וְהַצָּר֜וּעַ אֲשֶׁר־בּ֣וֹ הַנֶּ֗גַע בְּגָדָ֞יו יִהְי֤וּ פְרֻמִים֙ וְרֹאשׁוֹ֙ יִהְיֶ֣ה פָר֔וּעַ
“The afflicted person, in whom the plague is, shall wear torn clothes, and the hair of his head shall hang loose…”
We are all too familiar with tearing clothing and letting our hair grow long. As Rabbi Avraham Ibn Ezra comments, the metzora acts like a mourner: “He should grow out his hair and not cut it because that is the way of the mourner.”
But for whom, exactly, does the Metzora mourn?
The Sages teach us that the mysterious physical affliction called tzara’at is the result of spiritual ailments:
Rabbi Shmuel bar Naḥmani says that Rabbi Yoḥanan says: tzara’at marks come as a result of seven sinful matters: For malicious speech, for bloodshed, for an oath taken in vain, for forbidden sexual relations, for arrogance, for theft, and for stinginess.
In other words, tzara’at takes spiritually harmful behaviors, often unseen and unknown, and gives them physical form, for all to see. The Metzora now glances at his arms and sees a creeping death; in truth, his character was assailed and sorely injured some time ago. Spiritually and morally weakened, he is a mere fragment of his original potential.
The Metzora, the Sages tell us, is כמת, likened to a dead person. As Aharon Hakohen says when he asks Moshe to pray on behalf of their older sister Miriam, who had been afflicted with tzara’at, אַל־נָ֥א תְהִ֖י כַּמֵּ֑ת, “let her not be like the dead”.
Obviously, then, the metzora leaves the Jewish encampment, tears his clothing, and grows his hair all to mourn for himself. He mourns his character, his previous behaviors, he mourns what might have been and what he has become.
Yet, he is not actually dead. The Metzora may repent, he may change. He is alive, dynamic, filled with potential. After he grows, with the help of the kohen, he begins to move on:
The priest who cleanses him shall set the man who is to be cleansed, and those things, before Hashem, at the door of the Tent of Meeting.
Not only does he re-enter the camp; he goes back to God’s house.
As the Rambam says, this is the magic of teshuva, repentance:
Yesterday this was a man who was hated before God; revolting, kept at bay, abominable. And today he is loved, pleasant, close and a friend.
We all experience moral and spiritual setbacks. Wherever we have been and wherever we are, we can yet go back to the Tent of Meeting.