Parshiot is to seek them out, speak to them, bring them in.

Tazria and Metzora teach us that healing is a slow process. It requires care, ritual, and accompaniment. No one returns alone. Every wound needs a witness. Words can harm, but words can also heal. The camp is not whole until everyone has returned. So we must go out, like the ancient priest, and help bring them home.

Perhaps that’s the message we’re meant to hold this week:

That wounded bodies, hated identities, violated borders, and imprisoned freedoms,all deserve to be restored. That we can begin again. That our boundaries can become meeting points, not barriers. That our story can shift from rupture to renewal, from sorrow to hope, from war to peace, from fear to freedom.

May we be worthy of building a camp that never abandons its own. A camp that waits, that names, that stays awake. A camp where, just like in the days of the desert, Anan HaKavod—the Cloud of Divine Presence—covered everyone. No one left out. No one forgotten.

Shabbat Shalom

Rabbi Gustavo Geier