BS”D
Tazria-Metzora, Life and Death at The Tip of Your
Tongue
Dr Mori Bank
We
are exploring the essence of the law of loshon hora or the essence of tzoraas.
One of the understandings is that loshon hara causes tzoraas. Tzoraas
is translated as leprosy but this is not medically or spiritually correct.
There was a condition which we aren’t zoche to today. It would be a frightening
thing but it would help people to do tshuva. In a split second a person
would find they have ‘leprosy’. He would be shocked and dig deep into his heart
to repair his spiritual behaviour. We’ve reached a point now where we aren’t
even zoche to such simanim. It says in Medrash Tadshei
that there are 10 different kinds of tzoraas; (1) a patch that appears
immediately on the skin when a person says loshon hora. It comes in the
aftermath of a boil (2) or a burn (3). It can appear on the beard or the hair
(4). It can appear on a patch at the back (5) or front (6) of his head where it
can be red or white. It appears on leather garments (7), woolen garments (8) or
linen garments (9). It can even spread to the walls of the house (10). All
these, says the Midrash, can occur to a person who is not careful to
observe the Ten Commandments. For these ten things he has been lapse in, H’
gives him these ten signs.
What
caused Tzoraas? This is a very deep
question which is also asked in maseches Erechin 14a. The Sifsei
Cohen says that the seven paragraphs in which tzoraas is divided in the
Tora, correspond to the seven sins punished with tzoraas. The first one, as
mentioned, is loshon hora. The second is murder. Third a
false oath. Fourth, idolatry. Fifth, pride. Sixth, theft, and finally
miserliness, stinginess – not giving tzedoko.
These are the core problems that bring tzoraas to the world. These are
encapsulated in the mida called arrogance –
pride. I feel I have nothing to learn and that I know everything. That kind of
a person is in serious spiritual trouble. The person who learns Torah 100 times
is not the same person that learns it 101 times (Hagiga
9b). A person that woke up this morning woke up to a world that is not the same
world as yesterday, both for the good and the bad. H’ pleads with us, choose the good, not death and evil. Every day is a
growth experience, in Torah. If a person misses that, his world starts to decay
around him. The problem gets deeper and deeper and he has to think, ‘what is it
that I am being told’? If he continues in his ways, H’ compounds his problems
seven-fold until it seems all hope is lost. The truth is hope is never lost. As
long as a man has a heart beating and mind moving, and a desire to grow, there
is hope.
If
you can imagine the scene, a person is standing in a crowded place next to you
and he is screaming out, ‘I have Aids, I have the Aids
virus’. What do you do? The average response would be to step aside, to get out
of the way. Heaven forbid he should cough or sneeze on you. You are afraid you
could catch his affliction. Really there is something deeper going on here. To
contemplate the essence of this situation, one has to go into Vayikra, perek 13, posuk 45, where it says “the garments of a person who has
this affliction (tzoraas) shall be torn, his hair shall be uncut, he
shall put a cloth over his head up to his lips and he shall call out to everyone
‘I am contaminated’, ‘I am contaminated’’’. Imagine having to do this in a
public place in front of all his friends and family and everybody that you
know. Double
embarrassment. Its an agony. Some people would
rather die than have to be put in such a situation. This is what the Torah
commanded as the first part of his tikkun to
repair what happened to him. H’, before he gives the makeh,
he gives the refuah. That’s a klal in the Torah. So when we look at the situation
here, whether its Aids or leprosy or whatever it is. Imagine a person cries out
that he has such a thing and everybody around him says, instead of running a
mile, ‘Look at our dear friend, lets all pray for him. Let us all cry out
together. And the whole nation cries out to H’, please H’, save him. We need
him. We need him to serve you”. It is very possible, in those conditions, that
in the zchus of the klal,
of the rabbim, he will have a refuah shleima, and
he will be eternally indebted and bound with his nation, to continue serving
H’. This is what the commentaries say. This is what we need to explore. The achdus and in contrast, the
division where we don’t feel our brother’s pain. If we don’t feel it,
one by one we fall. We are responsible for his pain if we don’t cry out for
him, with one heart and one soul.
