Dignity In Difference?
Dignity In Difference?
Parshas Tazria-Metzora: Slander, self worth and skin deep
Basic human dignity is an essential feature of our existence. It is a fundamental yearning of the psyche, the bedrock of our humanity, and the foundation of any healthy identity. Without a deep conviction that we merit respect, we can quickly become unmoored by daily life's inevitable frustrations and turmoil. An unshakable sense of self-worth becomes impregnable armor, insulating us from hardship and motivating us to take challenges head-on.
Despite its essential nature, dignity is conceptually difficult to grasp in its entirety. We would like to think that one could maintain dignity in social isolation, that an island-dwelling hermit has as much eminence as an individual fully enmeshed in his community. In this vein, the pre-Socratic philosopher Diogenes deliberately rejected all societal conventions with his outrageously uncivil behavior's, living with his dog in a repurposed wine barrel. Diogenes took daylight walks around Athens holding a lantern and intentionally wandered backwards through crowds.
Judaism, however, rejects the hermit lifestyle as dignified. Jewish law disqualifies those who are publicly self-abasing, bezuyin, from testifying before a court. We clearly see the involvement of oneself in society as a barometer of respectability. Rav Yosher Ber Soloveitchik points out that the Hebrew word for dignity, Kavod, is etymologically linked to Koveid, meaning heavy. A dignified individual is, so to speak, a weighty person. Those around him cannot help but feel his presence and gravitas. We see here that human dignity is at least partially determined by factors outside of just one's inner world.
Yet having seen this, we still find it difficult to give too much weight to others' influence on the individual's essential value. Surely a person who builds their persona on the foundations of external perceptions is building a shallow self-concept? With little of his own substance to speak about, such a character is liable to be captured like a feather in the wind by his surroundings' projections. And can living under these conditions be considered dignified? Søren Kierkegaard named one of his works 'The Crowd is Untruth', and I, for one, find it difficult to disagree with his assertion entirely.
What, then, is the correct Jewish approach to our dilemma? I believe that our Parsha offers scope for developing a helpful perspective. The verse describes the features needed to diagnose a person with the Tzaaras affliction, divine punishment for disparaging an individual in front of others:
The priest shall examine the affliction on the skin: if the hair in the affected patch has turned white and the condition looks deeper than the skin, this is tzara'ath. So, the kohen shall pronounce him unclean.
{Vayikra 13:3}
In his biblical commentary, the Ohr HaChaim makes a fascinating link between this verse and the following line in Psalms:
"Man walks about like a mere shadow."
{Psalms 39:7}
He explains how the depiction of man walking around as a shadow symbolically invokes Tzaaras' effect on an individual. When a person asserts evil within himself, it leaves a visible imprint on his flesh. As the healthy appearance of his skin disappears, it becomes evident that something is physically missing from him. This is why the earlier verse describes the skin's appearance as "deep," indicating that it has lost its normal surface. The individual who slandered his fellow is now only a shallow reflection, an adumbration of humanity. He no longer possesses genuine dignity.
But why does the retribution for speaking loshon hara, slander, entail the withering down of personal presence? One reason we could give is that the individual involved in smearing others' reputations has unwittingly revealed a painful truth about himself. Only someone who has overbuilt his self-worth in relation to his peers' will feel the need to 'bring them down a peg'. Psychologically the slanderer has already ceded too much sway to his externals in defining his person, and the physical manifestation of raw skin is just the ultimate outcome of a life approach that has left him a shadow of what he could be. So, the fact that his fate rests in the hands of the priest, who decides whether he has been struck with Tzaraas, can be seen as a material embodiment of his malady of the soul. Because he allowed others to control his inner world, his internal sense of dignity, God has now placed him in a situation where another also dictates his physical future.
With this analysis, we can also understand the sinner's punishment of communal exclusion. Since he overreached in his self-definition through society, he is now totally ostracised from it. He is further stripped of all outward markers of dignity. Isolated from social interaction, we can hope one re-discovers the core self, which is not rooted in externals but in the inner self. But what is critical for a Jewish understanding of dignity is that, ultimately, the sinner will return to inhabiting the community. Extreme isolation is a corrective but not the final destination.
Our Sages teach that:
'kol yisrael areivim zeh la zeh'
{Talmud Bavli, Shevuos, 39a}
Each Jew is responsible for one another. Rav Hutner explains that the word for responsibility, areivim, is connected to the word laarov, which means to mix. A Jew is not just an individual with external national responsibilities but a soul inextricably mixed with the entire Jewish entity. For this reason, we can never achieve personal dignity in a vacuum.
Yet the paradox of our mission in this world is that we also have our unique role to play. No one who came before or after could fulfil the specific role God intended for our creation. Through a life of corrective action, self-honesty and an unwavering attempt to discern our deepest motivations, it is possible to reach a position of true human dignity. The ultimate synthesis of the public and private persona. An individual who shoulders the burden for his people and simultaneously stands alone in front of God.
Good Shabbos and Keep Pondering!