Before the global pandemic, most people in developed nations didn’t think much about plagues. Clean water, sewage infrastructure, refrigeration, and decent basic medical care ensured that the scourges of the Bible and Middle Ages seemed like a distant memory. Because of that, the extended passages in Leviticus about Biblical leprosy often struck a modern reader as antiquated, bizarre, or completely irrelevant. We now recognize that humanity may never escape periodic plagues

One of the questions behind the social commentary in the movie Mean Girls is if this is what negative body talk looks like, what would positive body talk look like? What does it look like to examine yourself in the mirror and appreciate what you see? What does it look like to love yourself? This question is central to our Torah portion this week.