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.

Parshath Ki Thazria‘/Mëtzora‘ (Leviticus XII,1-XVI,33) 4/16/10

A.

This week’s double parasha centres on the topic of tum’a. The word, which has no actual English equivalent, signifies a state of metaphysical unfitness. The state (in which an object or person is said to be tamé’) can be incurred by physical contact, or proximity within an enclosed area (technically an ohel or “tent”) with someone or something already tamé’; it can be induced by the departure or separation of something sacred, such as a nëshama, whether through death or, as at the beginning of out parasha, the birth and separation of a child from its mother’s womb; or a particularly potent and virulent form of it can be induced through improper actions, especially the defamatory mode of speech called lashon ha-ra‘. In this case, the state has a physical manifestation in the form of one of several nëga‘im, a condition called collectively tzora‘ath.

Tzora‘ath is termed in the Septuagint, leukousía, (from the Greek word leukós, “white,” due to the white appearance of the nëga‘im) a term which came to refer to Hansen’s Disease, or “lep-rosy”; hence the common mistranslation, born of later change in the Greek word’s meaning. Careful reading of our parasha reveals that the symptoms of tzora‘ath are not those of leprosy; tzora‘ath is a manifestation of a spiritual or metaphysical ill, not a physical one.

Tum’a in general mandates a degree of separation or distance between the person or object which is tamé’ and the rest of the world. Even in the case of the rather stringent tum’ath méth, the tum’a associated with a corpse, as the Maharal mi-Prag notes in his Gur Aryeh, המת הוא מטמא אבל אין זה משום פחיתות המת רק שהמת נבדל מן החיים ומרוחק מהם ולכן הנוגע במת טמא ומרוחק (“the dead induce tum’a, but this does not disparage the dead; rather, because the dead are separated from the living and distanced from them, therefore one who touches a dead person is tamé’ and distanced”).

But even in the case of the potent tum’ath méth it is enough for the living to avoid contact or close proximity within an enclosed area, whilst in the case of the tum’a of tzora‘ath the Torah mandates that the mëtzora‘, the sufferer, be driven from contact with settled life, to dwell בדד מחוץ למחנה (“alone, outside the camp”; XIII, 46). Why is this so? What is actually going on here?

B.

The offense with which tzora‘ath is most commonly associated is that if lashon ha-ra‘, speech which, even though true, is both defamatory and unnecessary, that is, it serves no useful purpose. Though the detailed provisions of the laws concerning lashon ha-ra‘ are intricate (detailed study of the classic work Shëmirath ha-Lashon is definitely called for), the preceding sentence captures the essence of the offense.

As the midrash famously relates, commenting on XIV, 2: מעשה ברוכל אחד שהי' מחזיר בעיירות שהיו סמוכות לצפורי והי' מכריז ואומר מאן בעי למזבן סם חיים וכו' ר' ינאי הוה יתיב כו' א"ל אנת לא צריך לי' ולא דכוותך כו' אטרח עלי' סליק לגבי' הוציא לו ספר תהלים הראה לו פסוק "מי האיש החפץ חיים" מה כתיב בתרי' "נצור לשונך מרע סור מרע ועשה טוב" א"ר ינאי אף שלמה מכריז ואומר "שומר פיו ולשונו שומר מצרות נפשו" וגו' (“a story concerning a certain peddler who was going about the municipalities near Sepphoris, declaring and saying, 'Who wishes to buy an elixir of life?' ... Rabbi Yannai was sitting... [The peddler told him], ‘You don’t need [this], nor does anyone like you’... and [Rabbi Yannai] confronted him; he took out the book of Psalms and showed him the verse, ‘Who is the man desirous of life?’ What is written thereafter? ‘Guard your tongue from evil; turn from evil and do good....[XXXIV,13]’ Said Rabbi Yannai, 'Shëlomo, too, declares and says, "Who guards his mouth and tongue is protected from the woes of his life" [Proverbs XXI, 23]'”; ויקרא רבה פט"ז סי' ).

Guarding one’s tongue is the elixir of life, so failing to do so is a drug of a different sort. Chazal cite the poisoning of the social fabric resulting from such talk as the reason for the mëtzora‘’s isolation: הוא הבדיל בין איש לאשתו בין איש לרעהו לפיכך אמרה תורה "בדד ישב" (“He came between man and wife, man and fellow; therefore the Torah has said, ‘he will dwell alone’”; ערכין ט"ז:).

