
Torah Portion Metzora: The Leper Recovered
by Rabbi David Hartley Mark
This is the man
Who may have been a leper.
These are the living birds, all pure,
Brought by the man
Who may have been a leper.
This is the wood
From a cedar green,
Two living birds
With feathered sheen
Brought by the man
Who may have been a leper.
This is band of scarlet wool
Wrapt round the wood
As the living birds
Sing to the man
Who may have been a leper.
Here is the hyssop for sprinkling
The living blood of the slaughtered bird,
Drips a saucer of blood for surviving bird,
With the scarlet wool
And the cedar wood
For the man
Perhaps a leper.
Here is the Kohen
With the hyssop-plant
Who flecks the blood
Of the now-dead bird,
Winding round the red
And bloody wool
And stirring it up
With the cedar-wood,
For the man
No longer a leper.
Here is the man
Who releases the bird
Dripping blood from the air,
Symbolizing new life
And departing the old
(The dead bird lies),
Life precious as wool,
Life strong as the cedar,
As he cuts off his beard
Shaves his eyebrows off
As bald as a newly-hatched human egg
Bathes in living water
Puts on clean clothes
And continues life:
A man no longer a leper.
But soft! He takes lambs
One female, two male
And a lug of oil.
One the Kohen takes
And waves a lamb
As a wave-offering.
One the Kohen kills,
Daubs the man with its blood
On his erring right ear,
His right big toe,
His right-hand thumb,
To banish the blemish
And begin a new life
For the man who was once
A leper.
And when you hear of this ceremony,
Cause it to be written
In the Holy Scroll
Of the Judeans.
Rabbi David Hartley Mark is from New York City’s Lower East Side. He attended Yeshiva University, the City University of NY Graduate Center for English Literature, and received semicha at the Academy for Jewish Religion. He currently teaches English at Everglades University in Boca Raton, FL, and has a Shabbat pulpit at Temple Sholom of Pompano Beach. His literary tastes run to Isaac Bashevis Singer, Stephen King, King David, Kohelet, Christopher Marlowe, and the Harlem Renaissance.
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