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During our Rosh Chodesh's group's discussion of B'ha-alotekhah (Numbers 12) and Tza'ra-at, a sudden wave of awareness came through me. Miriam was not punished with Tza'ra-at as has long been presumed, she manifested it. Why and what is the difference, you might ask! It happens that when the Torah was translated long ago into Greek, that a mistranslation occurred. "Lepros" is the Greek term for a eczema-like skin disorder. Leprosy did not develop, according to epidemiological studies until later. Nor do the symptoms of Hansen's Disease (leprosy) correlate with the symptoms of tza'ra-at. (The documentation for this can be found in a paper I wrote for the journal Koroth of Hebrew U School of Medicine Vol 9, No. 11-12, 1991, pp 818-825.) So what happened to Miriam? She and Aaron challenged Moses' leadership and lost. Aaron went on to hold and maintain a major leadership position, he became High Priest . Miriam discovered the Stain Glass Ceiling for women's leadership, and her body manifested the stress and disappointment. For some of us it is heart burn, others hives, others stomach cramps or back pain. She wasn't punished with it, she went into a physiological manifestation of the hurting of her spirit (psychosomatic). Now, one doesn't die of tza'ra-at, one goes off out of the camp and heals. Goes where? To a beyt merkak - a house of distance. Today we would call this a retreat center. Getting away to develop some perspective on what happened. Perhaps some spiritual mentoring. Meanwhile, let things calm down back at the ranch, so to speak. Miriam really was loved, the people would not move on without her. And instead of returning in confrontational mode, after some time Miriam could be reabsorbed into community, able to lead in her own best way, perhaps with the power of song. It is really important not to call tza'ra-at leprosy. I will suggest why. Because that misinterpretation has been used by fundamentalists of all stripes to say that AIDS is a punishment from God, and tza'ra-at being leprosy is the biblical linkage used to clinch that assumption. During the middle ages some Jewish communities adopted this practice of the beyt merhak, using the biblical number for transition 40 (as in days of the flood and years in the wilderness). They would set people outside the town for 40 days in a center for those afflicted by the bubonic plague according to the diary of Rabbi/Doctor Yitzhak Tzahalon, who established the first Jewish medical school in Italy. The Italian work for forty is...........??? Quaranta. Hence the term quarantine.
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