The Healing Team: Doctors & Priests (Parshat Tazria)

I imagine the students at any medical school would be a little suspicious if they would read our Torah portion for this week, Parshat Tazria.

There are likely doctors and nurses among us right now, and I include myself among those who find it perplexing the way God instructs Moses and Aaron that when the skin disease tza’ra’at appears on a person, the individual must go not to an urgent care, or to Moses Taylor hospital, but to the kohen, the priest.  

Why should an individual who has a disease go to a religious figure rather than a medical professional?  

Our Rabbis explain there are 3 causes for the tza’ra’at that may affect a person.  The first is lashon ha’rah, speaking about other people, sharing information, and gossip. The second is haughtiness, and the third is stinginess.

According to the Kli Yakar, Rabbi Ephraim of Luntshitz, the reason we go to the kohen, and not a doctor in the case of tza’ra’at, is the kohanim, the priests, they were virtuous in all three of these qualities – they didn’t speak lashon ha’rah, they were humble, and they were willing to give.  So they were the right people to approach.

However, there were doctors or healers in the ancient world, and even though they were seen ultimately as instruments of God’s healing power, they had expertise that the priests did not.

Menachem Chizkuni clarifies to us that although the priests were the final authority on purity and impurity, they worked together with doctors at the time.  Chizkuni explains:  

Are then all priests experts by birth? The system works as follows: When the problem of tzoraat arises, someone who has studied the subject is consulted. The priest accepts the superior knowledge of this expert, and makes his ruling based on what he has been told by the expert who has examined the afflicted person. It is irrelevant whether the priest is truly familiar or not with the symptoms the Torah has taught us.

We see here a wonderful collaboration between faith and science, between experts of different disciplines who both recognize that, in the end, God is the true healer, as we read in the Torah, ani Ado-nai rof-echa.

But, as we know too well, the healing doesn’t always happen.  Our Rabbis teach us that when we visit someone who is sick we take away 1/60^thof their illness.  We lighten their load, remind them they’re not alone, remind them they’re still part of the community.  

Think for a moment about someone in your life who is not well, take a moment to see their face, we pray that the joyfulness of Shabbat, the light, the prayers, the singing, will energize us to reach out and support those who are suffering, suffering physical illness, mental illness, and those who are feeling sad, left out, or isolated. May the light of the Shabbat candles shine even brighter for them & as we celebrate the creation of the world on Shabbat, may God help restore and renew all those we are praying for.  And we say:  Amen.