What’s Wrong With Slander?
The Rambam writes that when people denigrate others, eventually they will laugh at scholars too. Next, they deny even Prophets’ validity. Eventually they will joke of Hashem and deny His existence. They will turn atheist.
Not only is the harm done to the person slandered so significant, but so is disrespect, the habit of denigrating others. (He links it to leitzanus).
And the end result is denial of all, even Hashem. How important it is to cultivate respect!
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The Dynamics Of Tzaraas
What’s the difference between tzaraas on a person, house or clothing? One difference is that human tzaraas is white, but tzaraas on a house and clothing is red or green. Another is that a person turned totally white is tahor, with the appearance of healthy skin considered a Nega. To my knowledge, the same does not apply to tzaraas on clothing or a house. If they turn totally green they are still Tamei.
Why?
Perhaps the two tzaraas’ are different in principle: A person develops tzaraas because there is something wrong within him. He is sick. The tzaraas is a symptom of illness. Tzaraas on a shirt or wall is the opposite – they are not sick, rather tzaraas growing there (like fungus) CAUSES impurity.
As a result, the sign of tzaraas in a human is relative: on normal skin white spots signal something amiss. On white skin a skin-colored spot is the sign. Something doesn’t fit in – part of his skin is different from the rest.
The Nega on a shirt or wall is static, always the same, and it is green and red. Those are the colors of the Nega growing there. Its not sickness, so its not relative to the norm, nor does it matter that it turned all green.
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Integrity
Why indeed? If one white spot causes impurity, why if that spot grows to cover his entire body is the metzorah suddenly pure?
Not only does white stop becoming the sign of impurity, but if part of his skin clears he becomes impure again. Not because he his white spot no longer covers his entire body, but rather because he has a pink nega – the normal skin! Normal skin signs impurity!?
Nega is discoloration. When a nega covers the entire body its pure because the person now has a new skin – a white one. He has no discoloration.
When a pink spot appears, this white-skinned fellow is impure. There is discontinuity in his skin. (This explains why a human tzaraas is white, but garment tzaraas is green or red. Clothes are naturally white, so abnormality is green or red).
This applies to man’s spiritual makeup as well. A fellow can be thoroughly good, and he can be thoroughly bad. Both are whole. Being bad is a sad state – but consistent. However, a good person always slipping up on certain things indicates something amiss. A screw is out of place.
None of us are whole. But we can and ought to be whole in certain areas. In those areas we ought to be consistent. If not, there is cause for concern.
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The Path Splits Here
The ceremony of purifying a person or house with tzaraas involved taking two birds, slaughtering one of them, dipping the live bird, grass, a cedar branch and some red wool into the blood of the slaughtered bird mixed with water. This was sprayed on the fellow/house, and then the live bird was freed to the wild.
The ceremony is reminiscent of the Yom Kippur ceremony of the two goats, one offered to Hashem and the other to Azazel (- commentaries); both start off with two similar birds or goats, and end with them taking different paths.
Perhaps the metaphor is that the identical thing can end up in opposite ways. We start off almost identically, yet end off so differently. We realize that the difference lies not in the subject, but in its destiny.
On Yom Kippur, people believe that they are predisposed to sinning. The two goats shows the very same thing can be brought up to Hashem or sent to Satan. We can really be anything we desire. The choice is ours. Our behavior is not ingrained in our genes.
One bird killed and the other sent to life symbolize life and death. Tzaraas is described in the Torah as dead flesh (by Miriam). It is a shade of death. The purified one leaves and joins life.
Life and death are in the power of the tongue…
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Our Daily Tragedies
Rashi says that its glad news that Hashem will give our houses tzaraas, because we will find hidden treasure while tearing down the house.
Tzaraas is commonly viewed as a punishment for lashon harah or stinginess or other aveiros. Why would a sinner get rewarded with treasure?
Some explain that tzaraas is indeed a punishment, yet has a silver lining; while punishing us, Hashem slips us a consolation prize – hidden treasure.
The Chinuch disagrees. He suggests that this referred to when the Jews took the Land of Israel and needed to find the treasure hidden by the Philistines. Only then was tzaraas in order to find treasure. Sinners, however, find nothing.
