by David Curzon, delivered at Minyan M'at

This week’s portion, Tazria, is concerned with purity and contamination. The dermatological segment, which I will focus on, contains, as we have just read, many passages along these lines:

And when a man or woman hath a plague upon the head … the priest shall look on the plague; and, behold, if the appearance thereof be deeper than the skin, and there be in it yellow thin hair, then the priest shall pronounce him unclean. [Leviticus 13:29-30]

After several pages of variants on this I began to despair of ever having anything to say about the portion. I turned to the commentary in Etz Hayim which told me my reaction was normal:

Perhaps no conception in theTorah is less accessible to the modern reader than the notion of tum’ah, generally translated “uncleanness” (although it has no connection to one’s physical sanitary condition) or “ritual impurity.”

This view was confirmed by the fact that, as those who read the Minyan’s e-mail know, there were no volunteers to give a drash on this portion. Similarly, there were no volunteers to write the Forward’s dvar torah column on Tazria so I had to write it myself. This drash is an expanded version of the column which appeared in yesterday’s issue.

The comment in Etz Hayim was a challenge to me since I don’t believe human nature has changed in the mere two or three thousand years that separate us from the ancient world. I believe we and our forebears share the same dispositions and so I assume there must be modern functional equivalents to the ancient rituals that dealt with these dispositions.

II

I returned to Tazria, and re-read it. All of a sudden I came on a wonderful passage, a passage I hadn’t noticed before but which offered comfort and dignity and peace of mind to wretches in the ancient world who had suffered as I had suffered once upon a time. The passage is Leviticus 13:40-41. Here is the JPS 1917 translation:

And if a man’s hair be fallen off his head, he is bald; yet he is clean. And if his hair be fallen off from the front part of his head, he is fore-head-bald; yet he is clean.

This short passage led me to an appreciation of the ancient priestly rituals. But first, a case study

III

There was a precise moment in time, two decades ago, before I had lost any hair in front, when the bald spot at the back of my head was so small I hadn’t yet detected it, and my New York friends and significant others – it was a couple of years after my divorce and I was in my second adolescence -- were apparently too circumspect to mention it. At just this precise moment in time I flew from New York to Australia to visit my mother. I flew for five hours across the United States and then spent an hour or so in transit in Los Angeles, and then ten hours in flight to Hawaii and an hour or so in transit there, and then ten hours or so to Fiji, and an hour or so in transit there, and a few more hours to Sydney, where I went through customs and transferred from the international terminal to the national terminal, and then flew to Melbourne and got in a taxi. An hour later, in the middle of the day, after 40 hours of continuous travel, I knocked on the kitchen door of my mother’s house.

We hugged and then my mother looked over her exhausted son, whom she hadn’t seen in two years, and exclaimed, “David, you’re going bald.” If I hadn’t been so tired I would, of course, have reacted differently, but, being so tired, I denied it and protested with the vehemence of a person unaware of the shocking truth. My mother, looking directly at the evidence, sighed, and said, “Have it your way.” The matter was not referred to again during that visit.

A few weeks later, back in my New York apartment, I started to notice small clots of hair clogging the drain in the shower after I shampooed. I was puzzled by this phenomenon. No explanation presented itself. Several shampoos later, looking at yet another clot of hair blocking the drain, I had a terrible epiphany: I could be going bald!

I called my primary-care physician, a man who not only gives me an annual check-up but refers me to excellent specialists from time to time. When I had a bad cough, for example, he examined me and said it was probably nothing but recommended I see a throat specialist just to make sure. I arrived at the office of the man he sent me to and sat in the waiting room. Two walls were covered with signed photos from patients, half a dozen presidents and prime ministers, several governors of New York State and Mayors of New York city and so on. And a special photo off by its own, and larger than the rest. Pavarotti. I’d been sent to get a second opinion on my cough from the throat specialist who treated Pavarotti when he was in New York. This referral was, as I said, from the primary-care physician I called in my panic. He gave me the name of “the best dermatologist in Manhattan.” I looked at the name and telephone number. A lady doctor. Now, I am a person with a highly raised consciousness and so I only mention the gender of the doctor because it is, I believe, relevant, as I hope you will agree in a minute or two.

