The title of this week’s Torah portion, Tazria, sounds a lot like one of my favorite Yiddish words: Tzuris (rhymes with chorus). This stand in for any pain, ache, or woe, a human being can experience is the best way of articulating another famous Yiddish word: Gevalt!
And, while Tazria and Tzuris have nothing to do with one another linguistically. They have everything to do with one another thematically. This portion is all about all the possible skin malformations, abrasions, and infections a person can encounter in their lifetime. As such, it is the portion rabbis avoid at all costs.
Tzuris happens to sound like another more modern world from Russia: Tsar. Our current global crisis in Ukraine is a reminder that infections occur not only in individual human beings, but in society as a whole. When ruthless despots wage war against innocent populations, we must do whatever is in our power to remove them from our midst. I am reminded of the joke the rabbi in Fiddler on the Roof tells in response to the question whether there was a blessing for the tzar. “Keep him as far away from here as possible!”
May it be so! May it be so!
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Alex