Why didn’t Hashem just inform them where the treasure was? Because Hashem likes the natural way, with minimal overt intervention on His part, and tzaraas is natural-seeming.
We asked the kinderlach: Why would Hashem put someone to the anguish of having tzaraas in his house, isn’t there a kinder way?
One suggestion is that Hashem didn’t cause him any anguish; any pain was of his own doing. Who said that losing a home to tzaraas is a hardship, perhaps it is to his great fortune?
The homeowner, however assumed the worst – that he was losing all. No one caused him pain. Rather, he anguished himself. This ought to be our attitude; We refuse to anguish over a problem until we are certain we have one!
A French philosopher wrote ‘My life has been full of tragedies, most of which eventually never happened…’
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Who Needs Tzaraas??
We have no tza’raas today. Surely we are better off without it; do we welcome pain?
A. Well, many people do. Would you buy a car with no warning system? Nothing to tell the driver when gas is low, oil missing or the engine overheating? A person feeling no pain does not know when something is wrong with him. He is in a precarious situation!
Tza’raas warns us. Its indicates where we stand spiritually. We have lost our system, and are much the worse for it. How much better we would act, had we received heavenly feedback!
B. The Zichru Toras Moshe explains that Shabbos is a sign Hashem made the entire world. How? For Shabbos is something we all plainly feel. We feel Shabbos coming in, we personally sense its holiness.
At any rate, HE did. Do we?? He experienced spirituality that we don’t. We might not miss that. A person blind from birth does not miss sight. Yet his life is poorer for its lack. So too with us; how richer and more satisfying would it be to actually feel holiness?
We lack dimension to our lives. This impacts experiencing life and sensitivity to spiritual change. It is all part of the same system. With the decline of our spirituality we lost much life, and also lost our sensitivity. Sadly, spiritual disease no longer makes us feel sick; we have lost tza’raas…
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Concerned
The Kohen commands to clear our the house [with tzaraas].
Mishna: Rav Meir said: why clear out the house? For the wood or metal vessels? He can immerse them in a mikve and they will be pure. It must be that the Torah is concerned with his cheap earthenware.
If the Torah is so concerned for his junk, how much more so it it concerned with his valuable property. If this is for mere possessions, certainly for his person. If this is for a sinner – who receives tzaraas – how much more so is the Torah concerned about a decent man!
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Living With Reality
Much of tzaraas is tempting to ignore. A person can painlessly ignore a spot on the wall or on his sheet. It is certainty tempting to avoid calling in a kohen to inspect a spot on ones back. No one appreciates having his life disrupted. It took all of a person’s Yir’as Shamayim to overcome this.
The Chinuch comments that the prohibition on cutting the hair of the nega so as to make it appear tahor, is so that one submits to Hashem’s will, and not try to circumvent it.
This is a good general rule. Some things in life are intractable, and as much as we try, the problem yet persists. When this happens one needs to recognize that such was decreed on him, and instead of going to yet another doctor, try teshuva instead.
The meta-message in this parsha is that it does no good running from Hashem. Face up to reality, and improve, instead!
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Close To The Bone
“When you come to the land of Canaan that I will give us as an inheritance, I will put a nega of tzaraas in the homes of your inheritance” Why repeat the inheritence?
These homes were predestined, given to grandparents who left Egypt, through the divine agency of the Urim and Tumim and Yehoshua. They were not parceled out randomly, rather these represented the Jews’ deepest destiny and homestead. Yet for all that, a careless remark can spoil it all.
It may be an inheritance, destined for your family forever, and yet it may be lost . Tzaraas even here…
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Deep Trouble
When a nega produces healthy skin on its surface, it is instantly tamei. The Torah explains this; “for it is an old tzaraas”. Rashi seems to interpret this that although the healthy skin indicates recovery, nonetheless the nega is still there underneath it all.
I suggest that its more – when tzaraas is hidden and covered, it is more dangerous, because it is untraceable. You cannot deal with what you cannot see. A hidden tzaraas is more tamei than a revealed one.
The lesson is to keep our personal problems revealed – hiding them might save face, but also makes them untreatable!