Parshath Mëtzora‘ (Leviticus XIV,1-XV,33) 4/8/11

A.

Last week’s parasha detailed the laws of a condition called tzora‘ath, a physical ailment with metaphysical roots often mistranslated “leprosy” (even though its described symptoms bear little resemblance to Hanson’s Disease). The condition is caused by the misuse of those faculties famously described by Rashi as signifying the difference between human beings and animals, da‘ath vë-dibbur, “knowledge and speech.” Thus, the cause most often associated with tzora‘ath is lashon ha-ra‘, speech which, though technically true, is unnecessarily defamatory. Tzora‘ath is intended to single out a person who so abuses his essential humanity, to isolate him from the rest of society, and bring him to repentance. Our parasha begins with the complex process of returning such a repentant, now cured of the condition, to full membership in society. This discussion is then followed by: כי תבאו אל ארץ כנען אשר אני נתן לכם לאחזה ונתתי נגע צרעת בבית ארץ אחזתכם: (“For you will come to the land of Këna‘an which I am giving to you for a holding; and I shall place an affliction [nega‘] of tzora‘ath in the house of the land of your holding”; XIV, 34). The owner of such a house, seeing the nega‘, seeks confirmation from a kohén that it is indeed tzora‘ath, telling him כנגע נראה לי בבית (“like a nega‘ has appeared to me in the house”; ibid., 35). If the kohén confirms the nega‘, the householder must remove and get rid of the bricks or stones so afflicted (vv. 40-42). Rashi follows Hazal (עיי' הוריות י. וויקרא רבה פ") in telling us that the appearance of the nega‘ is a בשורה היא להם שהנגעים באים עליהם לפי שהטמינו אמוריים מטמוניות של זהב בקירות בתיהם כל ארבעים שנה שהיו ישראל במדבר וע"י הנגע נותץ הבית ומצאן (“piece of good news for them for the nëga‘im came upon them because the Emoriyyim hid gold treasures in the walls of their houses the entire forty years that Israel were in the desert, and because of the nega‘ the house was torn down and they were found”). This raises two interesting questions: 1) Why should G-d elect such an apparently negative way to send “good news” to the newly resident bënei Yisra’él? (2) This eventuality could only have had any relevance during the generation of the conquest and perhaps slightly thereafter, yet the Torah is eternally relevant; what, then, does this case of household tzora‘ath comes to teach us?

B.

Consider the precise words which the Torah puts into the householder’s mouth: kë-nega‘ nir’a li, “like a nega‘ has appeared to me.” The mishna rules: ואפילו ת"ח ויודע ודאי שהוא נגע לא יגזור ויאמר גגע אלא כנגע (“and even if he is a scholar and knows for certain that it is a nega‘, he should not decide the question and say “nega‘” but rather kë-nega‘”; נגים פי"ב מ"ה). The reason is that the Torah explicitly leaves the decision to the kohén; it is his to make (וע"ע תוי"ט שם). That said, it equally true of a nega‘ on one’s skin, that the decision is left up to the kohén and should not be made by the person so afflicted; yet, the Torah puts this statement into the mouth of the householder, rather than an actual mëtzora‘. Why is this?

C.

If we look about, we can find a very similar sort of usage when G-d contemplates splitting the adam into his constituent ish and isha, man and woman. He says: אעשה לו עזר כנגדו (‘I shall make for him a help-meet apposite him [kë-negdo]”; Genesis II, 18). The Hebrew word literally means “like against him,” “as though against him.” This way of phrasing the matter, it seems to me, highlights the nature of what the relationship between a man and his wife should be. Even though at times a man may think that his wife is acting against him, it only seems to him momentarily “as though” it is so. If he thinks about it, he will understand that she really has his best interests at heart. She may be mistaken, but she does not consciously act against him; it only seems “as though against him,” kë-negdo. Similarly here: the householder surely does not initially view the appearance of tzara‘ath on the walls of his house as any great piece of news. He must now go find the kohén, and if the kohén agrees with his assessment, then he must go to the trouble of ripping down his house and hauling away the stones. Finding the gold would appear to mitigate the tirha, the trouble to which he has been put, but it does not relieve it altogether. So the Torah is telling us that we must accept the fact that the Holy One, Blessed is He, is running the world, and He always has a our best interests at heart. We need to look even at such an event as the tzora‘ath in our house in terms of the good which comes from it (in this case, the hidden treasures), rather than focusing and obsessing about the bad. This view of the world is embodied in the famous words of Rabbi ‘Aqiva, that כל דעביד רחמנא לטב עביד (“Whatever the Merciful One does, He does for the good”; ברכות ס: ) and Rabbi Nahum Ish Gam-Zo, who was so called because he would constantly declare on seeing some apparently bad thing,גם זו לטובה (“This, too, is for good”; תענית ב"א., סנהדרין כ"ח:).

D.

Why was this good news delivered in this negative fashion? The secret, I believe, lies in the name of the specific Këna‘ani tribe whose practice Hazal and Rashi highlight, the Emoriyyim. If we examine the tribal name, we will perceive that it is built on the root alef-mem-réysh, which means “to say, tell.” The Béyth ha-Lévi asks why tzora‘ath should afflict an inanimate object, rather than the person guilty of the sin, and concludes that the reason is that ones actions have consequences for one’s surroundings and environment. If a person engages in mitzvoth and acts of hesed, then his environs are uplifted and exalted by his actions; if he acts otherwise, his surroundings are negatively affected. Similarly, a person is affected by his environment. If hew lives in a place in which mitzvoth and hesed are performed, he, too, will be influenced to the good; if not, the influence will go the other way. In the case of the house, we can ascertain from the national name of the original owners that they “spoke,” and presumably, spoke ill of others, engaging in libel and character assassination the entire 40 years that they were hiding things in the walls, lest those terrible Jews get them. Forty years of such evil speech would have permeated the foundations of the house, rendering every inch of it tamé’. Worse still, the house itself would have become a point-source of spiritual corruption, a place so polluted that it was unfit to be inhabited. Hence, the new owner was encouraged to tear it down and build anew; the financing of the new building would come about through the very treasures which the Emoriyyim sought to hide from Këlal Yisra’él. And a very clear warning was delivered thereby to the new owners, not to act likewise.