A.
זאת תהי' תורת המצורע ביום טהרתו והובא אל הכהן(“This will be the Torah of the m’tzora on the day of his purification, and he will be brought to the kohén;” XIV, 2).
The Torah’s discussion of the physical manifestations of a malady with metaphysical origins, tzora’âth, began in last week’s parasha and continues here with the description of the process to be followed once the sufferer, called a m’tzora, has been deemed ready for purification. The manifestations themselves are known by the term nega’îm, roughly “afflictions,” which is also the name of the tractate in the Mishna which deals with these manifestations. Just as the detection and diagnosis of the malady requires the offices of a trained, knowledgable kohén, so, too, does the release and purification of the m’tzora.
The Talmud discusses what appears to have been a particularly virulent nega, called ra’athan, and tells us: מכריז רבי יוחנן, הזהרו מזבובי של בעלי ראתן. רבי זירא לא הוה יתיב בזיקי'. רבי אלעזר לא עייל באהלי'. רבי אמי ורבי אסי לא הוו אכלי מביעי דההוא מבואה. ריב"ל מכריך בהו ועסיק בתורה, אמר "אילת אהבים ויעילת חן" -- אם חן מעלה על לומדי' אגוני לא מגנא? (“Rabbi Yochanan announced, 'Beware of the flies of people who have ra’athan.' Rabbi Zeira would not sit downwind from [them]. Rabbi El’azar would not enter an enclosed space with them. Rabbi Ami and Rabbi Assi would not eat of the eggs of a certain entranceway. Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi would fraternize with the [ba’âlei ra’athan] and engage in Torah; he said, ‘[The Torah is described as] a gazelle of lovers and doe [or conferrer] of charm [chén]’ [Proverbs V, 19; ועיי' היטב פי' הגר"א שם]; if it confers chén on those who learn it, surely it [also] protects;” כתובות ע"ז:).
The Ritv"a ad loc. sagely observes concerning Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi: ואפילו היכא דלא עסיק בה כדאמר בסוגיי' גבי "כי נר מצוה ותורה אור" דאורייתא אפילו בעידנא דלא עסיק בה מגינא ומצלי לעוסקים בה לשמה (“Even when he was not occupied with [Torah], as he says elsewhere concerning ‘For a candle is a mitzva and Torah light’ [Proverbs VI, 23] that Torah, even at a time when one is not engaged in it, defends and rescues those who do engage in it for its own sake [li-shmah]”).
But why did Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi’s colleagues, great talmidei chachamim all, appear to fear ra’athan and take Rabbi Yochanan’s warning seriously, whilst he evidently did not feel the need?
B.
If we peruse various Talmudic sources, we discover that: Rabbi Zeira was a kohén (ירושלמי ברכות פ"ג ה"א ); Rabbi El’azar was a kohén (מועד קטן כ"ח.); and Rabbi Ami and Rabbi Assi were both kohanim (מגילה כ"ב.). The only one of the people whose response to Rabbi Yochanan’s decree is recorded in the above passage who was not a kohén was Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi; from the fact that Miasha, his son’s son, is called a Lévi (חולין ק"ו:).
Armed with this information, we note an interesting remark of the Séfer ha-Chinnuch: ונוהגים טהרה זו בכל מקום ובכל זמן שיש כהן חכם בנגעים. כן פירש הרמב"ם זכרונו לברכה וכן ראיתי בספרא (“The purification [of m’tzor’îm] is in effect in every place and every time that there is a kohén expert in nega’îm. Thus did the Ramba"m of blessed memory explain, and thus did I see in the Sifra [a collection of halachic midrashim];” סוף מצוה קע"ג).
We can safely assume that if the likes of Rabbi Zeira, Rabbi El’azar, Rabbi Ami and Rabbi Assi were kohanim, they were probably expert in this field of Torah, too. If so, we can see that they may well have had professional reasons for having to visit periodically ba’âlei ra’athan.
Such work, of course, would have been a mitzva, and there is a well-known principle, articulated in several places in the Talmud, that שלוחי מצוה אינן ניזוקין, (“Those embarked on a mitzva are not harmed;” עיי' למשל פסחים ח. וקידושין ל"ט:). If so, our question becomes even stronger: What did they have to fear, and Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi did not?
C.
The key to understanding the matter, it seems to me, lies in the Ritv"a’s conclusion: דאורייתא כו' מגינא ומצלי לעוסקים בה לשמה (that the Torah... defends and rescues those who engage in it for its own sake”).
