Tzaria -Metzora 5770: Cleaning House

This week we have a double Torah portion and one of the longest of such readings. The chapters in Leviticus include many different clinical diseases including tzarat, often and wrongly called leprosy; and tzav, which most authorities believe was gonorrhea. The text presents their symptoms and cures rather clinically. In Chapter 14 there is procedures for sick building syndrome - when a house has tzarat. I find the concept of the sick building, the building with tzarat, a fascinating issue.

For the diagnostic procedures, we read in Leviticus 14:34-38

34. When you come to the land of Canaan, which I give to you for a possession, and I put the disease of leprosy in a house of the land of your possession; 35. He who owns the house shall come and tell the priest, saying, "It seems to me there is a disease in the house;" 36. Then the priest shall command that they empty the house, before the priest goes into it to see the disease, that all that is in the house be not made unclean; and afterwards the priest shall go in to see the house;37. And he shall look on the disease, and, behold, if the disease is in the walls of the house with depressions, greenish or reddish, which in look lower than the wall; 38. Then the priest shall go out of the house to the door of the house, and shut up the house seven days;

The diagnosis of a reddish or greenish depression in the walls is consistent with mold growth, a very common cause of sick building syndrome. Sick building syndrome is an indoor air quality issue where contaminants from the building itself released into the air are casing illness. Sometimes it’s chemical, as in the cases of certain types of insulation or paint leaving noxious odors in the room. Often it’s associated with mold. Common construction materials, particularly dry wall and plaster appear to be great growth materials for mold once they become wet. A leak in a pipe, a leaky roof, or a bad spill allows water to absorb into the wall, providing the right conditions to grow. Once it starts to grow, it isn’t the priest we call but according to federal regulations, we hire specially licensed bio-hazard teams completely outfitted in contamination suits. In their mold remediation procedures they have to remove the mold with full environmental isolation then disinfection of the area, particularly if it is in a workplace.


Plaster and similar compounds has been around since biblical times. The same situation could happen with clay mortar as well. I learned about this in college when one of the requirements of my senior project in sculpture (the artist version of a thesis) was to maintain the studio, and that meant scooping out the moldy clay in the trap used to prevent clay from clogging sewer lines. Sometimes I thought there was more mold than clay. With dried, unfired clay it’s possible that the mortar would begin to disintegrate as well under the influence of the mold. Therefore it is possible the mortar would be pitted as Leviticus tells us. The tzarat of buildings is probably a mold problem in the walls.

The first step in biblical mold remediation is to remove all items from the area to prevent them from becoming contaminated, or in biblical terms becoming unclean. From my recent experience, I think that is a large part of the spiritual story. Last July, I moved from my studio apartment to a one bedroom apartment in anticipation of Sweetie moving in with me. It meant totally stripping rooms of everything like Leviticus 14:36. Even though I have a studio, it was a lot of work for one person.

But something happened along the way. As I moved things around I found things that had been in my apartment way too long and really needed to be thrown out. When trying to fit an entire living room into a galley kitchen, reducing it by bringing it to “the unclean place outside the city;” also known as the trash chute, is ideal. Some things were paperwork from eight years ago I had been saving for some reason, a large collection of old magazines, and a lot of old knickknacks. So along with moving everything I also threw out a lot of stuff including clothing that hasn't fit in years. Many had old memories attached to them, but out they went anyway. What I moved into was very different than what I left. Yet, I still had too much stuff, as Sweetie noted when she moved in with me. She was right, and more right than I think she knew. I thought about that this week, as I cleaned out my closet once again of my Hawaiian shirts. Most didn't fit, so they ended up in the donation pile.

This new apartment is very different than my last apartment. But it is not in what is there alone. It is how I do things. I didn't own a recycle bin in my last apartment, but now I put things in the correct bin when it is recycling or trash. Much of who I was as a single guy is gone and thrown in the trash too. Clothes do not belong on the floor anymore, but in the hamper for example. In the last year I cleaned out the mold in my head too, and I'm better for it.

I think a big part of the tzarat of the house is the metaphorical stuff we keep around for too long. It eventually gets “moldy.” In my case it was old papers and magazines. When tzarat of the house happens the infectious agent needs to go or we need to go. There are three outcomes of this inspection by the priest: one is the tzarat goes away and everything is moved back in after a sacrifice, another is the tzarat doesn’t change and the place where it is found is removed and taken to the trash dump. And the third is that if grows back, then the house is condemned and destroyed. Removing Tzarat in this way is like many of the modern explanations of cleaning for hametz before Passover. The pre-Passover cleaning is an annual spiritual cleaning along with finding breadcrumbs around the house and changing dishes. The difference between hametz and tzara'at however is visibility: with hametz we know what we are looking for, with tzarat it may be sitting invisible until it “gets wet” and shows up suddenly. Hametz, which is a scheduled thing for the time between Purim and Passover, but God decides on an individual basis when tzarat will show itself in our house. It’s still the junk we need to get rid of, but it hides better. If we don’t get rid of it, we eventually lose the house.

I'm glad I did that cleaning. I have a lot more to do I think, though not in the apartment, more in my head.

From a sick building point of view, moving out all your furniture is not always a good idea: you might end up contaminating the whole neighborhood. Deciding what in our lives we want to throw away, no matter how painful, and what we want to keep however is a significant exercise. Tzarat of the house is not just a sanitary cleaning; it is a spiritual cleaning as well.