page_title: Tazria
section_title: Connection to the double parashah
hierarchical_section_title: Tazria / Haftarah / Parashah Tazria-Metzora / Connection to the double parashah
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: Both the double parashah and the haftarah deal with people stricken with skin disease. Both the parashah and the haftarah employ the term for the person affected by skin disease (metzora, מְּצֹרָע). In parashah Tazria, Leviticus 13:46 provides that the person with skin disease "shall dwell alone; without the camp shall his dwelling be," thus explaining why the four leprous men in the haftarah lived outside the gate.
  Rabbi Johanan taught that the four leprous men at the gate in 2 Kings 7:3 were none other than Elisha's former servant Gehazi (whom the Midrash, above, cited as having been stricken with leprosy for profanation of the Divine Name) and his three sons.
  In parashah Metzora, when there "seems" to be a plague in the house, the priest must not jump to conclusions, but must examine the facts. Just before the opening of the haftarah, in 2 Kings 7:2, the captain on whom the king leaned jumps to the conclusion that Elisha's prophecy could not come true, and the captain meets his punishment in 2 Kings 7:17 and 19.
caption: Isaiah (fresco circa 1508–1512 by Michelangelo from the Sistine Chapel)
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