Tazria-Metzora: Priest as Diagnostician or Healer?

יהוה spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying: When a person has on the skin of the body a swelling, a rash, or a discoloration, and it develops into a scaly affection on the skin of the body, it shall be reported to Aaron the priest or to one of his sons, the priests. The priest shall examine the affection on the skin of the body: if hair in the affected patch has turned white and the affection appears to be deeper than the skin of the body, it is a leprous affection; when the priest sees it, he shall pronounce the person impure. But if it is a white discoloration on the skin of the body which does not appear to be deeper than the skin and the hair in it has not turned white, the priest shall isolate the affected person for seven days. On the seventh day the priest shall conduct an examination, and if the affection has remained unchanged in color and the disease has not spread on the skin, the priest shall isolate that person for another seven days. On the seventh day the priest shall again conduct an examination: if the affection has faded and has not spread on the skin, the priest shall pronounce the person pure. It is a rash; after washing those clothes, that person shall be pure. But if the rash should spread on the skin after the person has been seen by the priest and pronounced pure, that person shall again report to the priest. And if the priest sees that the rash has spread on the skin, the priest shall pronounce that person impure; it is leprosy.

וראהו הכהן וטמא אותו, and when the priest takes a look at him he will declare him ritually impure. The Torah made the impurity conditional on the priest declaring him so. This reminds us of a statement in Shabbat 119 that two angels accompany a person on his way home from the synagogue on Friday nights and they examine if this person had made the preparations for the Sabbath prior to going to the synagogue. If he did, one angel commends him (the 'good' angel) exclaiming "may you continue to do so," whereas the second angel [who represents man's negative actions Ed.] says "Amen." The reverse happens when the person in question had not made preparations for the Sabbath before the onset of the Sabbath. At any rate, the Talmud suggests that once a positive or negative momentum has been built it feeds upon itself unless something contrary happens. Seeing that it is the priest's duty to obtain atonement for Israel from their impurities, diseases, etc., G'd has commanded him to concur with the judgment of impurity the afflicted person has been subjected to. This state of impurity will continue until the afflicted person turns into a penitent when G'd will remove the symptoms of impurity from him.

יהוה spoke to Moses, saying: This shall be the ritual for a leper at the time of being purified. When it has been reported to the priest, the priest shall go outside the camp. If the priest sees that the leper has been healed of the scaly affection, the priest shall order two live pure birds, cedar wood, crimson stuff, and hyssop to be brought for the one to be purified. The priest shall order one of the birds slaughtered over fresh water in an earthen vessel; and he shall take the live bird, along with the cedar wood, the crimson stuff, and the hyssop, and dip them together with the live bird in the blood of the bird that was slaughtered over the fresh water. He shall then sprinkle it seven times on the one to be purified of the eruption and effect the purification; and he shall set the live bird free in the open country. The one to be purified shall wash those clothes, shave off all hair, and bathe in water—and then shall be pure. After that, the camp may be entered but one must remain outside one’s tent seven days.

Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi found Elijah the prophet, who was standing at the entrance of the burial cave of Rabbi Shimon ben Yoḥai. Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi said to him: Will I be privileged to come to the World-to-Come? Elijah said to him: If this Master, the Holy One, Blessed be He, will wish it so. Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi says: Two I saw, Elijah and me, and the voice of three I heard, as the Divine Presence was also there, and it was in reference to Him that Elijah said: If this Master will wish it so. Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi said to Elijah: When will the Messiah come? Elijah said to him: Go ask him. Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi asked: And where is he sitting? Elijah said to him: At the entrance of the city of Rome. Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi asked him: And what is his identifying sign by means of which I can recognize him? Elijah answered: He sits among the poor who suffer from illnesses. And all of them untie their bandages and tie them all at once, but the Messiah unties one bandage and ties one at a time. He says: Perhaps I will be needed to serve to bring about the redemption. Therefore, I will never tie more than one bandage, so that I will not be delayed. Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi went to the Messiah. He said to the Messiah: Greetings to you, my rabbi and my teacher. The Messiah said to him: Greetings to you, bar Leva’i. Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi said to him: When will the Master come? The Messiah said to him: Today. Sometime later, Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi came to Elijah. Elijah said to him: What did the Messiah say to you? He said to Elijah that the Messiah said: Greetings [shalom] to you, bar Leva’i. Elijah said to him: He thereby guaranteed that you and your father will enter the World-to-Come, as he greeted you with shalom. Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi said to Elijah: The Messiah lied to me, as he said to me: I am coming today, and he did not come. Elijah said to him that this is what he said to you: He said that he will come “today, if you will listen to his voice” (Psalms 95:7).

When you enter the land of Canaan that I give you as a possession, and I inflict an eruptive plague upon a house in the land you possess, the owner of the house shall come and tell the priest, saying, “Something like a plague has appeared upon my house.” The priest shall order the house cleared before the priest enters to examine the plague, so that nothing in the house may become impure; after that the priest shall enter to examine the house. If, when he examines the plague, the plague in the walls of the house is found to consist of greenish or reddish streaks that appear to go deep into the wall, the priest shall come out of the house to the entrance of the house, and close up the house for seven days.