The great sage Shmaya’s watchword used to be: אהוב את המלאכה ושנא את הרבנות וגו' (“Love useful work and hate rabbanuth....” אבות פ"א מ"י). The latter word can certainly be understood as meaning “greatness, authority over others” in general; thus, for instance, Rash"i on the mishna (echoed by Rabbeinu Yona) quotes the famous midrash: מפני מה יוסף מת קודם אחיו? מפני שנהג עצמו ברבנות (“Why did Yosef predecease his brothers? Because he conducted himself with rabbanuth;” בראשית רבה פ"ק סי' ד'), and Rabbi Ovadya mi-Bartenura cites Rav’s advice to Rav Kahana: פשוט נבלתא בשוקא וטול אגרא ולא תימא כהנא אנא, גברא רבא אנא, וסניא בי מילתא (“Skin a carcass in the marketplace and claim the profit, rather than say, I am a kohén, I am a great man, and the thing is beneath me;” פסחים קי"ג.).
Yet, it will surely not be lost on any reader that Rav Kahana was a kohén, and was a great man, as was Rav, and as most surely was Yosef ben Ya’aqov, whom Chazal repeatedly call Yoséf ha-tzaddiq. So we ned to dig a bit deeper.
The first rosh yeshiva of Volozhin, R’ Chayyim, in his classic Ruach Chayyim, understands the word rabbanuth in its more usual contemporary meaning: ויל דרך צחות יתפרש "אהוב את המלאכה" נמשך אל הרבנות, והיינו מלאכת הרבנות יאהב, והוא הלימוד והבקיאות בהוראה ולשנוא את הרסנות טהתרברבות בעצם. ובעוה"ר עתה הדבר להיפך, אוהבים הרבנות ושונאים מלאכתה לדעת להורות כדת ודין בבקיאות ובעיון (“Clearly ‘love useful work’ may be interpreted in reference to rabbanuth, that is, one should love the work of rabbanuth, the learning and breadth of study of instruction in halacha [hora’a], and to hate rabbanuth and the trappings of office themselves. And due to ourt many sins, today it is the other way round: People love rabbanuth and despise its work, to know how to rule precisely and correctly, with breadth and depth of knowledge”).
R’ Chayyim does not intend this, G-d forbid, necessarily as criticism of those dedicated individuals who assume the burdens of leadership in their communities: ואמנם ההוראה דבר יקר הוא, ומי יורה דעה ומי ידון אם לא השרידים אשר ד' קורא, אבל הרב יאהב רק את מלאכת ההוראה היינו הלימוד כי מלאכת מצוה היא, אבל הרבנות אף שיהא רב ישנאנה (“And of course hora’a is a precious thing, and who else should impart knowledge and judge if not those remaining ones whom Ha-Shem calls, but the rabbi should love only the work of hora’a, that is, learning, for it is a work of mitzva, but rabbanuth, even if he is a rabbi, he should hate”).
D.
R’ Chayyim concludes by citing a Talmudic passage (סנהדרין י"ד.) which recounts how Rabbi Zeira resisted receiving rabbinical smicha until finally prevailed upon, as the model attitude toward rabbanuth. If we peruse the entire passage (as R’ Chayyim recommends), we find our entire cast of characters again: Rabbi El’azar, Rabbi Ami and Rabbi Assi, it seems, were all similarly reluctant musmachim (וע"ע שם ז.).
This provides us with a window on their character which allows us finally to understand the attitude towards ra’athan described supra. None of these men were any less dedicated to learning than Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi; however, since they were all kohanim, they all suspected that, perhaps, their learning this one topic in Torah, the laws of nega’îm had been just a little less li-shmah than their other learning, since as kohanim they had what may be called a professional interest in acquiring the expertise. It was not that they had no protection at all from ba’âlei ra’athan, but rather that the protection applied to them in their capacity as shluchei mitzva, people on their way to, or in the act of, performing a mitzva. Having completed the mitzva, they were less certain of themselves than was Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi, who as a non-kohén did not share their professional interest, and was sure that his learning of those halachoth was therefore entirely li-shmah.
Ki nér mitzva, the Ritv"a quoted Proverbs supra -- For a mitzva is a candle, the vessel or vehicle -- Torah or, bearing the light of Torah in this world.
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