When I was a young lad, one of the members of my father’s congregation, owned a poultry plant and I used to dread going there. Now, you might think it was because of the chickens being slaughtered or the odor in the place … or, perhaps, because the place was so cold you felt like you were living in Syracuse in the midst of a frosty winter’s day.

But none of this had anything to do with my dread. So, what made me dislike going there so much? Let me tell you, and I am ashamed to admit it. There was an employee there who had a very disfigured face. Back then, I had enough trouble being in the same room with someone who wore a brace on their legs or who had an amputation, so you can imagine how terrified I was of looking at this particular person’s misshapen and discolored features.

How on earth did I go from having trouble with that to working in health centers where, over the years, I have come across just about every one of those things, plus many more? That’s a good question. And I think it had to do with a recent Parsha we read in the Synagogue about a skin condition that many English Translations refer to as Leprosy (Not the leprosy we think of today.)

My parent’s got me to see that I was treating this person as a leper. I refused not only to have contact with him, but I refused to even look at him. Thank G-d my parents taught me, and believe me, it was no easy lesson to learn that, while I kept calling him that poor person, he was not so poor after all. He was very content with his life and grateful for what he had, which included a good job, a loving wife and children, etc. (I guess he wouldn’t fare too well on the computer dating sites many use today; in fact, he would be shunned).

And then, there are those of you who have experienced taking a fall. The reason I bring up a fall has to do with the cuts, gashes, breaks, black and blue marks and shiners that come from the fall. When such things happen, I have seen individuals deal with it in two very different ways. The positive one is the one who doesn’t let their black eye keep them from going out and being with others; but then there are those who are so vain that they hide in their room or in their home until the bruising goes away and they look like themselves again.

The problem is that, during the time, they have closed themselves off from others. They have done what used to be done to lepers; they have excluded them from the community and, sadly, in the case of these people who are bruised from a fall, they wind up doing the same thing to themselves. They close themselves off from everyone and, in doing so, they turn themselves into lepers.

I recently dealt with another scenario in which a person can feel like a leper. The lady [a man] was with for the past few years broke things off with him and would not be the way she used to be with him. The warmth was gone, the regular calls, the time together and he felt so much like a leper that he wondered if he would ever know love again.

My friends, I am a romantic. I believe in love. G-d does not shun us; but some of us make ourselves feel like spiritual lepers by shunning G-d. And some make themselves lepers by avoiding the love of another. Let G-d in and don’t just let yourself be loved … return that love tenfold.

Shalom my friends,

Rabbi Craig H. Ezring

Rabbi Ezring is the Spiritual Leader of Temple Beth Israel of Deerfield Beach (201 S. Military Tr., Deerfield Beach, FL 33442). Regular Shabbat services are open to everyone on Saturday mornings from 9