Parashat Tazria
Healing Ourselves, Healing Our Planet
Our physical and spiritual well-being are intimately connected.
By Rabbi Natan Greenberg
This
commentary is provided by special arrangement with Canfei Nesharim. To learn
more, visit www.canfeinesharim.org.
The
Torah portion of Tazria discusses sickness and healing, concerning
a person who contracts tzaraat (leprosy). In the case of tzaraat, what manifests as a
physical symptom of the skin is not remedied through medical
practice. The sick person does not see a doctor, though physicians are
mentioned elsewhere in the Torah.
Instead a cohen,
or priest, must diagnose the condition. The healing comes from a period of
isolation, followed by immersion in a ritual bath and the bringing of an
offering to the Temple. Through the depiction of a spiritual treatment to a
physical ailment, this Torah portion presents a tremendous opportunity to
connect to the roots of illness and come to true healing.
Physical & Spiritual Health
In the tradition of the Torah, physical well-being is
inherently linked to spiritual balance. When a person is out of balance
spiritually, he or she cannot be a vessel for Divine light, the flow of
God-given life force which sustains all of existence.
The result is a physical manifestation of limited life
energy, which appears as physical sickness, as in the case of the Torah's
description of tzaraat. The symbolic ritual process of healing which is
described for one with tzaraat bypasses the physical aspect of the
ailment and fixes the spiritual root of the problem.
The Talmud pinpoints seven spiritual sources of tzaraat,
with one being a condition called "tzarut
ayin," or narrowness of vision (Shabbat 14a). Narrow vision means not
paying attention to the wider ramifications of one's actions. It is a decision-making
process guided purely by the desire for immediate gratification, and not a
larger plan to reach an extensive goal.
In this sense, tzarut
ayin is the opposite of wisdom. Pirkei Avot teaches, "Who is truly
wise? One who foresees the result (Mishnah Avot 2:9)." In the Talmud, this
is explained to mean: "One who understands what will come, events that
will result, and is therefore wary of them (Tamid 32a)."
In the Torah, the skin blight that appears on the skin of
the person with tzaraat is called a "nega." There is a teaching that the difference between oneg (bliss) and nega (affliction) is the placement of the letter ayin. In Hebrew, the name of the letter ayin also is the word for eye.
With oneg, the ayin comes before the rest of the word,
symbolizing foresight and 'looking before one leaps.' This is what leads to
joy. Nega, however, has the ayin at the end of the word. This can
teach that people come to low places because their vision only follows an
action, and does not precede it.
Spiritual brokenness expresses itself in the physical world
as in the case of tzaraat. Physical brokenness impairs one's ability to
make the proper spiritual choices. Just as a person has a body and a soul, this
entire physical world is animated by the divine light of God that flows down
from ever higher worlds.
On a Global Scale
Damage done in the natural world has traumatic effects on
the spiritual world, and vice versa. This portion about the affliction of tzaraat
can be understood in a global context: "Every person is a small
world, and the world is a giant person (Rabbi Joseph Albo, Sefer
Ha-ikarim)." In a macrocosmic sense, we can see the whole of humanity as
one being, and apply the same lessons. Humanity today suffers from an illness,
and the planet suffers as a result. The Torah offers a healing for this
sickness.
The spiritual blemish of tzarut ayin, narrow vision,
characterizes many environmentally unsound practices today. We live in a time
when computers can calculate predictions of changes in organism population
and 'bioenergetics'. Certain scenarios of future development clearly point
to a disastrous plunge in resources and thus human population.
The Jewish view of wisdom prohibits us from creating a
situation where we will have major population crises, and we should have the
foresight to prevent this. Otherwise, like the person with tzaraat,
people will not experience true oneg (bliss), only its distorted
equivalent.
People's priorities are out of balance in areas as major as
energy sourcing and waste management. The search for cheap non fossil-fuel
energy leads many countries to rely on nuclear power, which creates radioactive
waste that persists for thousands of years.
The desire to immediately remove something unwanted from our
narrow field of vision is what rationalizes the unsustainable use of land as
garbage dumps. People have confused their priorities in life because the light
is broken and the world is out of balance. Fixing the world requires people to
re-focus their priorities.
Western environmentalism posits two main problems with
environmental degradation. One, that we will harm ourselves by changing the
climate and polluting the air and water. The second, that we will run out of
resources and then we will not have more to use. For example, although reducing
energy use is an important goal of many environmental campaigns, getting people
to simply "reduce" is more easily said than done.
Use of all forms of energy and electricity sources in
America have increased steadily since the 1980's, and continue to rise. For
this reason, modern environmentalism champions the search for "alternative
energy sources." This approach tries to fix the brokenness without
changing human lifestyles.
Consciousness Change
While technical approaches to current problems are
important, consciousness change will also be necessary for true tikkun
(repair) to occur. Such an approach promises to restore balance to the
spiritual worlds as well as the physical.
A more expansive spiritual perspective sees harming the
physical world as damaging the spiritual world, because the physical world is
an outgrowth of the spiritual worlds. Since the opposite of 'narrow vision' is
'wider vision', we must ask; how broadly can we expand our outlook?
Will we stop our foresight and discussions of
'sustainability' here in the physical realm? Or will we see beyond that as well
to the spiritual dimensions we are disrupting and thus enable fixing of those
worlds? Furthermore, how can we expand our vision to these worlds, and how do
we go about fixing the 'spiritual environment'? The answer is in the Torah.
In the Torah's first description of the Garden of
Eden, that idealized environment, humans were placed there "l'ovdah u'lshomrah," to work and protect it (Genesis
2:5). But the trees in the
Garden of Eden did not need pruning
or irrigation. We learn instead that the direct object of 'to protect it' is Torah, which means spiritual pursuit
and balance. By 'protecting' the Torah, one can find instruction for
balanced living in the world.
Though the world
is in a state of physical and spiritual imbalance, it is not the result of God's
mistake or neglect. Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, in teaching about prayer, mentioned that within a process, something is always
imbalanced.
At every stage
of life, something is not in harmony. This is because imbalance leads to new
growth. Imbalance of global
climate change can lead us to a new awareness and responsibility to change the
way we live. Spiritual imbalance and global ecological imbalance are opportunities for growth towards sustainability,
spiritually as well as physically.
Suggested
Action Items:
1. Learn about Life Cycle Analysis
to expand the way you understand products and resources you use: your impact on
where they come from, how you use them, and where they will go when you are
done with them.
2.
When you think about your "ecological footprint" consider also
your 'spiritual footprint.' Do you pray for yourself and for others? Do you
pray for the general well-being of the planet? What spiritual imbalances within
yourself need rectification?
3.
Ground one aspect of your environmental approach in a mitzvah: For
example, if you are conscientious about overusing resources, give tzedakah
(charity) in place of a material item you would have bought. Connecting to the
Torah's instructions for this physical world helps to bring the spiritual
balance that protects the physical world.
Rabbi Natan Greenberg is the Rosh yeshiva of the Bat Ayin
Yeshiva in Israel.
