Parshat Tazria: Healing Ourselves, Healing Our Planet

Jun 27

Original author - By Rabbi Natan Greenberg[1], edited by the GrowTorah Summer Inchworm

Parshat Tazria discusses the sickness and healing of a person who contracts tzara’at. Tzara’at is the Biblical skin condition sometimes referred to as leprosy in English (although it is not the same as the disease known as leprosy). What manifests as a physical symptom of the skin is in fact a spiritual condition at its core, healed both by medical practice (quarantine) and spiritual reflection and cleansing.[2]

The Talmud pinpoints seven spiritual sources of tzara’at, with one being a condition called “tzarut ayin,” or narrowness of vision.[3] Narrowness of vision, in this context, means acting without consideration of the wider ramifications, guided by immediate gratification.[4] Unfortunately, this danger can present itself in varying domains of our lives - health, parenting, relationships, ethics, and more. In this sense, routinely acting with tzarut ayin is the opposite of acting with wisdom. As Pirkei Avot puts it, “Who is truly wise? One who foresees the result.”[5]

The climate crisis is a prime example of tzarut ayin. For years, climate scientists, the government, and even major corporations have had enough research available to guide their actions toward sustainable development. Yet we continue to emit more carbon than ever.[6] Our ability to ignore the uncomfortable reality using our narrow field of vision has led us to rationalize our continued use of disposables.[7] The waste we have already created has made its mark on our planet. The spiritual blemish of tzarut ayin characterizes many environmentally unsound practices today.

We frequently discuss humanity’s responsibility in Gan Eden to till and tend it—to work and protect it. This mandate has individual applications - roles for the self and his immediate surroundings, but also communal and global applications. As Rabbi Yosef Albo stated, “Every person is a small world, and the world is a giant person.”[8] The globe is a canvas for humanity’s actions; we can produce an artistic masterpiece if we make the right choices. However, affecting the global community (or even your community) can seem daunting; but there are concrete, manageable steps we can take to effect change. Culture does not change overnight; it involves a slow shift in the perception of what is normative, followed by integrating those normative practices into everyday routines. There is a publication available on the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency’s website, authored by psychologist, Christie Manning, Ph.D., outlining some of these concrete steps individuals and communities can take to strive for a more sustainable way of living.[9] One such step is viewing a change in an environmental habit, not as a stand-alone change, but rather one that comes as a byproduct of another. As Manning puts it in her essay:

The context in which a habitual behavior occurs can be enough to trigger the habit, and, if the context doesn’t change, then the habit tends to stay. However, a relatively simple change in life circumstances can be enough to disrupt a habit (Wood, Witt, & Tam, 2005; Verplanken & Wood, 2006). Fortunately, there are many points in life when circumstances are disrupted for perfectly normal reasons: change points. Research shows that people are most able to handle new habits (sustainable ones!) when old habits are changing anyway. [10]

Perhaps a family you know moves into a new house. You can suggest separating their waste into compost now that they are starting anew. Offer to show them another household in the community that has implemented a successful composting strategy. Or say your friend just got a new job. Brainstorm carpooling possibilities to commute to the new office. When we identify the individual steps necessary to achieve our “wide-visioned” goals, it makes it infinitely more achievable.

A more expansive spiritual perspective sees harming the physical world as damaging to the spiritual world. Though the world is in a state of physical and spiritual imbalance, we have the power to grow and change it. Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook (Israel, 20th cent.), in teaching about prayer, mentioned that within a process, something is always imbalanced. At every stage of life, something is not in harmony. This is because imbalance leads to new growth.[11] The imbalance of global climate change requires us to come to a new awareness and take on new responsibilities to change how we live. Spiritual imbalance and global ecological imbalance are an opportunity for growth toward sustainability, spiritually as well as physically.

Suggested Action Items:

There are many things we can do in order to prevent ourselves from being constricted to tzarut ayin:

As individuals, we can think about the impact and future of the products we consume.
Collectively, we can make strides to make sustainable living seen as more of a normative lifestyle. (See Dr. Manning’s essay.)
We can also advocate for infrastructure built sustainably, and for a changing climate.

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Notes:

[1] The author would like to acknowledge Sareet Benayahu for her involvement in this essay.

[2] Vayikra 13:45

[3] Commentary of the Rif (R’ Yitzhak Alfasi, Morroco 11th/12th cent.) Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Shabbat, 14a.

[4] Rabbi Nachman of Breslov (Ukraine, 18t cent.) mentions the connection between wisdom and seeing, for example in Likutei Moharan teaching 94

[5] Mishna Avot 2:9, for further discussion, see Talmud Bavli, Tamid, 32a, commentary on the words “ha’ro-eh et ha’nolad”

[6] See the IPCC reports, or this 2015 expose on Exxon for examples of our historical knowledge of climate change, and Our World in Data for carbon emissions statistics.

[7] See, for example, the Our World In Data statistics on plastic waste.

[8] Rabbi Yosef Albo (Spain, 15th cent.), Sefer Ha’ikarim, Ma’amar Sheni, Chapter 31.

[9] See here for further reading.

[10] Ibid.

[11] “Inyanei Tefilah” Olat Ra’ayah, Mossad Harav Kook Press, Jerusalem, 1983,“Inyanei Tefilah,” p. 10-18