Overview of Metzora
Redemption is simply the fullest flowering of the Torah and its commandments that we knew during our exile. The Torah of the messianic future will be the same Torah we now possess, the only difference being that its innermost dimensions will finally be fully revealed to us. Similarly, in the messianic future we will continue to observe the Torah’s commandments, only in their fullest scope—both quantitatively, as those commandments that can be performed only when the Temple stands and only when the entire Jewish people are settled in their homeland become once again practicable; and qualitatively, as reality sheds the gross materialism that presently conceals most of the Divine revelations that result from observing God’s commandments—including the innate materialistic orientation of our own consciousness, which will be replaced by heightened Divine consciousness.
In reading about the odyssey of the metzora and the process of his or her redemption from social ostracism—“exiled” from society—we are at the same time reading about both our own personal odysseys of spiritual crisis and redemption as well as our collective, national odyssey through our exile, as we work toward our final Redemption.
