Kol Ramah

Parsha Talk with Rabbis Eliot Malomet, Jeremy Kalmanofsky and Barry Chesler. This week’s parashah is M’tzora [Leviticus 14-15], which continues the Torah’s discussion of the skin affliction commonly, but mistakenly, identified with leprosy. In the latter part of chapter 14, this affliction plagues the houses of the Israelites. The Torah raises the curiosity of the Israelite summoning the priest to make the diagnosis but given time to remove the movables, lest they be condemned with the house. This raises the possibility that the affliction has a spiritual dimension which may be of greater importance than the physical one. The haftarah, special for the Shabbat before Passover, is from the last chapter of the last prophet, Malachi [generally dated to late 6th century, around the building of the 2nd Temple], who predicts the coming of Elijah to restore harmony between parents and their children. The generation gap, perhaps surprisingly, is much older than we often imagine, and may require a miraculous interv