Two Bloody Birds

Va'Yikra 14:7 ויקרא יד:ז

“What’s it like to be a human
the bird asked..”

The ordeal of the leper spans 116 verses, smack in the middle of the Torah- making it weirdly the most detailed commandment with prime placement. What is it all about beyond pollution and healing? Many have wondered. One of the most intriguing aspects is the cleansing ritual- rich in symbolism, beautifully poetic and also borrowed from earlier Sumerian culture.

After sufficient quarantine and inspection, the Leper who has healed engages in a priestly procedure that includes two birds, probably sparrows, a bowl of fresh water, a bundle of hyssop and a branch from a cedar tree all wrapped up with a red cord.

One bird is slaughtered above the water, and the other bird, still living, gets smeared in the blood and with the herb bundle, and then:

“The priest shall then sprinkle it seven times on the one who is to be cleansed of the eruption and cleanse that person ; and shall release the live bird free in the open field”(va 14:7)

A similar recipe shows up later in Leviticus to remedy contact with the dead. And there’s also an earlier example, likely the original. An Akkadian cleansing ritual recipe for a similar skin infection, found on a clay tablet in Syria, from  the 13th cent. BCE. It includes: “This patient stands before the god Shamash. You shall burn one partridge and a crab before Shamash, [and] with (another) partridge you shall wipe his body and he will let it go free. “

What must it have felt like for the patient/person relieved to be back in society to watch the bird fly away, bloody but living? What does symbolic gesture mean for us today? This poetic fragment from a Polish poet resonates:

“What’s it like to be a human
the bird asked

I myself don’t know
it’s being held prisoner by your skin
while reaching infinity
being a captive of your scrap of time
while touching eternity
being hopelessly uncertain
and helplessly hopeful
being a needle of frost
and a handful of heat
breathing in the air
and choking wordlessly
it’s being on fire
with a nest made of ashes
eating bread
while filling up on hunger
it’s dying without love
it’s loving through death

That’s funny said the bird
and flew effortlessly up into the air.״

@Anna Kamienska

#leprosy #impurity #leper #melanoma #loneliness #covid19 # plague #leviticus14 #vayikra #healing #sacrifice #pollution #akkadian #birds #blood

‏#hebrewmyth #929 #torah #bible #hiddenbible #sefaria  #929english  #labshul #929project #myth #belowthebiblebelt

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