Tazria (Part 2) - Leviticus 12:1-13:59

There is this supernatural disease in the Torah called tzaraat.

And like everything supernatural in the Torah, be it giants, angels, or the FIRMament (rakia), there is no evidence that it exists now, or ever did.

Now, that lack of existing has bothered some of the more rational philosophers, such as the Rambam, who ended up declaring that it used to exist, but since its cure required that there be a Temple, God eliminated it to save humanity.

By "Temple", he meant the existence of a functioning priesthood cult that would atone for you on your behalf, accept your offerings, and sprinkle ashes of a red heifer. And since there is also no red heifer, there can't be tzaraat.

Of course, those same actions are required to be performed upon a man who had a "nocturnal emission", and those still occur. They occur a lot. You don't even have to be part of a specific religious upbringing to have that happen.

Does this mean that if the Jews build a Temple, that tzaraat will return?

Is it like Christianity where it not only created Heaven, but you also get Hell?

Or does this mean that tzaraat, like every other supernatural element in the Torah, is simply a literary element and not a historical one?

The Jewish sages claimed that there were two causes for this disease. The first was speaking lashon hara ("bad tongue/speech") against another. Originally, the term meant "slanderous speech", but later (with the help of the Chofetz Chaim) evolved to include even improper compliments.They derived this view from the story of Miriam, the first person in the OT to be afflicted as such by YHVH for dissing her little brother, Moses.

The other cause, which is just as fascinating, is miserliness. Since this disease would also cover the bricks of one's home, they would have to be removed and put outside of the city, and it would expose where the afflicted person was stockpiling wealth that he refused to share, most likely with the priesthood. This is inferred by 2Kings, chapter 5, where Elisha curses his servant with tzaraat because of his greed, who took money from a gentile who was cured of this disease, a disease that no gentile sources seem to be aware of.

And, amazingly enough, during the Second Temple period, there was slanderous speech and miserliness, and people were killing one another over interpretation of laws, and there is no recording of God ever afflicting anyone with tzaraat.

Which brings us to the red heifer.

According to the Talmud (tractate avodah zara), if you put a glass of red wine in front of a cow while she is mating, you can cause a red heifer to be born.

Apparently that hasn't worked.

There are those rationalists who will claim that the red heifer was only a bit red, or reddish, and that the Rabbis made it into something impossible to find, and even the best of breeders have failed to meet the requirements.

But let's be real about this.

We're talking about making a magical powder that is the only cure for a magical disease that needs an animal sacrifice to a supernatural Deity by a priest who will atone for you so that you can no longer be in exile from the place where your God sits.

So who's to say that the heifer isn't as improbable as the rest of it?

If it doesn't exist now, and there's no evidence that it ever did, it probably didn't.