White Is Not Always Beautiful
White symbolizes removing the façade to expose the underbelly of our personalities. This can be either a cathartic or embarrassing experience, or both. METZORA METZORA
Symptoms of Negativity
This week’s Parsha deals with the laws concerning the skin disorder known as tzara’as. While there were definite physiological symptoms associated with this disease, our Sages note that it was essentially a spiritual malady. A person guilty of slandering others—an example highlighted by the Talmud—would be afflicted with this rare skin disorder.
It stands to reason that the symptoms of this disease are in some way symbolic of the spiritual denigration that caused the disease. One of the determining factors for the diagnosis of tzara’as was the whitening of the skin and its hair. The fact that the skin and hair turning white is indicative of impurity seems to contradict so many other references of our Torah concerning the color white.
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Why White?
This begs a question. Doesn’t the prophet equate white with the process of cleansing oneself from sin? Doesn’t the Talmud relate that on Yom Kippur, in the days of the Temple, a red rope would miraculously turn white if the prayers of the Jewish people were accepted and they were forgiven for their sins? And don’t we wear white on Yom Kippur because it symbolizes purity?
Why then does the Torah ascribe impurity to the whitening of the skin?
Some commentators suggest that it is related to the fact that when a person is embarrassed his or her face turns red and then white. Indeed, one of the Hebrew terms for embarrassment is halbanas panim, which translates literally as “whitening of the face.”
One of the consequences of slander is that it causes embarrassment of the person about whom the slander is said. Thus the punishment for slander which causes the “whitening of someone’s face” is that the slanderer’s skin and hair turn white.
We must still understand why the color white
METZORA is employed, paradoxically, as a metaphor for both purity and impurity. In addition, we must try to comprehend why embarrassment is characterized by the “whitening” of the face rather than by the “reddening” of the face that precedes the whitening.
Baring one’s Soul
Kabbalah teaches us that “white” represents the pristine essence of something. When an object, person, idea or emotion, is described as being white, it indicates that we have stripped that entity of its façade and its peripheral characteristics and exposed it for whatever it truly is.
When a Jew returns to G-d on Yom Kippur, he removes the cover that sullied his true pristine personality. At that point, we can say that he has exposed the “whiteness” of his soul, which is and has always been pure. In that context “white” is a positive and desirable outcome.
Conversely, when one embarrasses another, they essentially remove the cover, behind which the victim was able to hide his METZORA negative traits. It is like stripping someone naked. Baring another’s soul or “whitening his face” is the emotional equivalent of bloodshed. In this context, the color white is negative because it represents the removal of a person’s defenses and renders them vulnerable.
And while baring one’s soul can be a cathartic and positive exercise during Yom Kippur, or when it is designed to help a person deal with their faults, we must be extremely careful not to “whiten their face” by exposing their “nakedness” and render them vulnerable. Thus, when one demonstrated disregard for others’ dignity and stripped them naked — “whitening their face” — it manifested itself in the whitening of the skin of the one who did the embarrassing.
Uncle Laban
We might now be able to shed some light on an enigmatic passage in the Haggadah that Laban — the father of the Matriarchs Rachel and Leah — “wanted to destroy everything.”
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Laban, Hebrew for “white,” implies the desire harbored by evil people to remove the protective layers of our personalities that help us feel secure. When one is insecure and vulnerable, their entire existence is in jeopardy Messianic Unmasking One of the prophetic descriptions of the Messianic Age is: “Your Master shall no longer be cloaked in garments.” The import of this statement is that G-d will “bare His soul,” so to speak. Consequently, we will be able to get to the essence of G-d without any covers. We will also be given the parallel capacity to reveal our own full essence that is “white” and pure without making us vulnerable. Exposing the essence of our souls—which is now associated either with the extremes of Yom Kippur catharsis or with embarrassment and degradation—will then become a thoroughly positive experience at all times and in all circumstances.
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From the book Light from the Future: Parshas Tazria-Metzora by Rabbi Heschel Greenberg, published by the Jewish Discovery Center.