Elsewhere, though, we see that other transgressions can result in tzora‘ath: על י' דברים נגעים באים על ע"ז על ג"ע ועל ש"ד ועל חילול השם ועל ברכת השם ועל הגוזל את הרבים ועל הגוזל את שאינו שלו ועל גסי רוח ועל ל"ה ועל עין הרע (“Because of 10 things nëga‘im come: Because of idolatry, sexual impropriety, bloodshed, desecration of the Divine Name, cursing Ha-Shem, robbing the public, robbing what does not belong to one, being coarse of spirit [gasei ruach], lashon ha-ra‘, and the evil eye”; ויקרא רבה פי"ז סי' ג'). For each of these the midrash adduces a Biblical illustration.

Putting aside the precise definition of each of these offenses, it is striking that, over and over again, Chazal emphasize two of them in particular: Lashon ha-ra‘, as already noted, and gasuth ruach, which can be defined as the immediate result of a midda called ga’ava, or pride (עיי' למשל במדבר רבה פי"ט סי' ג', תורת כהנים, פרשת מצורע, אבות דרבי נתן פי"א, ועוד).

C.

Hence it is clear that the root and source of all of the above transgressions lies in a measure of arrogance. Idolatry is, e.g., quintessentially egotism; when one fashions one’s own god of stone, metal or wood, is not the “god-maker” the greater being? Similarly, harming others in various ways, rebelling against G-d, and so on, can only be justified by a sense of superiority and entitlement over others, who “obviously” must be less important that oneself.

However, this midda is an inherent part of the human condition, and again a little thought reveals why: human beings are, after all, created in the dëmuth Eloqim, the “likeness of G-d.” With this in mind, consider the following passage, which should be familiar from every qabbalath shabbath: ד' מלך גאות לבש (“Ha-Shem rules utterly, cloaked in pride [gé’uth]” Psalms XCIII, 1).
Analyze the phrase: The main verb, malach, is perfective, not a “past tense”; it rather signifies that something is done to perfection, to the ultimate, nth degree. Here, it signifies the complete, total, uncompromised mastery of the Creator over His creation. From the point of view of the creatures over whom He reigns, then, He is “cloaked in pride”, much as a flesh-and-blood king overawes his subjects (עיי' ראב"ע ומצודת דוד על אתר ).

This is entirely appropriate for G-d, but the midda is replicated in us, where it is much less appropriate; hence, constant vigilance is required to keep it under control and in subjection, lest it do its self-destructive worst on us as individuals and as members of society at large.

D.

זאת תהי' תורת המצורע ביום טהרתו כו' וצוה הכהן ולקח למטהר שתי צפרים חיות טהרות ועץ ארז ושני תולעת ואזב: (“This will be the Torah of the mëtzora‘ on the day of his purification.... And the kohén will command and he will take for the one being purified two living, kosher birds and cedar wood and worm-scarlet [shëni thola‘ath] and hyssop [ézov]”; XIV, 2-4).

The Talmud tells us (יומא ס"ב:) that two birds are specified, even though the minimum plural is already two, because the birds must be utterly equal in all regards, for they represent the sinner and his victim; equality must be restored between the parties before peace can be reëstablished (the gimatriya or numerical value of tzippor, “bird,” is 376, the same as shalom).

The Maharal takes note of the two extremes prescribed in our passage, the wood of the very tall cedar tree, and the strip of scarlet, dyed with a preparation made of a worm. In between the two, it would seem, is the hyssop, a low bush; yet the tola‘ath, the worm, directly follows the cedar and precedes the ézov, in contradiction of the apparent continuum. Why?

דודאי מתחלה יש להשפיל עצמו כתולעת שהוא שפל מאד שיתרחק מן העבירה שהי' מתחלה חטא בגאוה, ואם לא יפרוש לצד אחד לאחוז במדת השפלות מאד מאד לא יצא מידי חטאו כו' ואחר כך יהי' כאזוב ואין צריך להשפיל עצמו כתולעת ולפיכך מקדים הכתוב שני התולעת ואחר כך האזוב כי השפלות יותר מדאי אין ראוי כי כל מדה טובה בעולם יש לו מצוע וגו' (“For certainly from the start [of repentance] one should humble oneself like a tola‘ath, which is very lowly, in order to distance himself from the transgression which was in origin a sin of ga’ava, and if one doesn’t remove to one side and grasp the quality of being very, very humble, he will not emerge from the grip of his sin... Afterward, he will be like the ézov, and it is not necessary to humble himself like a tola‘ath, and therefore Scripture precedes the shëni thola‘ath and afterwards the ézov, for humility to too great a degree is not proper, for every good midda in the world has a middle range....”; ע"ע רמב"ם הקדמה למס' אבות).

