Parshat Tazria - Metzora (4-23-17) by Luke Ford

Luke Ford talks to KC. http://lukeford.net/blog/?p=113741 This week we have two Torah portions (Lev. 12:1 to 15:33).

* One receives a sense of calm from studying Torah. The events of the day fade away and you step into the realm of eternity.

* Judging by the many complications of Torah laws, Jews must have been smart from the beginning. This is not a religion for the dim (on the other hand, mizrahi Jews have an average IQ of 92, Sephardim Jews of 97, while Ashkenazi Jews are about 108).

* All ancient cultures had taboos against menstruating women (fearing that they were “the repository of demonic forces”). From a Jewish perspective, menstruation represents death (the death of an egg aka potential life) and Judaism constantly separates between life and death (Jewish priests are not allowed to visit a cemetery, can’t marry hookers aka converts to Judaism).

* I love how it is cool to care about trees, but uncool to care about whites and Western civilization (the product of white goyim). Re: Los Angeles Times: “The trees that make Southern California shady and green are dying. Fast.”

* Jacob Milgrom: “Anthropology has taught us that when a society wishes to express and preserve its basic values, it ensconces them in rituals.”

* Skin disease (tzaraath) represents death, so creepers have to be separated from the community lest they bum people out. Wiki: “The Torah identifies three manifestations of tzaraath: as an affliction of human skin, (Leviticus 13:2) of garments (Leviticus 13:47) and of houses (Leviticus 14:34).”

* Wiki: “Professor Jacob Milgrom, formerly of the University of California, Berkeley, noted that reddish substances, surrogates for blood, were among the ingredients of the purificatory rites for scale-diseased and corpse-contaminated persons, symbolizing the victory of the forces of life over death.”

* Nega’im do not render gentiles impure because they are already impure to begin with. The house and clothing of a goy is insusceptible to tzaraath as is a Torah scroll (so holy, it cannot receive impurity).