From: JoshHoff@aol.com
Sent: Friday, April 04, 2008 3:36 AM
To: JoshHoff@aol.com
Subject: Netvort:parhshas Tazria,5768
Dead Man Walking
By Rabbi Joshua (theatrically known as The Hoffer) Hoffman
This week's Torah reading deals in large part with the laws of tzara'as,
which is usually translated as leprosy. These laws begins with the statement,
"If a man will have on the flesh of his skin a s'eis, or a sapachas, or a
baheres, and it will become a tzara'as affliction on the skin of his flesh, he
shall be brought to Aharon the kohein or to one of his sons the kohanim
(Vayikra 13 . 1). It is interesting to note that while in the Hebrew language
there are four words for man - ish, gever, enosh and adam, the word used here
is 'adam,' which, according to the Zohar, connotes the highest level of man.
Why would the Torah use this expression when dealing with a person who has
contracted the highest level of impurity? Wouldn't he seem to be on a lower
level? Although we have discussed this in the past ( see Netvort
toTazria-Metzorah,5761), I would like to suggest a somewhat different
approach,based on some sources I have seen since then.
As we have noted in the past,the Talmud ( Bava Kama,38a) tells us that the word
'adam' applies only to a Jew. Rabbi Ephraim of Lunshitz,in his Olelos Ephraim,
explains that this term is different from the other three Hebrew terms for man
in that the other three words take on a different form in the plural that in
the singular.The plural of ish is ishim of gever is gevarim, and of enosh is
anashim. However,the plural of adam is adam.By saying that only a Jew is called
adam,what Chazal are telling us is that the individual Jew is inextricably
bonded with the collective of the Jewish people. This is not true of any other
nation.Asmy teacher, Rav Aharon Soloveichik,explained,if someone from England
moves to America,after a generation or two his family will no longer be
identified as English,but as American. A Jew,however, no matter where he comes
from and no matter where he goes,is always identified as a Jew. Based on this
explanation,we can understand the qualification made by Rabbeinu Tam,that a
non- Jew is sometimes referred to, in Scripture, as
'ha-adam,'but not as 'adam.' Ha-adam - the man- refers to a specific
person,and,so,can be used in reference to a non-Jew,as well.
However,'adam'-man-can only refer to a Jew,because it implies that the
individual is inextricably bound to the collective. If we now take
another look at the term adam,and connect it to the term for primeval man-adam
harishon-we can understand it to be an allusion to the uniqueness of the
individual,and the special mission he is given to accomplish in the world.The
mishnah in Sanhedrin (37a) tells us that man was created as a single
individual in order to impress this quality of his uniqueness upon
him.Man,says the mishnah,is obligated to say,each day,that the world was
created for him,meaning that he has a unique role to play in the world that no
one else can fulfill.When we see this notion in the context of the connection
of each individual Jew to the Jewish collective, the message conveyed is that
the unique mission that each individual Jew is charged with is inextricably
connected with the goals of the Jewish nation as a collective. With this
observation in mind, we can return to the use of the term adam in connection
with the affliction of tzara'as.
Although the rabbis view tzara'as as a punishment for any of seven different
sins,the primary sin that it is associated with is leshon hora, or evil
talk.One of the nefarious effects of such talk is to impair the self-image of
the person who is spoken about. Actually,the rabbis tell us that leshon hora
kills three people-the one who speaks it, the one of whom it is spoken,and the
one to whom it is spoken. We can explain this to mean that in all three cases,
the activity of leshon hora impedes the person involved from actualizing his
true self and accomplishing his mission in life,because his attention is
focused on the evil talk and what it communicates about that person,rather than
each person focusing on what he really has to contribute. When this happens,not
only is the individual involved effected, but society as a whole loses,because
the unique roles that these people were charged with accomplishing will now not
be fulfilled,and,so,in a sense,these people can be considered as dead in terms
of their contribution to the nation. Perhaps this is why the rabbis
tell us that a metzorah is considered as being dead.
Readers familiar with the playwright Eugene O'Neill's
semi-autobiographical masterwork,Long Day's Journey Into Night,may recall the
final scene of the play,in which Jamie, the older son in the family, who is an
alcoholic and a failed writer and actor, reveals the innermost depths of his
heart to his younger brother,Edmund. Jamie tells Edmund,in the
midst of a drunken stupor, that,although he loves him and is devoted to
him, part of hi inner-self wants him to fail. In
part, Jamie says,he wants his brother to fall into dissolution, as
he had,so that he would not make him look worse in light of his success as a
wrier. Jamie, in explaining this to his brother,tells him that it is the
dead part of himself that seeks to do this. This is exactly what a person who
is addicted to leshon hora does,and to the extent that he is obsessed with his
evil talk, he is, in effect, dead,and bringing death to those around him, as
well. In this way, he is effectively killing the 'adam' aspect of his own
personality as well as those of others. When this happens
among Jews,the entire nation suffers,because it loses the unique
contributions that only these people can make. For this reason, the
metzora must be isolated from society until he is able to once again
become a productive member of it by actualizing his own potential, and allowing
others to actualize theirs.
Netvort archives are
temporarily available at http://www.yucs.org/heights/torah/bysubject/
Please address all
correspondence to the author (Rabbi Hoffman) with the following address -
JoshHoff @ AOL.com.
To subscribe to Netvort, send a message with subject line subscribe,
to Netvort@aol.com. To
unsubscribe, send message with subject line unsubscribe, to the
same address.
Planning your summer road trip? Check out AOL
Travel Guides.