When I retired from the US Air Force, Clara and I moved to Colorado
Springs. One of our first tasks was to enroll
in health care in the new location. We
drove to the nearest military hospital, I filled out a form, and I paid a fee
for the services that, free when I was in uniform, I would have to pay for every
year now.
Once we were enrolled,
I made an appointment with my new primary health manager, or GP as they are
known here in Australia, to organise ongoing support for conditions I already had. When the day of my appointment came and I was
in the doctor’s examination room, we addressed the issues one by one. Finally, the doctor asked: Anything else I can do for you today?
Somewhat embarrassed
to mention something that seemed so minor, I pointed out a rash I had on my
body. It was summer; I wondered out loud
if it was just a heat rash. But the
doctor took a close look and opined that it was a skin infection. He took a culture to have it looked at by the
lab. And he prescribed a course of
antibiotics for me to start, just in case it did turn out to be an
infection. I stopped at the pharmacy
desk to fill the prescription and began taking them.
Two days later, I
received a call from the nurse who had assisted the doctor. There was concern in her voice. She told me that the lab report on my culture
showed that it was MRSA. The doctor had
already entered a substitute prescription, for a much more powerful
antibiotic. I should come in to the
hospital at my first convenience, pick up the new medication, and start taking
it.
I’d heard of MRSA,
which is a very powerful and even potentially deadly infection. Shortly after the conversation I drove back
to the hospital, got the tablets, and watched the infection carefully as it
slowly subsided over the next days.
There are many physical
ailments that engender fear and loathing.
But except for cancer, perhaps none is as loathsome as an infection in
the skin. When sickness rages inside our
bodies, we feel crummy. For days and
even weeks until it goes away entirely, we might feel out of sorts, listless,
unsociable. But apart from the ‘Big C,’
no ailment makes us feel as out of sorts as a serious skin infection. We look at our affliction, out in the open
for the eyes to see, cover it when possible with clothing, obsess over the
unsightly evidence that our bodies are fighting the infection, and breathe a
sigh of relief when it finally goes away.
And that’s for any infection.
How much more so, when it’s one that is not only potentially deadly, but
a medical mystery as to its origins?
The experience came
to mind this week, when I reviewed our weekly Torah portion, Tazria. As I mentioned last night, the reading
opens in chapter 12 of Vayikra, with the prescription of circumcision on
the eight day after birth. And with the
specifics on women’s purity rites. In
the 13th chapter, the text goes on to prescribe purity rites to
follow whenever someone has an affliction which the text calls tsara’at. Traditionally, this is translated as ‘leprosy,’
but that makes little to no sense. In
antiquity, someone afflicted with Hanson’s Disease, as leprosy later came to be
called, was not expected to get over it, not in a matter of days or even at
all. But the rites prescribed here
assume that the affliction is likely to go away, and relatively quickly. And the symptoms described, seem to fit an ‘ordinary’
infection. Given the expectation of a
timely recovery, and the description of what it looks like, tsara’at is
more likely a simple topical infection, then leprosy.
As I think, and I know
I’ve mentioned this more than once, there are always various ways to take the
Torah’s pronouncements regarding various human ailments and the treatment it
prescribes. And the key to seeing G-d’s
incredible wisdom reflected in the Torah, is to always remember that the Torah
came to light 3,000 years ago. Its
wisdom it timeless, but its context is a particular era.
It is not difficult
to imagine the loathing that ancient men felt when viewing a skin eruption. Even today, our instinct is to distance
ourselves from someone else’s affliction of that kind, and hide our own. So the idea of reacting to it by prescribing
a period of separation from the camp, followed by a procedure for attaining
ritual purity once it disappeared, makes sense.
It is a way of publicly acknowledging the people’s fear of the unknown,
and providing a way for the community to be psychologically able to re-embrace
the afflicted one afterwards. In this
context, we can once again embrace the Torah’s embrace of enabling the people
Israel to heal the rifts in their society that result when the untoward occurs.
Many of my
colleagues in the Reform Rabbinate wince at the thought of trying to give a meaningful
sermon on this week’s Torah portion, Tazria.
Even more so, if a family wants to schedule their child’s bar or bat
mitzvah on the Shabbat when it is read, they will try to talk them into
considering another date. The idea of
studying such a text, one on one with a 12-year-old gives them nightmares. But in truth, there is nothing that should
make us squeamish about confronting this text. We do not read the Torah, strictly speaking,
as a history book. But there is no
question that reading it gives us keen historical insights into the thoughts
and concerns of our distant forebears. And
its solutions for various problems – G-d’s solutions – are always
insightful to the human condition. And
often, in an elegant way.
I guess it is a given that my MRSA
passed. Baruch Hashem. I don’t mind telling you, it was a little
frightening. Last weekend on 60 Minutes,
we watched the story about the footie Sam O’Sullivan who came down with a
mysterious, flesh-muscle-eating infection, and how his medical team worried
that they would not bring him through it alive. They did bring him through it, and the
story was about his brilliant recovery to play again where it had been doubtful
he would even walk. It’s an incredible
story about the will of a champion to recover and move on. Whilst it does not approximate my own
experience with the mysterious MRSA, it brought back to mind the fears I felt
at the time. And this week’s Torah
reading, brings to mind Hashem’s way of helping us cope when we experience something
frightening and embarrassing. And how it
paves the way for our return to normalcy. Shabbat shalom.
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