“Beyond the Gates:”
Modern Day Untouchables

Parshat Metzorah 5765

It’s not a pleasant picture: rotting skin, wounds that ooze endlessly, tell-tale blemishes that leave others running for protection when they see the afflicted. Leprosy: that’s the topic of today’s Torah portion. It’s pretty disgusting, but there it is, smack-dab in the middle of book of Leviticus.

Worst of all, we learn that the one who was afflicted with this strange malady became an outcast. Such a person could not remain in the camp. Living on the edge of society, he or she became untouchable until such time as the disease began to subside. And then, through an elaborate ritual of purification, the person was welcomed back into the community. I suspect, however, that he/she continued to be tainted for life. “There she goes,” people would whisper, “You know, the one who had tzara’at.”

The rabbis tried to explain this affliction by associating it with certain sins, such as gossip and slander, but that only made the matter worse. Imagine becoming ill with a devastating disease…and having people say, “God must be punishing you. What did you do to deserve this affliction?” The Metzorah, the so-called leper, was both physically and emotionally an outcast.

The image in today’s Haftorah depicts his state of mind. The city of Samaria in central Israel is under siege. People are starving; they are even resorting to cannibalism to stay alive. But the lepers are still excluded from the city. They live “outside the gate” in a kind of no-man’s land between the city and the camp of the enemy army. Nobody wants them, not the Israelites and not the Arameans. They’re lost. They’re forgotten. They’re unloved. They’re shunned.

We no longer have lepers. A simple dose of penicillin or a topical treatment of certain ointments can treat most skin diseases. But we still have outcasts, people who live on the edge of society in a kind of psychological no-man’s land, where the rest of us don’t even have to acknowledge their existence. We see them on the streets and we pass them by. We meet them in the grocery store and walk by them with our shopping cart. We don’t know them nor are we willing to touch them either physically or emotionally. They have been excluded from our camp. They live outside the gate. They’re modern-day untouchables.

It’s no accident then that the Kohen, the highest ranking person in Israelite society, not only treated the leper, but was commanded to leave the camp and inspect the leper’s sores. Again the Torah presents us with a powerful image. It was not the job of the outcast to break down the gates to get back into society. It was the job of the Kohen to go out to the outcast and treat him with compassion and understanding. Others would see this and say, “If the Kohen who must live by such stringent standards of purity can go out to the leper, how much more so should I treat this unfortunate person with compassion and empathy.”

As we prepare for Passover, I think we should stop and consider who our modern-day untouchables are. They’re all around us whether or not we realize it. Unfortunately, there are far too many people who have been forced to live outside the gates of Jewish community, who feel they have been excluded from Jewish life.

At the Seder we open the door and say, “All who are hungry come and eat. All who are needy come celebrate Passover.” But do we really mean it? Are we prepared to open our doors both figuratively and literally to those who have been residing in a spiritual no-man’s land?

There are all types of people who fall into this category.

There are gays and lesbians. They have been made to feel unwelcome in communities like ours. It’s the small comments and the jokes that we make, the coolness we display that says, “You’re not welcome here.” Of course there are issues of Halacha, of Jewish law, but that does not preclude the possibility of us going out and bringing them into our community, of finding ways to make them feel more welcome.

There are families who are intermarried. The common perception is that such families would be better off in a reform temple than in a Conservative synagogue. But why should that be? Have we done enough to make people coming from all types of backgrounds to feel welcome in our congregation, to feel that we are prepared to accept them as they are? Of course Conservative Rabbis will not perform intermarriages and we acknowledge the traditional standard of matrilineal descent. But does that mean we can’t find other ways to welcome people who are wrestling with Jewish identity into our congregation?

There are people who have not had the opportunity of a Jewish upbringing and education. They feel that they stand out, that they will be the only ones who don’t know what’s going on if they walk into a synagogue. How do we make such people feel accepted?

There are people suffering with physical illnesses that are easy to diagnose but hard for us to confront. One member of our congregation said to me, “I don’t understand, rabbi, where did our friends go? When my wife was well, she had friends who stopped by, all the time. But when she became ill they disappeared.” The person who is HIV positive finds him self alone and abandoned by his family.

There are people who suffer from more contemporary afflictions: emotional illnesses and personal problems. Do we go out to them or do we turn our back on them and ignore their difficulties?

And there are people who are just a little strange, who don’t dress the right way, who have an odd look in their eyes, whose voice is a little too shrill, or a little too annoying. It’s easier to turn our back on them and push them out the gate than it is to include them in our lives or our community. Too often we invite our family to the dinner table on Passover but we ignore the rest of the world. We must find ways to welcome these modern day untouchables back into our community.

It is no accident that the Torah singles out the Metzorah, the leper. Nothing was more frightening or repugnant in the ancient world than this strange disease called Tzara’at. And there were issues of impurity and contagion with which people had to be realistically concerned. But the Metzorah could not be ignored. He had to be treated with compassion by the spiritual leaders and the people. And when the proper time came, he had to be reintegrated into the community in a meaningful fashion.

The image of the closed gate in our Haftorah stands in stark contrast to the open door on Seder night. We must ask ourselves: who is outside? Who are we prepared to let in? As we finish our final preparations for Passover I’d ask you all to make a personal inventory of the people in your life? Do you know anyone who lacks a place to go for Seder? Why not reach out to them. You can’t imagine how easy it is to open the gate and let them in.

Shabbat Shalom and Hag Sameach