So
going back to the Gemoro in Erchin,
loshon horo we might understand, but murder
seems strange. In the way that the person spoke loshon horo,
he can murder three people; the person he spoke about, the person who heard him
and the person himself. By doing a tikkun, we
are saving him from this. A person who makes a false oath could be arrogant, he could say ‘I swear I never said such a thing’.
One day he hears a tape recording of what he said, and he says, “I can’t
believe I said that“. Many times when a person hears a shiur
for the second time, it is a different experience from the first time. Not
because one word changed in the shiur, but
because something inside him matured. Idolatry seems a very hard one to
understand. Sometimes somebody does something and thinks, ‘well between two
consenting adults, what can possibly be wrong? Who can tell me what is right or
wrong? I know better than anybody else what is right for me’. Such a person
could be left and people could say, ‘that’s a consenting adult, who am I to
criticize him’? When his friends go off and to things contrary to the Torah,
part of it sticks to his neshomo. He cannot
stand up and say he is completely innocent.
Pride
can sometimes be a good thing. Its good when people
have pride for the right reason. Were proud to be Jews
because that is such a privilege to be partners in Torah and mitzvos. We
have the ultimate privilege, yesh lanu helek beOlam
Haba, Kol Yisrael. All
of Yisroel have a guaranteed VIP seat in heaven. Just
don’t lose that ticket to fly. The Gemoro in Eruvin tells the story of people who destroyed their
share in Olam Haba
and Avraham Avinu doesn’t even recognise them,
if they spiritually destroyed their Bris
Mila.
Theft and miserliness. Theft is a very intricate business. Even ribbis, charging interest, can be like theft. Even geneivas daas. You say to a person, I’ll do the job, but
you do half the job. You have to do one
hundred percent to the best of your ability. If a person comes to the door and
says please help me, I have a few hungry kids to feed. You cannot say to him, ‘look
you look strong and healthy, go out and earn a living. Get out of here. Don’t
come to me’. The truth is H’ sent him, as a special good for you to give from
your 10% to whoever you can, to whoever comes to you who needs it. On the other
hand no single person has the power to cure all the problems of the world.
Therefore whatever you can do to help him, with a smile, even a little crumb of
bread, may be enough to give him the fortitude and strength to continue rather
than a slap in the face and a slam of the door. The way you do it, the way that
you talk to him, that you feel his pain, is not less than the person afflicted
with the tzoraas, a person that is suffering terribly from his affliction and
he cries out to the nation. The natural response is to cover my eyes, but the
Torah requirement is Al Taamod Al Dam Reeha, Do not stand on your brother’s blood. He is your
brother, and you have a chelek in his
wellbeing. You have to do what you can
to help him. Of course we know, Klal Gadol BaTorah, before the makeh comes the refuah. H’ creates the refuah.
So for all of us, whatever that spiritual refuah
is, we are compelled to cry out to H’ to save him.
So
we go now, further into the parsha. We have to
contemplate, ‘tame tame yikra’. He is calling
out, ‘contaminated, contaminated’. He warns the people
to stay away from him. Says Rashi, the Gemoro
in Moed Katan
5a, the purpose of this proclamation is to inform others of his anguish so that
they will pray for him. Through the power of prayer, those that aren’t
contaminated can communicate with H’ on behalf of those who are. When we see
our brothers spiritually sinking because they can’t communicate with H’, are we
crying out with our whole heart because we feel ourselves sinking with them
into the quicksand of the abyss of assimilation? The millions that are
assimilated, on the critical list, that don’t know from where will come their
help; they are helpless. Spiritually, they are disconnected from Torah. Through
our prayers and through our appeals to our father in heaven, maybe something
can shatter those chains of assimilation and release our brothers.
