Summary of the Parasha
Tazria (“She will conceive”) opens with the laws of purity of a woman after childbirth and the offering she brings. The Torah also mentions the brit milah on the eighth day for a boy.
Then comes the parasha’s main subject: Tzara’at, often translated as “leprosy”, although it is not at all the leprosy we know today. Biblical Tzara’at makes white patches appear on the body, then, if the person does not change, on their clothes, and finally on the walls of their house. Our Sages teach that it was a punishment for evil speech (lashon hara). The Kohen examines the marks, declares the person pure or impure, and the person must live in isolation outside the camp until healed.
A short reminder of halacha: lashon hara is a true statement that causes harm. A false statement is slander (motzi shem ra), which is even worse.
Summary of the Haftara
“V’Ish Ba MiBaal Shalishah” (“A man came from Baal Shalishah”)
Text in II Kings 4:42–5:19
A man brings the prophet Elisha twenty loaves of barley bread, and this little is enough to feed a hundred men, with some left over. Then comes the story of Naaman, general of the army of Aram, who has Tzara’at. A young Israelite captive tells him about the prophet in Israel. Elisha sends word for him to immerse seven times in the Jordan. Naaman is at first offended by such a simple remedy, then obeys: his skin becomes like that of a little child. He declares: “There is no God in all the earth except in Israel”. Elisha refuses his gifts.
Parasha-Haftara Connection
The parasha describes Tzara’at and how it is treated; the haftara shows Tzara’at healed through humility and obedience. Naaman, a powerful foreign general, must accept a simple act to be healed, and he comes out of it acknowledging the God of Israel.
Special Shabbat: Rosh Chodesh
Tazria and Metzora are often read together. In 5783, that Shabbat fell on Rosh Chodesh Iyar: the haftara was then the one for Rosh Chodesh (Isaiah 66), which announces that at the end of days, every month, all flesh, Jewish or not, will come to bow before God in the rebuilt Temple.