2 April 2011 | 27 Adar II 5771 | Leviticus 12:1-13:59

When all is well and goes according to plan, hospitals are most often a place where we go to be physically healed.  Most often, the care we receive there is offered in sensitive and committed ways.  Our doctors and nurses really do care about us and recognize that their manner toward us is part of the healing process.  However sometimes periods of hospitalization, especially extended ones, may serve to depersonalize us.  Over many years of making numerous hospital visits to congregants, I have sometimes heard sentiments that reflect that unfortunate reality.  “They treat me like an object.”  “I’m just a thing here.”  “No one seems to care about me.  They just work on me.”  As I said, most often I hear hospital patients say many nice things about their medical treatment.  But without a doubt, at times, depersonalization, a temporary loss of personal dignity and maybe even of one’s humanity is a concern.

Our parasha today and commentary attached to it offers a prescription for how to potentially avoid inflicting greater pain on the infirm at a time of extreme vulnerability.  In the process of doing so, it provides direction to all of us who might look past the person with whom we are interacting in the moment and just see an object.

One who is suspected of having the scaly affection known as tzara’at is to go to the Kohen for observation.  In one verse (13:3), the Kohen is to see (“ra’ah”) the affection and make a diagnosis.  In this verse, the Kohen sees only the malady and not the person who is affected by it.  Diagnosis here is totally objective.  Treatment is the same for everyone infected with tzara’at.  But only two verses later in verse 5, the Torah hints at a different kind of observation and diagnosis:

On the seventh day, the priest shall examine him (“ra’ahu”), and if the affection has remained unchanged in color and the disease has not spread on the skin, the priest shall isolate him for another seven days.

Both verses, 3 and 5, contain a word derived from the same root, r-a-h, which means “see.”  The two words, “ra-ah” and “ra-ahu,” sound quite similar.  However what the Kohen sees in each verse is quite different.  In verse 3, he sees the affection.  In verse 5, the Kohen sees the person.  In other words, before the Kohen can continue treatment he must see the whole person and not just his affection.  He must take a look at more than his skin and determine if treatment is indicated and in his best interest.  

This point is emphasized in a commentary of the Meshekh Hokhmah (Rabbi Meir Simhah of Dvinsk), He is to see what is whole and healthy about the person, not only what is afflicted.

Of course, our parasha’s understanding of the sensitive role of the Kohen at the time that he carried out his diagnostic examination speaks to more than medical professionals regarding how they should conduct themselves at similar times.  It speaks to all of us.  That person standing across from you is not just an object to be used to in pursuit of your need.  Yes, there is that element.  When we speak, for example to a customer service representative, we do want that person to help us get whatever it is that we seek.  However, that person is not just a customer service representative. She, like each of us, is also one of God’s children, and how we interact with her matters…not only to her, but to us.

We live most fully when we live in that manner.

Shabbat Shalom.