“When a man or woman has white spots on the skin, the priest is to examine them, and if the spots are dull white, it is a harmless rash that has broken out on the skin; they are clean. – Leviticus 13:38-39

Today’s Scripture Reading (August 28, 2015): Leviticus 13

It started in September 1939. On September 1, Nazi Germany invades Poland. Two days later Britain, France, Australia and New Zealand declare war on Germany. And two days after that, on September 5, the United States declares its neutrality – they decide they are not going to take sides in the dispute. Five days after the declaration of neutrality, the United States’ northern neighbor, Canada, declares war on Germany and the war in the Atlantic begins – World War II had started.

It all seems so clean, except that this really wasn’t the beginning of the war. Essentially it was just the tipping point. In March 1939, Germany took Czechoslovakia. In January Hitler threatened the Jews. And yet, while these events could have been the beginning, there were even earlier signs of what was to come. Hitler’s decision in 1936 to place the Gestapo above the law, the 1935 stripping of all rights belonging to Jewish Germans or the violation of the Treaty of Versailles by introducing military conscription. In 1934 the Nazi’s murdered the Austrian Chancellor Dollfuss. Even as early as 1933 the first Concentration Camp was opened. Any of these events could have started something. But they didn’t. The entire world watched what was happening in Germany and wondered which events were simply harmless eruptions that would blow over, and which were signs of serious problems that would shape all of our futures. Some believe that the world simply watched and waited too long. The cancer that was Adolph Hitler was known long before we acted – and maybe if we had moved earlier a lot of pain could have been avoided.

Much of life is spent discerning between the harmless eruptions and serious complications. Nazi Germany in the 1930’s or the current status of between North and South Korea all involve careful evaluations of what is innocuous and what is not. Caring for our personal health involves some of the same questions. Was last night chest pains indications of heart problem or indigestion? Or is that thing on your neck just a spot or a sign of skin cancer. We have to continually be on guard, differentiating between what is harmless and what is serious.

Leprosy was a scourge to the ancient world. The disease is contagious and is transmitted from the sick to the healthy. Although we now know that the disease is not highly contagious, the effects of leprosy are severe. In the ancient world, there was no cure – leprosy was a death sentence. And so the only solution was to isolate those who suffered from the disease from those who were healthy.

Yet not every skin eruption is leprosy. There needed to be a way to differentiate between the serious and the “bohaq” – a harmless skin eruption. It wasn’t a perfect system, but it was a system that was designed to minimize the impact of the disease, and to differentiate between the harmless and the serious.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Leviticus 14