Quarantined

We don’t think very much about leprosy today. This “ancient” disease plagued people in the Bible (Tanakh), and later in the New Testament. Those who suffered from such a communicable disease were outcasts by default, forced to live outside cities and away from society. In the last parsha (Tazria) and here in Parashat Metzora, the words of Leviticus spend significant time discussing how both the affected person and the priest should deal with this terrible disease.

Today, we quarantine people who suffer from infectious diseases and work around the clock to combat the spread of such plagues. Advances in medicine have allowed for quick action, but not always for a cure – and we have not moved away from seeing these terrible sicknesses as afflicting the sufferer with a peculiar uncleanness and a need for purification. The loneliness felt by those living in this state of pain still adds to the burden suffered by the health predicament. As “normal” members of society, we are still sometimes at a loss to reach out in the way we might want to in order to ease the mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical suffering of those among and around us.

*********

Komps kaos inkludes a paper on the history and development of messianism – something that I have enjoyed exploring and learning about this year!