Libi BaMizrach

Reflections on Parshat Kedoshim and Yom HaAtzmaut There is a word that appears several times in Tanach with a haunting, resonant power. In last week’s Parasha, it describes the unsettling figure of an outcast: “ Badad yeshev, michutz la’machaneh moshavo.” The metzora — often mistranslated as a leper — sits alone. Sent outside the camp, the metzora isn't just ritually "unclean." He is socially erased. He dwells in a forced vacuum, required to warn others to stay away. At the beginning of Eicha, it describes a nation: “Eicha yashva badad ha’ir rabati am.” A city once teeming with life now sits — utterly alone.  Of all the horrors that happened to Jerusalem in its destruction, the first and foremost was that it is now "alone". there is an ache of being set apart, of being kept at arm’s length by the rest of the world At first glance, these two uses of badad feel worlds apart. One is a consequence of personal failing; the other is a collective tragedy. Ye...