Metzora 5774:            Don’t Give Up

By Rabbi Joshua (persistently known as The Hoffer) Hoffman

            The midrash (Rus Rabbah 2:10) tells us that if a person engages in lashon harah, or evil speech, he is first punished by tzora’as appearing on the walls of his house. If he repents and desists from speaking lashon harah, all is well. If, however, he continues his evil practice, tzora’as appears on his clothes, and if, after that, he still continues to speak lashon harah, he is afflicted with tzora’as on his body. The commentators point out however, that actually, in the Biblical account, these three types of tzora’as appear in the opposite order than in the above midrash. Why is this so?

            The Yalkut Me’Am Loez mentions one answer, which is that the Torah presents the order that it does to indicate that, in truth, the person who speak lashon harah deserves, at the outset, to be punished with tzora’as on his body. God, however, in His mercy, first brings tzora’as to his house, and then to his clothing, to serve as a warning to him to change.  If he doesn’t get the message and continues to misuse his gift of speech, he is, finally, punished with tzora’as on his body.  This answer conforms with a comment of the Rambam in his Moreh Nevochim concerning the rabbinic interpretation of the Biblical verse, “an eye for an eye”, as explained by my teacher Rav Aharon Soloveitchik (see the discussion in his “The Warmth and the Light” to Parshas Mishpatim), and, more generally, with the approach of Rabbi Yehudah Cooperman to the meaning of p'shat, or the plain sense of the verses of the Torah.  In a word, this approach argues that p’shat consists of the way things should be on an ideal level, before taking into consideration various mitigating factors.

            Rabbeinu Bachya, as cited by Rav Henoch Leibowitz in his Chidushei HaLeiv, offers another answer. He says that even though what the midrash says about the order of punishment is true, the Torah wishes to present the punishment as gradually decreasing rather than increasing. Rav Leibovitz explains that Rabbeinu Bachya does not mean to say that the Torah wishes to mislead people as to what actually will occur.  Rather, the Torah recognizes human nature, which is that if a person perceives that his misfortune is increasing, he will lose hope of ever changing. Therefore, it presents his punishment in a descending order, thereby encouraging him to change his ways.  Rav Leibowitz notes that we see from Rabbeinu Bachya’s answer the importance of choosing our words properly in speaking to people, taking into consideration their possible reaction.  We may add that this idea is reflective of the process of purification that the metzora must undergo. As part of this process, he brings two birds, one of which is slaughtered, and the other of which is sent out free. A number of commentators (see, for example, Aperion, by Rav Shlomo Ganzfried) explain, based on the Zohar, that the slaughtered bird represents the cessation of lashon harah, while the bird that is sent free represents good speech that the former metzora must now begin to reengage in.  Part of this new practice must be a careful choice of words before speaking, taking into consideration the nature of the person being addressed.

            As an added note, we may point out another midrash, cited by Rashi, on parshas Metzora, which says that the appearance of tzora’as in the houses of Eretz Yisroel when the nation first entered there was a good sign, because the Amorites hid treasures of gold in the walls of their houses during the forty years that the Jews were in the wilderness. Now that the houses had to be taken down, the treasures would be found. Why must this treasure come in a seemingly destructive manner?  Rav Hillel Lieberman, H’yd, in his Ahavas HaAretz, says that this is due to the principle mentioned in the Talmud (Berachos 5) that Eretz Yisroel is one of the three good gifts that are acquired only when accompanied by suffering.  Perhaps we can add that the suffering takes this form in order to convey the message to the repentant metzora that although the process he must go through in restoring his state of purity involves an act of destruction, the destruction clears up the effects of past misdeeds, and leads to a positive result, a hidden treasure. On a wider scale, this idea is reflected in the statement of Chazal that the moshiach, who initiates the redemption, was born on Tisha B’Av, the day in which the Beis HaMikdash was destroyed. May it be speedily rebuilt in our time.