According to many Jewish thinkers, man is supposed to be three levels above the inanimate (above animal, above plant, above inanimate objects). Yet in Parshat Metzorah we see that a condition that can come to man – that of tzaraat – cannot come to animals or plants. Instead, with the exception of man, it is a syndrome that only comes to inanimate objects, specifically to items of clothing and walls of one’s house. It is true that Biblical clothing was either made from flax – which is a plant – or from animal byproducts, specifically leather or wool. Yet by the time they turn into clothes they are just as inanimate as the stones of a person’s home, which represents this category in a more obvious way.
Hence it comes out that tzaraat is something that man essentially only shares with the lowest form of existence. And not only is the ‘disease,’ common to men and inanimate object, its quarantine and purification runs along very similar lines, whether it is in humans or in clothing and homes. If one thinks about this in this way, its implications are somewhat shocking: By bypassing both animals and plants tzaraat tells man that he is potentially no more than a rock.
In fact, it seems to me that the Torah is going out of its way to compare people with stones.
In the classical division of everything into four categories mentioned above, thoughtful analysis will show that is not really four distinct groups that we are dealing with here but rather smaller and smaller concentric circles. All four groups are material objects, a subset of that group is living and a subset of that second group moves, and then finally the smallest subset, we humans, not only move but even talk.
So if and when we lose what sets us apart from the larger circles around us, we nonetheless continue to belong to those larger circles around us. For example, if a man cannot communicate, he retains the ability to move like any other animal. Likewise, when an animal is paralyzed, it retains the life that it has in common with the vegetable. Hence we are not just people but we are also all of the other categories as well. That means that there is a certain choice as to how to think of our essence. Are we mostly that which we have in common with lower forms of existence or that which sets us apart? It appears that this choice does not only depend on how we want to think of ourselves but also how we act. And if acting like an animal is something that may not need much explanation, acting like an inanimate object would seem to require some explanation.
Perhaps there is a hint however, in how man is described in his ideal form – as a speaker.
It is interesting that the sin most closely associated with tzaraat is misuse of speech, that very trait which is supposed to put us at the top of the pile. And it makes sense that misuse of that trait which gives us our superiority would also strip us of that superiority. But why does it make us go all the way down to the bottom of the pile?
Speech is what allows to work together, share information and build societies. As man’s most social tool, it is also man’s most powerful tool. But while the level of social interaction that human communication facilitates is unique to man, it is a difference of quantity not of kind. For positive interaction between individuals is not only also to be found in animals, it is also to be found in plants. And while that interaction may be simple, never does it turn into destruction for its own sake.
Hence tzaraat, appropriately targets people and stones and tell us that a man can not only be less than an animal, he can even be less than a plant. The good news, which we pointed out in our discussion on milah in the previous parsha, is that even if man descends to such a level, he can return to the high level that God bequeaths to him. But now we see even more – that if he takes the deeper lesson of tzaraat to heart, he will forever be cured.