Why Israel’s Memorial Day Turns into Its Independence Day

But the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying:
As you come to the land of Canaan
Which I’m giving you as your estate
And I put a plague of leprosy in a house
On the land of your estate,
Let him who owns the house come and tell the priest, saying:
Something like a plague has appeared to me in my house.
And the priest will command them to clear the house
Before the priest comes to view the plague
So that everything in the house won’t be contaminated.
And then the priest will come to view the house.

This week’s double portion of Tazria-Metsora (Leviticus 12:1 – 15:33) is a curious amalgam of physiology and metaphysics. In Tazria we have what appear to be prescriptions, medical and social, for treating a class of illnesses that spread from people’s flesh to their clothes and call for them to be isolated lest they contaminate the community at large. In Metsora, where my opening quotation appears, the discussion moves on from persons to houses, and its prescriptions come into play only once the Jews enter the land of Israel.

This order—persons first, domiciles second—makes sense on a practical level, since the Israelites do not own houses in the desert. But on some other level it seems significant that only in the land of Israel can a contamination of buildings take place. What is it about the land that causes your house to be vulnerable to plague? In thinking about this Torah reading, I can’t help being struck by the fact that in the annual calendar of the synagogue it falls right around the time of Israel’s national memorial day, which is succeeded immediately by the celebrations of Independence Day.