God, open my lips, that my mouth may declare Your praise

By Hazzan Jenna Greenberg.

אֲדֹנָי שְׂפָתַי תִּפְתָּח וּפִי יַגִּיד תְּהִלָּתֶֽךָ

Hashem s’fatai tiftach, ufi yagid t’hilatecha. 
God, open my lips, that my mouth may declare Your praise.

We say these words prior to every Amida, the standing prayer central to each of our three daily services. These words preface the age-old words of this prayer, setting our mouths and our minds with the kavana, the intention, to praise God through the holy words that come out of our mouths in these ritual moments.

This liturgical one-liner focuses on a theme that comes from this week’s double Torah portion, Tazria-Metzora. But let’s rewind for a moment to last week’s parasha Shemini, where we learned about which animals are kosher and which are not. What we put into our mouths matters; there are rules as to what one should put into their bodies for sustenance; and these biblical laws are ancient, elevating the otherwise mundane act of eating to a holy status. 

And then we have Tazria and Metzora as the subsequent parshiyot this Shabbat, often paired together in a non-leap year like this one. Whereas last week’s focus was on what goes into our bodies, this week’s portions deal with what comes out of our bodies. We learn about various physical afflictions or ailments due to bodily fluids that affected our ancestors’ purity.

What comes out of our bodies also matters. Tazria literally means “she conceives,” from the root zera, meaning “seed.” The parsha continues to describe the purity rules for a woman who has given birth, including the timeline for when she can return to the community and bring an offering to God. The portion continues on with the theme of Tzara’at, a biblical skin disease, often understood as leprosy, again with rulings on the isolation and separation of one who has this affliction. The transition from impure to a pure status is the focus in both cases.

Parashat Metzora, the second of this double parsha, details the purification rituals for a metzora, a person afflicted with tzara’at—a skin disease that is understood to be not only physical but spiritual as well. 

Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z”l shared the the following ancient teaching on this disease: Tsara’at, the skin condition whose diagnosis and purification form the heart of these parshiyot, was a punishment for lashon hara, evil speech, and the word metzora, for one suffering from the condition, was, they said, an abridgment of the phrase motzi shem ra, one who speaks slander. The key prooftext they brought was the case of Miriam who spoke badly about Moses, and was struck with tsara’at as a result (Num. 12). Moses alludes to this incident many years later, urging the Israelites to take it to heart:  “Remember what the Lord your God did to Miriam along the way after you came out of Egypt.” (Deut. 24:9)

I find this teaching to be particularly fitting during this week in which we observed Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Memorial Day, a modern commemoration that only sometimes coincides with these Torah portions. What comes out of our mouths is ultimately a controllable action, as are other ways in which we use our bodies in our interactions with others. We remember what bigotry and hatred of the utmost extreme, both verbally and physically, was done to 6 million members of our Jewish family during the Holocaust. May we Never Again experience such anti-semitism, such evil against our people. 

What began with evil thoughts and words became the world’s worst genocide of Jews throughout history. Metzora, Motzi Shem Ra, it all started with evil speech and developed into an atrocity that is truly unimaginable. And yet, here we are today 93 years since the Shoah began. Our people live on because we won’t let evil speech win. We strive to do our  best to use our mouths for good, not evil.

May the teachings from our double Torah portion as well as the lessons learned through our observances of Yom haHashoah continue to inspire us to think before we speak. Let only kindness emanate from our lips, as we are reminded ritually three times each and every day of the year: God, open my lips, that my mouth may declare Your praise.