פרשת תזריע – מצורע
In this week’s Parshios, the Torah describes in great detail the various punishments that a person receives for speaking ill about others and the requisite penance for that same evil speech. The retribution that the Torah offers for Lashon Harah is that a person’s body becomes afflicted by a spiritual type of disease called Tzoraas. However, the Torah explains that not only does a person’s body become affected with this disease, but even their clothing and their home can contract Tzoraas. The Meforshim explain that the first thing afflicted is a person’s clothes. After that his house. And finally, his body contracts this illness. What is the reason for this strange order of progression in the way that Tzoraas develops?
The Seforno offers a very interesting explanation. He begins by explaining that the purpose for all afflictions that befall a person are to cause him to realize the error of his ways and to repent. Specifically because God loves us, and does not want us to suffer in the next world, He invents methods to wake a person up before it is too late. With this explanation, we can now easily understand the behavior of the Tzoraas disease. It firstly attack one’s clothing which are the most removed from a person. If the person does not get the message, it travels to his house. And finally, if the person hasn’t repented, the Tzoraas afflicts one’s body directly. The Seforno explains that this is Hashem’s unique Chessed to upset us in a way which will be clear what the reason is for the ailment so that we may rectify the situation. Parenthetically, he proves that this is true by virtue of the fact that we find that non-Jews were not affected by Tzoraas and if it were merely a physical disease, there would be no reason for this. Additionally we find that today, we seem to have lost this disease of Tzoraas, apparently because we are not on the level to receive such a direct message from Hashem.
R’ Yechezkel Levenstein, the renowned Mashgiach of the Ponevitch Yeshiva explains that although we don’t have Tzoraas today, Hashem still sends us little messages to wake us up before it is too late. These messages come in the form of the daily discomforts that many of us suffer from, some being more severe then others. R’ Chazkal explains that these discomforts are in order to send us the message that we must look into our actions and see where we are falling short in our service of God. Often, these messages start off small and distant from us. But if we don’t get the point, we find these messages coming closer and closer to home. R’ Chazkal advises that one should pay heed to these messages when they are in their earlier state so that he does not ever need to receive a harsher warning.
The Gemorah in Taanis, (21a) records an interesting story about R’ Nachum Ish Gam Zu. R’ Nachum’s talmidim came to visit him, and they found him to be laying in bed, blind in both of his eyes, missing both of his hands and legs, and boils covering his body. They commented to him, “Rebbe, woe to us that we see you like this”! He responded by telling them, “Woe to you if you wouldn’t have seen me like this. I accepted these horrible Yissurim on myself because a while ago, I was traveling with three donkeys laden with fine goods and fruits when a poor person approached me and asked me for some food. I told him to wait while I unload my donkeys. By the time I was ready to give him food, I saw that he had died of hunger. I told Hashem, the eyes that weren’t sensitive to this man’s eyes, should be gouged out. Similarly with my hands and legs. I still wasn’t satisfied until my entire body was covered with boils.” We see from this haunting Gemora to what extent a person can view the challenges that befall him. Obviously, we are not on the level to view such painful experiences with such a positive attitude like Nachum Ish Gam Zu, but on our level, at least the small discomforts that almost everyone experiences on a daily basis should certainly not discourage us, but rather should be understood as Hashem’s kindness to us so that we needn’t suffer in the next world and should cause us to scrutinize our actions more carefully.
The Midrash Yalkut Shimoni on this week’s Parsha adds a very important angle on all that we have said. The Midrash explains, that one does not have to wait until he himself experiences this distress in order to get the point, but one should rather get the message from what it going on around him. For example, if one see that his friend has a terrible tragedy befall him, he should not wait until this same tragedy befalls himself in order to change, but rather should understand that the reason why God allowed him to see that tragedy, was to send him a poignant message and should examine his own shortcomings. Similarly, the Gemora in Sota says that anyone who saw a Sotah in her downfall, should take measures to make sure that he himself doesn’t fall into the same trap. This can be difficult sometimes as one’s first reaction is to denigrate the Sotah. But the Torah teaches that the correct response is to look into one’s own actions and see how they can improve and understand that there must be a reason why Hashem allowed him to witness the terrible downfall of this Sotah. The verse in Tehillim says, “Lucky is the man who is punished by God, and learns from his Torah”. From here we see that even the admonishment and pain which God deals a person are a form of Torah and a lesson for the person to change.
I would just like to conclude by saying that just as we can learn from other people’s misfortunes, similarly we can learn many lessons from other people’s positive actions as well. The Mishnah says, “Who is a wise person, he who learns from all people”. The Gemorrah in Eruvin, (100) says that were we to not have been given the Torah, we could have learned good qualities from the animals, such as modesty from the cat, or industriousness from the ant. We see from this Gemorah that a person is expected to pay close attention to the world around him, and learn a positive lesson from each and every one of its inhabitants. R’ Volbe even adds that a person should spend a half hour a day dedicating himself to merely actively observing the people around him and seeing what he can learn from them.
May we merit to properly understand the messages that Hashem sends to us in every form!