page_title: Tazria
section_title: Summary
hierarchical_section_title: Tazria / Haftarah / Summary
context_page_description: Tazria, Thazria, Thazri'a, Sazria, or Ki Tazria' is the 27th weekly Torah portion in the annual Jewish cycle of Torah reading and the fourth in the Book of Leviticus. The parashah deals with ritual impurity. It constitutes Leviticus 12:1–13:59. The parashah is made up of 3,667 Hebrew letters, 1,010 Hebrew words, 67 verses, and 128 lines in a Torah Scroll.
  Jews read it the 27th or 28th Sabbath after Simchat Torah, generally in April or, rarely, in late March or early May. The lunisolar Hebrew calendar contains up to 55 weeks, the exact number varying between 50 in common years and 54 or 55 in leap years. In leap years, parashah Tazria is read separately. In common years, parashah Tazria is combined with the next parashah, Metzora, to help achieve the number of weekly readings needed.
context_section_description: A man from Baal-shalishah brought the prophet Elisha bread of the First Fruits — 20 loaves of barley — and fresh grain in his sack to give to the people to eat. Elisha's servant asked Elisha how he could feed a hundred men with these rations, but Elisha told his servant to give the food to the people, for God said that they would eat and have food left over. So the servant set the food before the men, they ate, and they had food left over, just as God had said.
  Naaman, the commander of the army of the king of Aram, was a great warrior, but he was a leper. The girl who waited on Naaman's wife was an Israelite whom the Arameans had taken captive, and she told Naaman's wife that if Naaman went to Elisha in Samaria, then Elisha would cure Naaman of his leprosy. Naaman told his lord the king of Aram what the girl said, and the king of Aram sent Naaman on his way with a letter to the king of Israel. Naaman departed, taking with him ten talents of silver, 6,000 pieces of gold, and ten changes of clothes. Naaman brought the king of Israel the letter, which asked the king of Israel to cure Naaman of his leprosy. When the king of Israel read the letter, he rent his clothes and complained that he was not God with power over life and death, but the king of Aram must have been seeking some pretext to attack Israel.
  When Elisha heard, he invited the king to send Naaman to him, and so Naaman came to Elisha's house with his horses and his chariots. Elisha sent a messenger to Naaman to tell him to wash seven times in the Jordan River and be healed, but that angered Naaman, who expected Elisha to come out, call on the name of God, and wave his hands over Naaman. Naaman asked whether the Amanah and Pharpar rivers of Damascus were not better than any river in Israel, so that he might wash in them and be clean.
  But Naaman's servants advised him that if Elisha had directed him to do some difficult thing he would have done it, so how much more should he do what Elisha directed when he said merely to wash and be clean. So Naaman dipped himself seven times in the Jordan, and his flesh came back like the flesh of a little child.
  Naaman returned to Elisha, avowed that there is no God except in Israel, and asked Elisha to take a present, but Elisha declined. Naaman asked if he might take two mule loads of Israel's earth so that Naaman might make offerings to God, and he asked that God might pardon Naaman when had had to bow before the Aramean idol Rimmon when the king of Aram leaned on Naaman to bow before Rimmon. And Elisha told Naaman to go in peace.
caption: Elisha Refusing Gifts from Naaman (1630 painting by Pieter de Grebber)
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