Not
forgetting also our brother languishing in an American prison for 20, 25 years.
We pray every day for his release. Not unlike Yosef
in Mitzrayim. We are crying out from the
depths of our heart as if we are in that prison with him. If we are not crying
out, then for sure we are in that prison with him. If we cry out as a nation,
we can break the spiritual fetters that captured him. Pidyon
shvuyim is one of the greatest mitzvos, to
release your brother from enslavement. We are going through spiritual
enslavement – assimilation. That destroys the soul, which is even more tragic
than destroying the body. As happened in the Holocaust. All 6 million who were
murdered in the holocaust, died “als
Kiddush H’”; they died as Jews. Their neshama’s
place in olam haba
was guaranteed. For those who die without a whimper having destroyed their
covenant with H’, the tragedy is for those that caused them to do it and for
those that led them astray. A man may think that he is immune. The tragedy
affects every one of us. It is a spiritual tzoraas. We can only be cured by the
power of the heart.
I
would like to explore a little bit deeper the power of the word. I remember my
early experiences in the voyage to loshon horo
and shmiras haloshon.
Somebody once said ‘Walking through this world is like a walk in the snow, walk carefully, for every step will show’. We think
what we say evaporates as soon as it is said. If we don’t have a tape recording
it won’t ever be heard again. It will be erased. Without modern technology
people didn’t believe that long after a person’s life his words will be
replayed and recontemplated. So we see the footage of
World War II and the venom of one Amaleki puring out his hatred on the world that caused 6 million neshamas to be prematurely terminated from the good
that they could have done in this world. The venom, the
catastrophe that poured out of one man. We have to contemplate how we
can change the lives of others as we said, loshon hora kills three the one that
said it, the one that heard it and the one that it was spoken about. This is an
awesome thing. We have to think how we leave an indelible imprint on this world
with every word.
As
it says in perek 14 posuk
2, and he, the person with tzoraas, shall be brought to the Cohen. People speak
loshon horo because they don’t appreciate the
power of the spoken word. It is justified by saying that ‘it does the person
being spoken about no harm. It is just a few harmless words which evaporated
without any sign’. I remember a poster from World War II. Two people are
speaking on a bus. The one says to the other, ‘my son leaves tomorrow from
We
have to contemplate that the source of everything comes from our behaviour.
According to the way we behave, so it affects the world around us. If we are a
light unto the nations, they will say what a great and awesome nation this is.
Surely they are blessed by H’. If we rebel, kick out and grow fat and gross,
and turn our backs on Torah, then Has VeShalom,
H’ turns his
face away from us, hester panim.
The question goes; if H’ blesses us, what could possibly go wrong? The first
blessing of Birchas Cohanim
is, ‘Yevarechecha H’ VeYishmerecha.
May H bless you and guard you’. Surely H’s blessing is good enough. Why should
H’ bless you and guard you? Let me give you an example. A person finds out that
the ticket he just bought won the Lotto. The prize is 20 million dollars. He
goes to the Lotto station with his ticket, they verify it is the winning ticket
and give him a suitcase full of hundred dollar bills. As he is walking out of the Lotto station he
bumps into a man with a gun who says, ‘Buddy, hand over your suitcase. Your
money or your life’.
He hands over the suitcase. Within a few minutes all that money he had
evaporated, is gone. How did he feel? What did he feel? Devastated? A complete collapse of everything that he had ever dreamt of?
His world is shattered? A few minutes before, he didn’t have that 20 million.
Was he a happy man? Sure he was. He may have had the odd aches and pains. He
won 20 million, he would never have to work again, imagine how much charity he
could give, how much research could be done to cure diseases, and he could give
lectures on how to be healthy and happy. It could be a different world because
of what happened in those few seconds. But for some reason H’ didn’t guard that
blessing. How did he feel a second after that money disappeared? Total collapse. Devastation. He is
the same person. A few minutes before he didn’t have the 20
million. What happened? He wasn’t zoche to vayishmerecha.
