Rabbi S.R. Hirsch comments that tzara’ath could not be a bodily disease, as “the Talmud teaches that if the symptoms of tzara’ath appear on a newlywed or during a festival season, the Kohen does not examine the affliction or declare it to be tamei (impure).” Rather, tza’arah is a physical manifestation of a spiritual malaise. Rabbis of an apodictic nature suggest that the malady is a punishment for transgressions; a corrective of moral transgression. Considering new theories in modern medicine, is this relationship between transgression and bodily punishment an outrageous theological assertion?
Bessel van der Kolk’s “The Body Keeps the Score” suggests otherwise: trauma, and even our smallest actions, affect the body, brain, nervous system and impacts our body’s homeostasis, resulting in chronic stress responses that increase our cortisol and adrenaline. A suppressed immune system can disrupt our healing process, increasing inflammation and risk of related auto-immune diseases.
Our “glymphatic system” works as the brain’s “waste removal,” flushing toxins and stress chemicals, supporting the body’s ability to cleanse. Van der Kolk describes cerebrospinal fluid washing through the brain tissue for cleansing. Timeless healing modalities such as meditation, yoga, and prayer and more newfangled ones like biofeedback and glymphatic massage – a form of massage using brain scans, deep lymphatic drainage, cupping and heat – move the body and brain into cleansing mode.
Torah is a blueprint for life; and the rabbi’s assertion of tz’arah not as a communicative disease, but as a spiritual ailment, indeed, keeps the score.
Rabbi Lori Shapiro for Jewish Journal, April 2025