Leper's Show You
Parsha Metzora
Parsha Metzora summary: the Torah now proceeds to outline the process of the metzora’s (leper) purification and rehabilitation.
It was an honest trade. You could collect 30 shekels a day waving a limb. Those fellas minus a nose may look repulsive, but they be rakin’ the moolah. They be the lucky ones. What I wouldn’t give to be nose-less with ‘alf a limb.
Then Moses ‘appened didn’t he?
“I’ve got decrees from G-d. You lepers better listen!”
Joke’s on the prophet innit. ‘Alf them lepers ain’t got no ears. Usually, the first thing to go, ears. It’s what makes us ear-resistible. Hehehehhe. Leper humor, that joke cracks me up…literally.
Take Alphonso the Deaf for example.
Now there’s a leper who knows ‘ow ta work the system. One leg? No problem. ‘Alf an arm. Easy. No ears, lips, nose, and completely barren of hair? Fucking hideous right? But Alphonso, he twerks, he shakes, he drools dry skin. It flakes off him in great bursts of diseased-ridden epidermis. The crowd can’t git enough of that shit. Shekels flying everywhere, usually lobbed at a distance just to stop the fucker from getting near.
Now there’s a leper on the up and up.
All about working the system.
But Moses? Yeah, that prophet don’t like lepers. He’s singled us out. Fucking anti-leper innit? He ain’t ‘appy till there be no more lepers anywhere. It’s not as if we can grow back another fucking limb right? Nah. What ‘es doing is ta declassify us. He wants to fudge the numbers. He wants us shoveled off to a corner like and then forgotten. Lepers? Nah, mate, ain’t no lepers here. They all been saved by G-d innit?
He’s robbing us of trade.
What else are we supposed to do? Become Torah salesmen? Pot-handlers? Nah mate. Messing with years of tradition. He’s all “shall then sprinkle it seven times on the one to be purified of the eruption” and go forth and “be healed of the scaly affection.”
I didn’t ask for purifusication.
I told the Prophet that that ain’t me. I’m the dregs. I’m the rejected form of G-d’s work. I’m unentirely entire. I don’t want no objectification of me bodily parts. I even gives Moses me smallest digit to hang round his neck, like an emblem of me trust. “You keep me ring finger close and I’s promise I be going no wheres near the Israelite’s wives and kiddies.”
Moses was ‘aving none of it.
He says he’s built a chamber for lepers. He says it’s a hold-all for all body parts. All we need to do is sink our bodies into the Mikvah and Bob’s your bleedin’ ugly. You’re whole again. Well, as whole as a leper can be. In the eyes of the Lord, we is healed.
“And what then?” I said. “We allowed back into the main camp? Can we do sacrifices like the rest of the people? Can we prepare food, and make the afternoon tea? Will we stop flaking into the chopped liver?”
I remind him what happened to Ishmael when he tried to make tea. He only lost half a nose into the cup. Gave the Widow Klinkov a right shock it did. Boy, did she scream. Dovid ‘eard her from the other side of the encampment. Thought she was being murdered and all that.
Moses looked at me, all dead serious like, straight in the eyeball and says, “if thy be the will of G-d, then thy shall be heal by G-d.”
Fucking bollocks. Can’t argue with logic like that.
“The one to be purified shall wash those clothes, shave off all hair, and bathe in water—and then shall be pure. After that, the camp may be entered but one must remain outside one’s tent seven days.” Leviticus 14:8
So what happens?
What do you think ‘appened?
You tell the leper colony they can all be saved in the eyes of G-d and you get a line of lepers round the block waiting to dip the last of their toes into the pool of purificasional waters.
Have you ever tried shaving a leper?
Got to be real careful. You don’t want to be trimming someone’s chest and find yourself ‘olding a nip. It ain’t a job for the faint-hearted. And now there’s ‘undreds of lepers standing round naked as the day they be born, shriveled appendixes and partly hung limbs, not a single ‘air on bodies. Drying off in the midday sun. Seven fucking days they’s got to stand there. Seven days the public ‘ave to gander at hairless lepers.
It’s fucking weird, right?
“On the seventh day all hair shall be shaved off—of head, beard [if any], and eyebrows. Having shaved off all hair, the person shall wash those clothes and bathe the body in water—and then shall be pure.”
Very specific. No hair anywhere. I’m sure Moses made that last bit up. Is he interpreting the law correctly? Has anyone questioned Moses? Does it really say ‘and eyebrows’? I get it with me pubes. Pit hair, yeah, that’s doable. But brows? What the fuck?
Thanks Moses. Love your work.