For 116 verses in Leviticus, chapters 13 and 14, the law makes prescriptions about how to protect the community from the danger of contagious skin diseases. Thirty-two of the verses describe the ritual for cleansing in which a priest must verify that the person is free of skin sores. The person must live in the open for seven days, then totally shave his or her body and wash. The law requires the cleansed person to offer lambs, grain, and oil on the eighth day.
All of these legal details tell us leprosy was a terrifying danger that demanded the community separate the afflicted person from the healthy. However, the rites of the cleansing tell that diseases other than leprosy, which was incurable, must have been included under the category.
Leprosy makes outsiders of its sufferers. In some sense, every disease has this effect. One experiences illness alone in one’s own body, in one’s self.
HIV/AIDS caused fear and isolation when it began. It had no cure and people weren’t sure how it was passed on. Now retroviral drugs make living with HIV possible if drugs are available. AIDS has orphaned millions of children in Africa who need families and education.
Smell rather than appearance forces child brides apart when pregnancy and delivery tear their bodies and leave them leaking urine and feces. Fistulas make sufferers unwanted in their homes and communities. Surgery can correct fistulas but in many African countries it is not readily available.
Lepers must live apart.
The Holy One said to Moses and Aaron, “When someone has on the skin of his or her body a swelling or an eruption or a spot, and it appears to be the sore of leprosy, this person shall be brought to Aaron, the priest, or to one of the priests among his descendants.
“Persons who are leprous and unclean, the priest shall declare unclean by reason of the sores on their heads. The person who has the sores of leprosy shall wear torn clothes and let the hair of his or her head be disheveled. The person must cover his or her upper lip and cry out, ‘Unclean, unclean!’ The person remains unclean as long as the sores are on the body; for the person is unclean. He or she must live apart in a dwelling outside the camp.”
Leviticus 13.1-2,44-46
- What have you experienced that made you feel isolated or that put you outside the camp for a while?
- How have you handled or overcome the isolation that illness can create for a family member? Or, for caregivers?