Sometimes
the questions that we ask are more important than the answers we give.
Almost
thirty-five years ago, Cynthia Ozick wrote a pioneering essay on Jewish
feminism called “Notes on Finding the Right Question.” She began by pointing out, “Every answer is
concealed in the question that elicits it, and what we must strive to do, then,
is not look for the right answer, but attempt rather to discover the right
question.”
So
what is the proper question in regard to this week’s double parshah from the Torah, Tazria-Metzora? The portion focuses on tzora’at, a leprosy-like
skin affliction. Rashi, and almost all
of the rabbinic sages who follow, essentially ask: “Why?” They conjecture about the causes and origins
of this mysterious affliction. The
subtext of their inquiry is: “Why do people get tzora’at?” Almost all of
them answer: God afflicts people with this disorder as punishment for speaking
ill of others. Midrash Leviticus Rabbah even adds some additional failings that
might bring on this disease, noting: “Seven types of behavior are punished with
tzara-at: haughty eyes, a lying
tongue, hands that shed innocent blood in secret, a mind that hatches evil,
feet quick to do wrong, a witness who testifies falsely, and one who incites
brothers to quarrel.”
But
I believe that all of these classic commentaries are asking the wrong question.
As Rabbi
Harold Kushner teaches: “Our Sages often could not resist the temptation to
ask, ‘What moral or spiritual failing may have caused this illness?’ Today we recognize that it is medically inaccurate and
psychologically cruel to tell someone that he or she is afflicted with illness
as a punishment for behavior. . .” Even
when there are partially accurate
“why” answers—“He got lung cancer because
he smoked three packs of cigarettes a day”—they are neither helpful nor
humane.
In
the face of suffering, the real questions are not concerned with “why?” They are, instead: What do we do now? How can I
offer assistance? Which is the path of
compassion? Where are the possibilities
of healing and love?
The
prophet Isaiah reminds us that blessing is not found in asking why; it emerges
out of deeds of lovingkindness. We do
well to heed his words:
“When you pour
yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then shall
your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as the noonday.”
How do we know
when, in the presence of suffering, we are asking the right questions? When the answers call us to compassionate action.
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