Turn It Again: Torah Wisdom for Today
In Pirkei Avot, a book of maxims in the Mishnah, an ancient rabbi, Ben Bag-Bag said about Torah study, “Hafokh bah, va’Hafokh vah, d’khola bah.” Turn it over and over, for everything is in it. For two thousand years, that’s what Jews have done. Here is another turning.
Parsha Tazria-Metzora 2025
Skin Deep: Repetition, Reflection, and the Moral Wisdom of the Body
Rabbi David Kosak
Over the past few years, my right ring finger would periodically lock into a bent position. This might be when I woke up, but it also occurred a few times throughout the day when engaged in everyday activities. At first, I chalked it up to wear and tear—maybe early arthritis, something untreatable.
That assumption was a blindspot—one of those unconscious patterns that keeps us from seeing what’s right in front of us. Eventually, my chiropractor told me I had trigger finger. When I shared that information with a friend who happens to be a professor of nursing, she told me that she had suffered the same condition and only later discovered that it could be treated with a simple cortisone injection—as well as taking a pause in those repetitive activities that caused the ailment.
My case, unsurprisingly, was brought on by overuse. Too much typing, too much phone scrolling. Too much repetition.
Which got me thinking about repetition more broadly—not only as a physical stressor but as a spiritual one. We repeat actions. We form habits. And before long, we stop noticing that we’re doing them. But our bodies notice. So does our time.
Habits don’t just affect our joints—they shape how we move through time. And time, after all, is the only truly non-renewable resource. How we spend it—fill it, burn it, protect it—reveals what we value, even when we don’t mean to. There’s a moral valence to repetition, to habituation. To the use of our hands.
This week’s double Torah portion, Tazria-Metzora, deals with an ancient condition called tzara’at. Often mistranslated as “leprosy,” tzara’at is a spiritual skin affliction, though it can also appear on garments and walls. In biblical times, a person with visible symptoms was brought before a priest—not a doctor—to be examined. If the condition was confirmed, the afflicted individual was isolated until the signs of illness faded and ritual purification could be performed.
Modern commentators have long noted the symbolic dimension of this malady. The skin becomes a screen on which deeper truths are projected. Tzara’at emerges as a spiritual inflammation, an outward sign of internal imbalance. Just as my inflamed tendon locked my finger, tzara’at manifests the way our actions or inner state can become rigid, visible, undeniable.
Some scholars, notably Jacob Milgrom, have analyzed the Torah’s language around tzara’at, noting its resemblance to descriptions of dermatological conditions. Terms like se’et (swelling), sapachat (scab), and baheret (bright spot) indicate that the biblical authors may have had a nuanced understanding of skin afflictions, reflecting an empirical observation of physical symptoms that could mirror internal states.
But there’s no denying that tzara’at—with its skin inspections and sacred quarantines—can strike the modern reader as harsh, even mystical. That discomfort is compounded by the way our tradition links external affliction to internal misalignment. It invites a kind of interpretive overreach: the impulse to see all illness as self-inflicted.
But that impulse is dangerous. It too easily leads to victim-blaming, to the belief that a person’s suffering is always their fault. This is not only presumptuous—it’s also morally corrosive. First, we almost never have all the relevant information. Illness arises from a web of biology, behavior, environment, and chance. No single thread tells the full story.
Second, when we moralize illness, we often abdicate our responsibility. Instead of offering support, we shield ourselves from discomfort by assigning blame. That move may protect us from fear, but it also prevents us from compassion. It is not the path Torah calls us to.
In fact, the biblical model—especially the role of the priest—offers a different paradigm. Not one of shame or blame, but of witnessing, re-integration, and healing presence.
This is where the Torah’s system becomes more than metaphor. It becomes a guide.
When a person noticed a mark or swelling on their skin, they didn’t diagnose themselves. They brought it to the priest. The priest didn’t treat the condition. He observed. He held space. He monitored change. In other words, the priest didn’t shame. He bore witness.
That witnessing role—nonjudgmental, observant, quietly attuned—is precisely what modern therapists do when they gently help us see the unconscious patterns that guide our days. It’s what trusted friends can do when they lovingly say, “Hey, I notice you seem a little burned out.” Their noticing helps us notice. Their presence lets us see what we’ve stopped seeing.
In the ancient world, the person with tzara’at was sent outside the camp. But they weren’t forgotten. The priest would return, re-inspect, welcome them back. Re-integration was always the goal.
That same wisdom applies today. Most of us don’t get skin lesions that reflect spiritual missteps. But we do get inflamed. We do repeat unhealthy actions. We do get locked into postures—of body, of habit, of judgment.
The Torah’s response isn’t to punish. It’s to pause. To create space where change becomes possible. And to remind us that every inflammation—whether physical or moral—requires care, not condemnation.
Trigger finger, it turns out, is an injury of repetition. So is moral drift. So is spiritual numbness. And just like inflammation, healing begins with noticing. The even better news? We don’t have to notice alone.