I sounded so desperate on the phone that I got an appointment for the next day. There were no signed photos in the waiting room of the best dermatologist in Manhattan. She sat me in a chair over which loomed a large mounted magnifying glass. She parted my hair, examined my scalp, and said breezily, in a voice with no trace of concern, “Standard male-pattern baldness. Nothing we can do about it.” “Nothing? Nothing at all? What about those medicines advertised in subways and buses all over town?” “If you want to spend a lot of money each month to maintain a small fuzz then go ahead.” “Nothing at all, doctor?” She looked at me. “You’re really disturbed, aren’t you?” “Yes, doctor. I’ll do anything to stop the progress of this affliction.” “Well, if that’s the case, then perhaps, after all, there is something we can do. If a woman comes to me with hair loss, I prescribe hormones like estrogen which -- heaven knows why -- promote hair growth. I could do the same for you. But, as you know, male-pattern baldness indicates a high level of testosterone so I would have to prescribe large doses of estrogen. If you take it faithfully, I can almost guarantee some hair growth as a result. There would, of course, be other effects as well. You would, for example, develop breasts, probably not particularly large, as breasts go, but you’d need a bra. And a certain appendage might shrivel up a little. I doubt if it would fall off altogether. But look on the bright side: if it did fall off you would have already developed breasts, and so a small surgical procedure is all that would be needed to make you into a completely new person, with a full head of hair, probably.”

I was under treatment by a doctor with an acute diagnostic mind, the best dermatologist in Manhattan. Ten minutes after placing myself in her care, the underlying condition I’d walked in with was cured. I thanked her, paid the bill, and went my balding way.

That’s the case study. It’s a case study of a modern rational man, and the twentieth century treatment he received for the least problematic dermatological condition dealt with in today’s portion, Tazria.

IV

Now I’m going to briefly use this case study to illustrate some of the explanatory commentary on “The Purification of Skin Diseases” in Etz Hayim. I’ll focus, as it does, on the role of the priest. The commentary (page 653) makes three points on this role.

First …the biblical mind saw the connection between the physical and spiritual dimensions of illness and recovery (perhaps more clearly than we see it today.) … the experience of being cared for by the most prestigious person in the community must have helped generate healing powers in the sick person.

This was indeed my experience. I was being treated by someone I believed was the best person in Manhattan for my condition and she did see the connection between the physical and -- I don’t like the word “spiritual” – the non-physical aspect of it, and her treatment did generate healing powers in me.

Second, the role of the kohen was not simply to diagnose the ailment … but to reintegrate the person into the community as soon as possible.

This was also my experience. When I went to my priestess I had the beginnings of what I knew would be a terribly visible affliction. I left her office confident I could continue to participate unabated in the social rituals of my second adolescence.

Finally, we note that the kohen performs the ritual only after the tazara.at has disappeared, to avoid the appearance of performing a magical cure.

Here, I must admit, there are two significant differences: first, my treatment, unlike the priestly ritual, did have the character of a magical cure since it was done purely with words. Second, there is the fact that my affliction was not one that would have made me ritually unclean. Had someone with my condition gone to an ancient priest he would have been told this immediately and directly. My lady doctor, however, used an indirect approach. I suspect that had I gone to a male dermatologist he would have been more direct and told me the modern functional equivalent of “you’re still ritually clean.” But I know from introspection that such a direct approach would not have worked.