Having acknowledged standing at the extreme of the tall cedar’s inappropriate exaltation, one must reach toward the other extreme of excessive humility, but then pull back from the nadir to the midrange represented by the ézov, a low bush. Either extreme has its own dangers, and one must avoid occupying either position for too long a time.

The sefarim ha-qëdoshim tell us that each of these qualities has its place in a healthy personality. One must be sufficiently humble to accept one’s rôle as a servant of the Al-Mighty, subject to His commands, but also be sufficiently proud to stand up for the këvod ha-Boré’ vë-Thoratho when necessary. This is why such qualities are called middoth, measures, and the relative optimal amounts can be deduced from the position of the low ézov bush between the tall cedar and the lowly tola‘ath.

Parshath Thazria‘/M’tzora‘ (Leviticus XII,1-XV,33) 4/23/09

A.

Our double parasha very largely focuses on the issues of nega‘im, specific manifestations of a malaise more generally called tzora‘ath. Often quite erroneously translated “leprosy,” tzora‘ath is not Hanson’s Disease, as a careful review of the symptoms reported in our text will show. Tzora‘ath is a physical manifestation of spiritual or metaphysical disorders, the best known of which is lashon ha-ra‘. Also, entirely unlike any natural disease known to the medical arts, tzora‘ath can afflict inanimate objects, such as clothing (cf. XIII, 16-59) and houses, the subject of this essay.


כי תבאו אל ארץ כנען אשר אני נתן לכם לאחזה ונתתי נגע צרעת בבית ארץ אחזתכם: ובא אשר לו הבית והגיד לכהן לאמר כנגע נראה לי בבית: (“For you will come to the land of Canaan which I am giving you for a freehold; and I shall place a nega‘ tzora‘ath on the house of your freehold. And the one who has the house will come and tell the kohén, saying, Like a nega‘ [k’nega‘] has appeared to me in the house”; XIV, 34-35).


Like every other possible nega‘, this one requires the professional diagnosis of a kohén before it can be pronounced actual tzora‘ath. Hence, Chazal seize upon the term k’nega‘ to stress: ואפילו ת"ח ויודע ודאי שהוא נגע לא יגזור ויאמר "נגע" אלא "כנגע" (“And even [if the householder] is a scholar and knows certainly that it is a nega‘, he should not decide the issue and say nega‘ but rather k’nega‘”; נגעים פי"ב מ"ה).


Fair enough, but this applies equally to every manifestation of a nega‘, not only one which appears in a house, and yet in the other discussions of manifestations on the bodies of people we see no prescribed formula of what to say to the kohén in our parasha, merely that it be brought to a kohén for examination and diagnosis. Indeed, in the case of a manifestation on one’s clothing, we find: והי' הנגע ירקרק או אדמדם בבגד או בעור או בשתי או בערב או בכל כלי עור נגע צרעת הוא והראה את הכהן (“And [if] the nega‘ be greenish or reddish in the garment or in the leather, or in the warp or in the woof or in any article of leather, it is a nega‘ tzora‘ath and shall be shown the kohén”; XIII, 49), which certainly sounds as though one is permitted to diagnose oneself and seek confirmation from the kohén.


If we add to this the fact that the verb nir’a in v. 35 above also has the connotation "seem,” such that our householder would be understood by the kohén to be saying, “It seems to me that there is a nega‘” even without the comparative prefix k-, we appear justified in attached some additional meaning to the prefix. Indeed, Chazal apparently perceived such a meaning, and Rashi agreed, since along with the mishna cited above, he also mentions the following midrash: בשורה היא להם שהנגעים באים עליהם לפי שהטמינו אמוריים מטמוניות של זהב בקירות בתיהם ארבעים שנה שהיו ישראל במדבר וע"י הנגע נותץ הבית ומוצאן (“It is good news [besora] to them that the nega‘im befall them, because the Emoriyyim hid golden treasures in the walls of their houses the entire forty years that Israel were in the desert, and by means of the nega‘ the house was demolished and one found them”).

In other words, it was not a nega‘, a genuine affliction reflecting some sore deficiency in the householder, but rather “like” a nega‘, which in fact was interpreted as good news (at least, once the first few hoards of gold were found).

But these surely all occurred during the first year or two after the conquest of the Holy Land. Since the Torah’s message is timeless, what does this rather arcane story of tzora‘ath afflicting a house have to tell us in our age?

B.

