Taking Control

By Rabbi Joshua (reinventedly known as The Hoffer) Hoffman

The process of declaring a person a metzora, someone who is afflicted with tzora’as, or leprosy, as defined by some, is described in this week’s parsha. The person who suspects that a spot on his body constitutes tzora’as is brought to the kohein, who views the spot, makes a determination and declares the person pure or impure. Actually, the halacha is that anyone who knows the laws of tzora’as can make that determination, and then tell it to the Kohen, who is the only one who can make the declaration. Why is the declaration the exclusive province of the kohein? After all, the kohein arguably has the most honored status in Jewish life. Why should he be the one to declare a person afflicted with the highest possible degree of impurity?

One answer that we have suggested in the past is that the kohein, in dealing with this area of halacha, is thereby demonstrating that, in the service of God, no activity is beneath his dignity, but, on the contrary, is a badge of honor. This idea was, according to the Talmud in Berachos (4a), expressed by King David, when he said that his hands were soiled with the blood of women’s flow brought to him to determine their halachik status. This idea was offered by Rav Dovid Feinstein to explain why the korbon pesach was the initiating service given to the Jewish people upon their redemption from Egypt.

Rav Ya’akov Ruderman, as cited by Rabbi Yissochor Frand, noted that the declaration of the status of the person with the spot, is made by the kohein through the pronouncement of a single word, either “pure”, or “impure.” Although tzora’as comes, according to the Talmud, for a variety of reasons, the most prominent of them is the sin of lashon hora or evil speech. The message to the metzora, then, is the importance of every single word that a person speaks. We may add that this message is delivered by the kohein, who used the power of speech to bring peace and reconciliation among people, while the metzora used it to plant discord among them.

Perhaps, we can suggest another reason for the kohein’s role in declaring a person a metzora. Rav Henoch Leibowitz, in his Chidushei HaLeiv, says, based on a midrash, that the reason that a metzora is afflicted with a condition that emerges from his body rather than suffering, for example, a loss of money, or property, is that losing control of one’s own body is particularly troublesome to a person. Such a punishment, it seems, is commensurate with the sin of leshon hora and the suffering it can generate. Although Rav Henoch does not say this, we may add that this loss of control of one’s own body had behind it the comment of the rabbis that a metzora is considered as being dead. The loss of a loved one, too, particularly of one’s own child, is also, in a sense, akin to the loss of part of one’s own self. When Aharon lost his two sons, Nadav and Avihu, he reacted with silence, although, as the midrash tells us, he could have articulated some form of complaint. Aharon, however, said nothing, realizing that he needed, under his new circumstances, to reassess his life and adjust it in dealing with what occurred. This reaction was to serve as a model for the metzora, who, through his condition, loses control of himself, and needs to engage in a process of reinvention. This process begins with silence and a development of an understanding of how to use the gift of speech in a positive way. Rav Tzvi Yehudah Kook, used to say that the plain meaning of the terms shemiras halashon is guarding oneself from speaking, which is sometimes necessary. The kohein, then, is the proper person for the metzora in this process.