There is a fundamental difference between the priestly rituals and modern medicine. Modern medicine aims to end where the priestly rituals begin, namely with the patient cured. But for any physical problem that causes anxiety, let alone hysteria, the cure itself will always need to be supplemented with other, non-medical, ministrations. Medical treatment of the physical illness alone will leave a residue of unresolved anxiety. As the commentary of Etz Hayim on Tazria so rightly says (on page 653, footnote 3):

The priest is to examine the whole person, not only the diseased [area.] He is to see what is whole and healthy about the person, not only what is afflicted.

This is the nature of the treatment I received in the late twentieth century, and that is why I believe functional equivalents of the priestly rituals are still being carried out, sometimes by the best physicians, sometimes by others, and are as needed now as they were then.

V

And there the drash could end. But I want to give another illustration of the issue of finding modern equivalents for pre-modern concepts. And the reason I want to do this is that I have just published a book of translations of the medieval French poet Eustache Deschamps, a witty court poet writing around the year 1400. One of his balades has a refrain which refers to a cap made from the fur of a marten, a small animal with a bushy tail. This would have meant nothing to modern American readers. My collaborator, Jeffrey Fiskin, and I thought of Davy Crockett and translated the poem this way:

You who are bald by accident, or through
foible of nature, here is what to do:
if you’ve a bald spot, flatten your hair down
and concentrate on covering up the place;
in wind, a hat protects your crown;
a comb should be kept handy, just in case;
bring hair at the back of the head fully into play
if dignity requires it for your family’s sake.
To often take your hat off is a grave mistake;
the best thing is a coon-skin cap, I’d say.

For if a coon-skin cap is on the head
it keeps the hair where it should rightly be
and in the winter there is warmth instead
of one poor freezing unprotected head,
and – also – there’ll be no one who can see
your affliction easily.
A man is wise indeed who acts this way,
who makes a gracious plaster his resource
but he’s a fool who follows another course.
The best thing is a coon-skin cap, I’d say.

Now, if the back is where you have a spot,
and, of the hair in front, you have lost none,
you’ll have to train the hair you still have got
backwards, and then the needed will be done.
Whenever you go riding, let the pace be such
it won’t blow hair too much;
when you dismount, remove your hat with care
so you don’t show the world your plastered hair
or else your name will be in disarray.
The best thing is a coon-skin cap, I’d say.

To which I’d say: No, Eustache Deschamps! The best thing is to believe the Torah’s message that those who are bald are still to be counted among the clean and pure, and so can participate as full members of society in all of its rituals.

VI

And there the drash could end. But if I ended here it would give a misleading impression of the problems Tazria deals with. I have concentrated on the most benign of the conditions described in Tazria. The other conditions were not benign at all and the persons who suffered from them had good reason to be very frightened. And so I have to end on a somber note. I have to end with the human need to try to get a sense of control over the uncontrollable that was surely an important part of the priestly function. This sense of control is desperately needed when the problem -- unlike male-pattern baldness -- is life-threatening. Here is a poem, entitled “Control,” from the sequence on my friend Michele’s struggle with cancer that I read from in a drash about a year ago:

CONTROL

When she was warned the next chemotherapy
would cause her to go bald, Michele decided
to limit the loss not under her control.
Her sisters and I accompanied Michele
to the chic salon where her long hair was cut.
The short-cropped style was boyish but quite smart.
We even teased her. Then she and I went off
to buy a wig while she had all her hair.

But as Michele sat trying on a wig
not too far from the style of her new cut,
as she was looking in the mirror at
the wig she’d chosen, she began to cry,
and cried much more with this poor loss
than at any other time up to the end.

Michele’s decision to have her shoulder-length hair cut prior to chemotherapy was the decision of a rational person facing the prospect of death with courage. But the attempt to get a sense of control over the uncontrollable has its limits, and changes in our bodies of the sort Tazria is dealing with, even benign changes like baldness, can evoke in us the deepest anxieties, anxieties our forebears felt, and which the priestly rituals tried to limit and channel and, in this way, control as best they could.

Shabbat shalom

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