Torah Portion 2008.04.03

The Mind/Body Problem

Tazria, Leviticus 12:1−13:59

For as long as philosophers have contemplated the great questions of human existence, they have been preoccupied with an issue known as the “mind/body problem.” That is, while we human beings clearly have both minds and bodies, and these are somehow linked to one another, what is the precise relationship between the two? How are our minds coupled with our bodies? What is the distinction between body, mind and spirit? Are they one united being, manifested in various attributes? Or are our minds and bodies more like two separate aspects of our selves, joined in some incomprehensible way?

In Sunday’s New York Times, an article on mental illness suggests that the mind/body problem has not grown easier to address, despite modern technology and other areas of expertise. Philosophers are not the only ones grappling with the mind/body problem: not only do health care providers and other healers confront this issue, but it also challenges insurance companies in terms of mental health and psychosomatic illness.

Our rabbinic sages also examined the mind/body conundrum, but it was less problematic for them. As they discussed related issues that appear in the Torah text, they developed what was to them a clear understanding of how the mind and body are connected.  Such a case occurs in this week’s Torah portion, which is all about a disease called tazria. This condition is typically translated as “leprosy,” but it has no real connection to the physical disease that modern medicine calls leprosy. For the sages, tazria was a spiritually rooted disorder that brought about real physical symptoms that resulted from a spiritual defect.

The Hebrew word for the disease mistranslated as leprosy is called metzora. This was interpreted as to come from a combination of two words - motzee and ra. Together, this means “to bring out that which is evil or malicious.” In other words, as Rabbi Yisroel Ciner describes it, the disease of tazria signaled that the sufferer was experience a deep inner decay. When a person behaved very badly, this negativity would literally break out on the surface of the body. This was not a punishment. Rather, only when the inner spiritual corrosion appeared on the body could the afflicted person be made aware of it. Then, the disease could be healed.

According to the rabbis and later commentators, this disease was not caused by random transgressions. The root cause of tazria was always lashon harah, or badmouthing other people.  Sometimes additional misbehavior s were added. For example, the great medieval commentator Rabbi Shlomo Efraim of Luntchitz, known as the Kli Yakar, wrote of three primary roots of leprosy: lashon harah (badmouthing others), haughtiness and material greed.  Nonetheless, lashon harah was the key cause of this dread disease.

People who suffered from tazria were isolated from the community until the disease was healed. Fortunately, it always recede. Perhaps, while the sufferer was alone and waiting for the blemishes to disappear, they were contemplating how they might refrain from lashon harah in the future. Indeed, the so called treatment for this disease was a kind of adult version of “time-out” more than it was quarantine.

According the sages, the devastating effects of lashon hara are very real, even when spoken unintentionally and without malice. Just as poison is equally harmful whether it is ingested accidently or given to someone with malice, so, too, does lashon hara devastates us and our community, even when spoken without deliberate nastiness.

The faculty of speech separates humans from all other animals. Through speech we can learn and teach; we can write and speak words of extreme beauty and love and kindness; we can communicate our deepest and dearest thoughts, leading to cooperative action. It is speech that enables us to connect with others and to experience the I-Thou relationship that is divine.

But when we use our ability to speak for lashon hara we degrade and defile this precious gift in addition to causing hurt and suffering to our fellows.  That is why lashon harah is viewed as the root of this illness: it causes great harm to the physical, emotional and spiritual aspects of our human selves.  Speaking lashon harah, according to our tradition, is a transgression that transcends the “mind/body problem” It is lethal to every aspect of the human individual and the community of humankind.