Rabbi @rutiregan.bsky.social leads a terrific #ParshaChat on here 1-2x per week, looking at the week’s parsha, answering her questions, and discussing whatever else jumps out at us, and I don’t think I’ve *ever* seen someone’s answer and thought “I’ve heard this dvar before.”
I hope you feel better soon. #ParshaChat
Thank you all for a very restful #ParshaChat In These Trying Times, Rabbi & Biskies! Shabbat Shalom, Shavuah Tov!
A tornado hit my town last week, and I’m remembering sitting in the basement thinking what we should grab if we need to evacuate suddenly. #ParshaChat
The dragon in the margin of that manuscript is very cool! #ParshaChat
Thank you, Rabbi! 💙🤍💙
#ParshaChat
Yes, the impurity would go away eventually but it still could take a long time. #ParshaChat
We've reached the end of the scheduled #ParshaChat, but please feel free to continue the conversation!
Yes, that also. Absolutely.
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This is SO important.
We're not rational logic engines. We're human beings, and part of what we need goes beyond reason and logic.
We need to feel whole again or, if not whole, transformed around our new reality. In a very trite, mistly wrongly used term: closure.
#ParshaChat
Oh, that would make sense! As in, the plague itself is healed but the lingering impurity still needs to be dealt with? #ParshaChat
Which would maybe discourage vigilante destruction? #ParshaChat
A4 Maybe the ritual at the end would speed up the time to when the owner can reenter the house following its healing. #ParshaChat
A4: And this would be more of An Ending than just the priest declaring that it was healed? #ParshaChat
Ooh, yes!
#ParshaChat
Yes. This article, in talking about healing a person with tzaraʿat, mentions the same items & how they're used to exorcise demons. It's been a big deal, you need a ritual to give everyone the satisfaction of knowing it's OVER #ParshaChat
www.thetorah.com/article/tzar...
A4: Returning to my Homo Narratus theme - humans construct our experiences as stories - a story needs An Ending.
Not merely a stop, but An Ending.
The ritual after the cleansing provides An Ending.
#ParshaChat
A3 The multistep process allows for more accurate diagnosis and for identifying cases where the house plague can be treated without necessitating complete destruction of the house. #ParshaChat
A4: It seems to me that there could be a difference between the house plague having been healed and the house plague being *believed* to be healed. It wouldn't be good if there was long-term stigma about the house. #ParshaChat
Q4: What's going on here? If the plague has healed, why would there need to be a ritual to purge the house? What could we learn here about how to care about people? #ParshaChat
A3: So maybe the lesson here is to really think about how there might be a way to reduce the burdens on people if we want them to self-report, and to reduce the risks people need to take in order to do something important more generally? #ParshaChat
A3: "Go report a possible plague and we'll do everything possible to stop it from progressing to the point where your house would need to be destroyed" is a much easier rule to cooperate with. #ParshaChat
A3: "Go tell the priest that your house has a plague and then destroy your house" is a lot to ask, and creates a massive incentive to avoid reporting!
but...
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Perhaps, simply, to minimize destruction and resource loss?
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If the valuable stuff is left inside the house, that would create an incentive for people to go inside to retrieve them. And that would mean some percentage of the time, people are going inside a house with a large and spreading plague eruption in it. #ParshaChat
I sometimes call us Homo Narratus, the storytelling species. Stories are central to how we share information and indeed construct our experience.
Stories need villains. If reality doesn't provide a villain, we'll invent them.
#ParshaChat
I think another possibility is that the risk of something contagious having spread to utensils was very low, but requiring people to leave them in place would create an incentive to do far riskier things. #ParshaChat
A3: I think the obvious answer is that it's better to avoid destroying things that don't need to be destroyed.
I think another possibility is that a process of minimizing destroying things makes it *far* more likely that people will self-report possible dangers.
#ParshaChat
I'm flinging my hands up at the notion, myself! but how else do you explain it?
#ParshaChat
