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Years ago, Nina Yarus introduced me to the study of Mussar; I had never heard of it, and I had been a rabbi for at least 15 years already! When I mentioned Mussar to my Orthodox husband, he rolled his eyes. Apparently, in the Orthodox world it’s often used by teachers to lay on the guilt, or parents to give textual support for their parental disapproval. Most of the Mussar texts were written in pre-modern times and in very medieval language and style – probably why so few liberal Jews even know about it, let alone study it.

You know how sometimes during a conversation you start to zoom out because the topic fails to grab your attention? That’s kind of what this week’s parshios, Tazria and Metzora, do. They begin a lengthy discussion about laws of spiritual impurity before going on to cover the incredibly exciting topic of tzara’as (skin disease), the metzor (the one suffering it), and their laws of purification. Can’t wait, huh? But, before we go there, the Torah reminds us about the need to perform a Bris on an eight-day old male which, quite frankly, seems out of place. True, the parsha starts off talking about birth, but there are other more relevant places for the mitzvah of Bris, which is why commentators try to learn something from it.