Parshiot Tazria and Metzora—Calling all Dermatologists

. . . but first, there will be a short delay while every female who has the chutzpah (nerve) to give birth to another female gets the privilege of being declared ritually unfit for twice the amount of time that would have been the case had the baby been a boy. Too bad I’m HTML impaired: Where’s a good roll-eyes emoticon when I need one?

What a delightful pair of readings—two whole weeks of “leprosy,” or whatever disease the Torah’s describing.

On a historical note, is this one of the earlier descriptions of a quarantine procedure?