H’ gave him a brocho and H’ took away the brocho. So the brocho
by itself is not enough. We have to contemplate everything that we do. In all
our ways, how H’ protects us, and be grateful. Gratitude turns pride into
appreciation. When we say ‘we deserve it’. That 20
million was coming to me, I deserved it. Oy oy oy.
What a tragedy. We don’t deserve anything. Just by the grace of H’ we go
forward. We should be appreciative of every breath, every moment, every thought. That we are able to continue to serve H’ and
to grow in Torah.
So
now we see, who would have thought that man could be recorded for eternity if
not for modern technology. Nothing could be further
from the truth when a person thinks they are just speaking a few harmless words
of loshon hora about somebody else. If the speaker would only realise that each
and every word that a person speaks makes an infinite expression in both
worlds, on heaven and on earth. A prosecuting angel is created when a person
says one damaging statement about another person. You have to think twice
before you open your mouth. If that person knew what they were doing, if they
could see the heavenly balance sheet, he would say, ‘those are sins I didn’t
do. And what happened to the mitzvos that I did do’? Then he will look into his
heart and say, ‘Wow, I spoke loshon hora about this guy’. Look what happened.
That guy inherited his mitzvos. He inherited that guy’s aveiros.
Because he spoke loshon hora, it caused catastrophic shuffling of the Din and Heshbon in shamayim.
Hard to contemplate, but terrifying. Hence the Midrash says, in the name of H’, ‘don’t say loshon hara and
think nobody will get to know about it. I will send a guarding angel who will
write down every word you say about a fellow Jew’. The Metzora
is punished first and foremost for evil speech. The word Metzora
is a remez, a hint, for what the person does –
Motzi ra. That from him came out evil. H’ appointed the Cohanim.
The lips of the Cohen will guard knowledge, in whose hand his fate lies. The Metzora will receive an object lesson in the power of
speech. With one word, the Cohen will determines his
fate. If the Cohen says ‘Tame’, and each time the Cohen reexamines he says ‘Tame’,
he has to be exiled. The Metzora is quarantined from
his nation. That means he is barred from the Minyan. He can’t communicate. He can’t associate. He
has to search in the depth of his soul to rejoin H’s holy nation. As long as
the Cohen is quiet, his soul lies in the balance between life and death. In the
meantime the man is safek tahor,
the tzaraas may have gone away. But until the
Cohen declares him tahor, he remains tameh, impure, and forbidden to come back to the
nation.
When
we go further, we consider the ripple effects of the loshon hara. We have to
contemplate what we say in perek 14, pesukim 54 and 57, ‘vezos
toras hatzoraas’. In
concluding the chapter of Tzoraas, the Torah juxtaposes the Torah with the tzoraas
affliction. This teaches us, to avoid the punishment of tzoraas,
a person should learn Torah because Torah is a fire that purges the impurity.
One who studies Torah prepares himself for the tikkun
in his heart which brings about the physical recovery. One
who neglects it, opens the door for further impurity.
As
we move across to parshas Metzora,
we see that there are different stages of purification. First he is brought
before the Cohen. ‘The Cohen shall go outside the camp and look and behold
whether the affliction has been healed’. The Cohen is commanded, if the person
is being purified, to take two he birds, tied with a crimson thread and hyssop.
One bird is kept alive, the other slaughtered over spring water in an earthen
vessel. The live bird is taken with the cedar wood, crimson thread and hyssop.
