Parshat Metzora (Leviticus 14:1-15:33) — Coming back into life and tshuva…what are the tools to achieve this?
Shorashim Torah Overview and Study Guide
This week’s Parshah or Torah portion discusses the ritual preparing the spiritual return of the Metzorah (spiritual leper) back into life and back to his people.
Why was exile part of the punishment?
How is it part of the cure?
The sins that led the Metzorah into his spiritual malady that placed the individual in a state of ritual impurity necessitated a ritual that would cleanse the individual of the very spiritual failings that trapped him in the first place.The ritual that is used to purify the Metzorah includes instructive symbols and metaphors. This ritual, the process of purification required two live birds ,a stick of cedar wood, red-dyed wool thread and a branch of hyssop.
What is symbolized by the two birds?
What other ritual of purification does it resemble?
What do the cedar wood together with the hyssop represent?
After the ceremony, the “cured” Metzorah is brought before the tent of meeting.this is not done with any other individual coming “out of impurity”.
What does this signify?
A house can also be afflicted with “leprosy” and again it is the Kohen that determines if the house can be purified or it must be demolished.
What does the determination of the Kohen and what happens to the furniture in the house before that determination tell us about the nature of this malady?
How do we know that only houses in Israel can be thusly affected?
We then learn about the purification of the Mikveh
What is learnt from the word MIKVEH
What part of our physical existence does it replicate?
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