Leprosy or Something Else?
Most transaltions traslate the word tzaraat in Leviticus 13 as ‘leprosy,’ or Hansen’s disease. However, for years the rabbis have pointed out that the description, and the method of ‘curing’ and ‘preventing’ the disease, does not match leprosy. ‘For hundreds of years, the popular translation of [tzaraas] has been “leprosy,” and it was commonly accepted that prevention of the disease’s spread was the reason for quarantine of a suspected victim of tzaraas and the exclusion from the camp of a confirmed [metzora], the person smitten with the malady. [Rabbi] Hirsch demonstrates at length and conclusively that both of these notions are completely erroneous. Very briefly, he shows that the symptoms of tzaraas…are far different from those of leprosy.'[1] ‘The identification of biblical tsara’at with “leprosy” is unlikely, if by “leprosy” is meant Hansen’s disease; for the symptomatology provided in chapter 13 does not conform to the nature or course of that disease. Undoubtedly, a complex of various ailments was designated by the term tsara’at.'[2]
[1] Chumash, p. 609-610.
[2] The JPS Torah Commentary: Leviticus, p. 75.