These are all mystical, and have a very deep commentary. ‘And he shall dip them
in the blood sprinkle it and over the live bird and the spring water. He shall
sprinkle seven time son the person being purified. He shall purify him and set
the live bird free over the open field.’ The person purified shall immerse his
clothing, shave off all his hair, immerse himself in the water, and become
pure. Even now, he remains outside for seven days, and shaves off all his hair,
his eyebrows, he immerses his clothing and himself and he becomes pure. This is
awesome to contemplate, and can be understood on many levels. If a person took it seriously, they would
tremble at the thought of the power of the spoken word, their head would spin.
The head represents haughtiness. He thinks he is better than all the people that
he spoke loshon hora about. The beard also represents a wise old man (zakan). Because the man lost his wisdom, he should
remove the signs of wisdom. This will stay with him for a long time. The people
around him with beards will see that he had to remove his beard, because of
what he said. The eyebrows represent the base plate of atzur
ayin, jealousy. According to the Kli Yakar, when one
narrows ones eyes with jealousy, it could ruin the reputation of others.
When
we contemplate the power of what H’ has sent us, in terms of guarding ourselves
from loshon hora, Shmiras Halashon, the famous sefer
from the Hafetz Hayim, then we have to contemplate all the senses
and organs that H’ gave us and how we have to guard them. Chazal say, why were
earlobes created? They seem to be irrelevant. They are there to stop up
the ears to guard against hearing loshon hora. Fish have no eyelids. They could
be there to prevent the eyes dying out. The mucus and tear ducts would be
sufficient to keep the corneal membrane wet. Or the membrane could have been
dry. The real purpose could be in order to guard our eyes. What you see can
cause damage to your soul.
Rav
Pesach Krohn tells a story about a surgeon who
operated on the brain of a patient of his. He touched a certain nerve and the
patient cried out. The surgeon nearly had a heart attack. The patient, who was
under local anaesthetic because the tumor was on the
membrane, said that he did not cry out in pain, but because he saw his Aunt
standing in front of him as clear as day. The patient said that the last time
he saw his Aunt was when he was 2 years old. The surgery had triggered the
video, so to speak, in his brain from when he was 2 years old. The surgeon went
straight home after he finished the operation and got rid of all magazines and
the television that could cause spiritual damage to his family. When you contemplate
the nose, it is there to smell beautiful smells. It is also there to warn of
things that could be rotting or to warn of dangers. Another danger is that it
could be there to lead us astray. A person could pass a non kosher restaurant
and smell the whiff of a hamburger. Somebody was in a taxi with a very strong
smell of perfume that was not his wife’s. The man made every effort not to breathe
through his nose the entire journey. At the end of the journey he described
just how wonderful the nostrils can be when we smell something that we don’t
want to smell, or should not smell. There are two barriers to the mouth. The teeth and the lips. The teeth are the hardest substance
in the body – 90% calcium. People grip their teeth, bite the bullet – which
could be one word of loshon hora. People have 32 teeth (8 on each side). This
is the Gematria of lamed beis,
‘lev’. When we say Shema
we say we serve bechol levavcha.
What is written in the heart can come through the teeth. On the Seder we say
that we knock out the teeth of the rasha. This
is not literal, but in olam haba. Because when a person has a blow to the face
which damages their teeth, it reveals the harm that they tried to do with their
words of loshon horo. If a person’s heart is
not strong enough to stop him from saying something, let him bite his tongue.
Now we can understand that we goes through the heart is transmitted by the
mouth and goes out to the world like a bird flying across a field and the power
of speech like the bird that is released in the tikkun.
One bird’s blood is shed, and this could have been him. But H’ has rachamim, allowing him to escape and continue to
sing a sweet song to H’.
May
we all be zoche not just to guard our lips, to guard the ten
commandments, to guard the Taryag mitzvos, to see the light of
Torah radiating from our skin, instead of the tuma of tzoraas, loshon
hora and motzi shem ra, and may we be zoche to see the light of Tora
soon in our days radiating across the nation and across the world, and to
the Geula shelaima, Mashiach
Tzidkeinu, the Beis Hamikdash, Techias Hameisim and a wonderful Shabbos
for all.