The Yucky Stuff

This week's Torah portion is Metzora, but usually it is read along with last week's parasha, Tazria. Since I missed last week's haiku-ing (no good Internet hookup at camp), here are both portions together in one...in all their yucky fun!

When you have a boy
you have seven days unclean
after childbirth.

When you have a girl
it takes longer to regain
ritual pureness --

Fourteen days it is!
A sacrifice will suffice,
restore purity.

If you get a rash,
swelling, discoloration,
scaly affliction,

redness or burning,
you must report to the priest
to check it all out.

The priest will decide
if the disease or rashes
make you pure or not.

If you are unclean
you have to live outside camp
until you're better.

Wool, linen or skins
can also be affected
and have to be checked.

Priests decide: pure? not?
Wash the fabric, check again.
You want it all pure.

(Metzora starts here)

If you have skin-yuck
the priest has a whole process
to fix it right up.

Sacrifices and
spices and shaving are part
of the cure-it-all.

You might not know this
but a house can get sick too
and the priest can fix.

It's not just disease
that can make you impure.
Boys, girls...different ways.

For men, a discharge
from his genital area
makes him impure-ish.

It takes sacrifice
and/or a bath to fix it,
make him pure again.

That time of the month
for the gals makes them impure,
what she touches too.

Seven days for her
until she is clean again,
back to a pure state.

Shabbat Shalom!
See more (probably less gross) haikus here.