29 Apr TAZRIA-METZORA: WHY DO WE LOVE GOSSIP? SKOOPY MY GOOD OLD PARROT

Two Birds
This week’s parsha,
Metzorah (Vayikra
chapters 12-15),
discusses the laws of
tzaraas, usually
translated as “leprosy.”
Tzaraas was an illness
whose identifying mark was a white patch (or
patches) appearing on the skin of a person, the
walls of a home or on a garment. This patch,
plus several secondary symptoms, determined
the person as being temporarily “impure” and
required him or her to separate from the public
and undergo an intense program of
introspection and moral healing.
Once the symptoms of the illness were gone, a
detailed process of purification would begin,
following which the person was deemed pure
once again and restored to his untarnished
condition.
A unique and strange service was employed
for this task. Two birds were brought forth.
One was slaughtered with its blood poured
into an earthenware vessel of spring water; the
other bird, together with a piece of cedar
wood, crimson thread (a wool dyed with
pigment made from an insect or snail) and a
hyssop (a very low plant) were dipped into the
blood-water mixture and sprinkled upon the

person being purified, seven times. The
second bird was then sent free “upon the open
field.”
What is the significance behind this apparently
bizarre ritual?
The sages explain: Because the plague of
tzaraas comes in punishment for evil and
malicious talk, defaming another human
being which is an act of chatter, therefore
birds are needed for his purification, because
birds chatter continuously with a twittering
sound.”
The question, of course, is why is the
chattering of birds symbolic of disparaging
talk? And why was one bird sacrificed while
the other was set free to continue its life?
Imitation
What is unique about the chattering of birds is
that many of them imitate human speech.
Talking birds have varying degrees of
intelligence and communication capabilities.
Some, like the crow, a highly intelligent bird,
are only able to mimic a few words and
phrases, while some budgerigars have been
observed to have a vocabulary of more than
one thousand words.
As a young child, each day at 4:00 p.m. when
I would return home from school, our resident
parrot waited to greet me. As I entered the

door, Skoopy—as we named him—would
begin jumping around his cage and excitingly
chirp my name “Yosef Yitzchak.” Now,
Skoopy could not say “Yosef Yitzchak,” my
full name (even many of my friends have
difficulty calling me by my two names), so he
would instead call me: “Tsfeetzak.” It was
delightful to return home each afternoon
having my name repeated some 20 times with
so much zest!
Skoopy grew old, fell ill, and died one day.
My mother and I buried Skoopy in the
backyard of our Brooklyn home. I bid farewell
to good old Skoopy, knowing that no one
would call me “Tsfeetzak” again, nor would
anyone pronounce my name twenty times
when I would return from school.
Despite my warm feelings for Skoopy, like
most parrots, she could only mimic fragments
of my name. Even the birds that know how to
imitate human conversation could usually
learn to chatter only fragments of human
dialogue.
Broken Words
This is why the Torah employs the birds in
attempting to heal us from malicious talk.
When we speak disparagingly about other
people, the conversation may be clever,
engaging and certainly “juicy.” Yet the words
being spoken are broken, coming from human
beings who are themselves broken.
Individuals engaged in negative
conversation about others are akin to birds:
they are mimicking human language; they
may even be employing sophisticated
verbiage, but in truth their words are not
human compositions; they merely imitate
human beings.
Great people talk about ideas; ordinary
people talk about things; small people talk
about other people. When you are in touch
with your humaneness, your words carry a
ring of majesty and dignity to them. Your
words are candid, real, deep, pure, coming
from the humanness within your being. Not
accidentally does the Targum translate the
phrase “a living creature”, descriptive of
the first man, as “a speaking spirit” (ruach
memallelah). To be human is to emulate the
Divine who created the universe through
words. We too have the power to create
worlds, embrace souls and heal hearts
through words. Each word we use can be a
conduit for love and for blessings.
But when we are scared of being human—
genuinely human—we resort to malicious
talk that defames and degrades other
people. In our desperate need to feel better
about ourselves, we describe the lowliness
of others. In our pressing need to muse
ourselves, we cut down others.
Slander stems from boredom, or insecurity,
or apathy, or inner negativity. All of these
qualities are indicative of impoverished,
broken spirit. It is no wonder why following
such a conversation an incurable emptiness
sets into our psyche. G-d created the world
through words and He gave us the power to

destroy it through words. When we employ
that power, we ourselves also feel broken.
The Talmud says: “Evil speech kills three
people: the person who says it, the person
about whom it is said, and the person who
listens to it—and the person who listens to it is
worse than the one who says it.”
Transformation
The healing of the leper involves two birds.
One bird is slaughtered and its blood poured
into a container of spring water. This
represents the blood and destruction caused
by malicious talk and how it tarnishes the
vibrancy and freshness of life.
Now the second bird is dipped into the blood
and then sent free to continue to chirp freely.
What this symbolizes is that now we must
learn how to sublimate our fragmented words
and their broken consequences. It is not
enough to stop talking; rather, we need to go
back and transform our fragmented language
into wholesome communication; our mediocre
conversations into authentic dialogue.
The second bird teaches us that we are
accountable not only for our evil speech; we
are also called to task for all the words we
could have said but we did not. “The word
you had not sense to say, who knows how
grand it might have rung?” The second bird is
thus sent away to the field in order to chirp
and spread the importance of gentle healing
and positive speech.
A story:
A man who was not careful about his speech
came to a Rabbi. He had decided to change
and needed advice on how to go about it. The
Rabbi gave him a very peculiar answer. “Take
a feather pillow into the street and release its
feathers in every direction.” The man was
perplexed, but his resolve was firm to do as he
was advised and change his life. After doing
as he was told he returned to the Rabbi. “Now
what should I do?” he asked. “Go back into
the street and collect all of the feathers to the
very last one,” was the reply.
Again the man made his way into the street
and began the daunting task.
At his wits end, he returned to the Rabbi
dejected reporting his inability to follow his
last words of advice. “Remember,” said the
Rabbi, “that your words are like those feathers.
Once they leave your mouth they never return.
Make sure the words you allow out are ones
you won’t have to go chasing after.”