Spiritual illness can affect houses as well as people

Do houses have souls? Do nations?

In the opening of this week’s portion, the Torah introduces us to the law commanding a person to go to the priest who determined the nature of his “plague of leprosy” (“nega tzoraat”). If the scab was diagnosed as tzoraat, the development of the disease required the constant inspection of the priest.

Our portion describes the purification process once the disease is over. This ritual requires two kosher birds, a piece of cedar, crimson wool, and a hyssop branch.

The process lasts eight days, culminating in a guilt offering brought at the Temple. Only after the entire procedure was concluded could a person be declared ritually clean.

If this all sounds foreign and complicated, the concepts appear even stranger when we discover that this “plague of leprosy” is not limited to humans:

“G-d spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying: ‘When you come to the land of Canaan … and I put the plague of leprosy in a house of the land of your possession, then he that owns the house shall come and tell the priest” (Leviticus 14:33-35).

How can the same malady also afflict the walls of a house?

Secondly, when we examine the text, we find an interesting distinction between these two species of tzoraat. “The plague of leprosy” that strikes people is presented in straightforward terms: “If a person shall have in the skin a swelling, a scab, or a bright spot, and it be in the skin of his flesh the plague of leprosy” (Leviticus 13:3).

But the plague that strikes houses is introduced by an entirely different concept: “When you come to the land of Canaan, which I am giving to you as an inheritance, I will put the plague of leprosy…” (Leviticus 14:34).

If the disease can descend upon houses, why only houses in the Land of Israel?

Finally, the visible aspects of these two diseases differ. Regarding a person, the Torah speaks of a white discoloration, but as far as the house is concerned, if a white spot appeared on the wall nothing would be wrong.

“Then the priest shall command that they empty the house … and he shall look at the plague and behold, if the plague be in the walls and consists of penetrating streaks that are bright green or bright red” (Leviticus 14:36-37).

We must remember that translating “nega tzoraat as “plague of leprosy” is inadequate. Commentators from the 12th century Ramban to the 19th century Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch claim that nega tzoraat cannot be a medical illness; if it were, why does the Torah assign the task of determining it to a priest? Priests were not physicians.

If nega hzoraat is a spiritual illness, a metaphor for the state of the soul, then just as one soul is linked to one body, the souls of the members of a family are linked to the dwelling where they all live together. And the walls of a house certainly reflect the atmosphere engendered by its residents.

A house can be warm or cold, loving or tense. Some houses are ablaze with life, permeating Jewishness and hospitality.

In other homes, the silence is so heavy it feels like a living tomb, or the screams of anger which can be heard outside frighten away would-be visitors, or the envy of the residents evident in the gossip they constantly speak causes any guest to feel uncomfortable.

Why should this “disease” be connected to the Land — or more specifically, the people — of Israel? To find the unique quality of Israel all we have to do is examine the idea of the House of Israel.

As long as there is mutual love and shared responsibility, a household will be blessed and its walls won’t be struck with a plague of leprosy. To the extent that the people embrace the covenant of mutual responsibility, the house of Israel will be blessed.

We must act toward each other with the same morality, ethics and love present in every blessed family. If not, a nega tzoraat awaits us. And our holy land of Israel is especially sensitive to any moral infraction.

Rabbi Shlomo Riskin is chancellor of Ohr Torah Stone and chief rabbi of Efrat, Israel.