The Talmud tells us: תנא משמי' דרבי עקיבא לעולם יהא אדם רגיל לומר כל דעביד רחמנא לטב עביד (“It was taught in Rabbi ‘Aqiva’s name, A person should always be accustomed to say, 'Everything the Merciful One does, He does for good'”; ברכות ס: ולהלכה מובא בשו"ע או"ח סי' ר"ל סע' ה'). Elsewhere, we find an account of Rabbi Nachum ish gam zo, whose watchwords were always גם זו לטובה (“Even this is for good”; תענית כ"א.).

At first glance, both aphorisms appear roughly equivalent, but some thought reveals a crucial difference. Rabbi ‘Aqiva’s statement is rather passive. It implies that one is to believe that G-d runs the world, and that everything which He brings about in it is for the good, regardless of how it is perceived by a human witness. Things may seem black, he tells us, utterly devoid of any discernible positive content; nonetheless, we are halachically mandated to believe that G-d knows what He is doing, and that everything will come out all right in the end. Rabbi Nachum ish gam zo is on quite a different level. He was capable of seeing mill’chat’chilla, “from the beginning” that whatever occurs is in fact good. With R’ Nachum, there was no negative perception in the first place; rather, what others might view as a negative development, he was able to grasp in its fullness and see immediately the good in it.

Rabbi ‘Aqiva’s formulation was for his students, regardless of their attainments; it is brought down l’halacha because it is the minimum requirement of emuna pshuţa, of simple faith in Ha-Shem, that everything will come out right. Rabbi Nachum illustrates the personal capabilities of a mature talmid chacham.

And this, I think, is what Rashi and the midrash see in our verse. K’nega‘ nir’a li, says our wise householder; a thing which to everyone else seems like a nega‘, but to me is a besora, has appeared in my house. This is the sort of faith engendered by the realization that ד' הוא האלקים אין עוד מלבדו (“Ha-Shem is the G-d [i.e. the true origo et fons of every force or function perceived in the world around us], there is nothing else beside Him”; Deuteronomy IV, 39; ע"ע נפש החיים ש"ג פ"ג).

C.

There remains, however, the question of why G-d should choose this particular form for the besora that golden treasure. Whilst, as perusal of the rest of the passage makes clear, this would surely guarantee that the householder would tear down the house and thereby find the treasure, one cannot help but think that He could have got the message across in some other way which did not necessarily suggest a spiritual deficiency in our erudite householder; as we have seen, the Torah appears at pains to suggest that such a person could be a scholar and tzaddiq of the lofty attainments of Nachum ish gam zo.

One must remember that the Emoriyyim were one of the seven Canaanite tribes. The Canaanites in general, and the Emoriyyim in particular, bore an apparently well-deserved reputation as sharp and unscrupulous traders (they were known to the Greeks as “Phoenicians”, because amongst their wares was cloth dyed with the blood of the phoinix, a shellfish, and to the Romans subsequently as Puni, with whom they fought the Punic Wars, largely over trade issues). Indeed, in later biblical Hebrew, the very word Kna‘ani came to mean a merchant, especially a sharp one (cf. e.g. Proverbs XXXI, 24; Isaiah XXIII, 8; and especially Zechariah CIV, 21).

What plots, what gloating and boasting did the walls of those Emori houses witness concerning the way in which that gold was gained? What crooked deals and practices were celebrated within them?

The spiritual deficiency being indicated, then, was that of the houses’ original owners, not the new ones, and the indication was a clear warning to the new occupants and their neighbors who were of course aware of Emori business ethics, not to follow the same path in their own deals. וכמעשה ארץ כנען כו' לא תעשו ובחקתיהם לא תלכו, “And according to the practices of the land of Canaan... you shall not act, nor shall you go in their laws”; Leviticus XIX, 2) does not necessarily only refer to their disgustingly licentious idolatrous rites. The ‘avon ha-Emori which had not yet fully matured in Avraham’s day (cf. Genesis XV, 16, Rashi ad loc.) covered a full range of activities.

D.

From all of the above, then, we see that at a minimum we are obligated to accept that every cloud has a silver lining, even if we are unable to perceive it in the immediate circumstances. This is the halacha, applicable to and attainable by everyone.

However, we are also able to strive for the higher and more sublime level which Rabbi Nachum had achieved, such that, with the spiritual “x-ray vision” afforded the talmid chacham by da‘ath Torah, through his complete immersion and suffusion with the Torah’s outlook, we are in fact able to pierce the grey veil from the cloud’s first appearance on the horizon, and see the silver lining for ourselves.

Parshath M’tzora (Leviticus XVI,1-XVI,33) 4/11/08

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.