Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz: Taking Responsibility For Your Life

Okay, so I have the the awesome responsibility of being in charge of the recording today. Yes. So I've never had uh Are you ready to start? I am ready to start. Yeah, yeah. And we're we posting this up here for those in the uh future listening audience. There is obviously as you will discover there is no video tonight. Right. So again my apologies uh but there will be an audio that God willing will be posted and if you hear me say this, that means it has been posted. So okay. So tonight's sheer is a refuah shleimah for Nuta ben Ziso and a Shira na Hamatova bat Sara, Baruch ben Frida, and for all of those whose health has been affected by the war and especially for the safe and quick return of our brothers and sisters held in captivity and the success of the IDF and Am Yisrael and the unity of Am Yisrael. Aliyat neshama Yitzchak Kirsh ben Eliezer and then once again an anonymous donation was made for the nitzachon of the chayalim and for the hostages to return safe and totally healthy. And uh as we as we enter the month of Nissan which is the month of geulah Hashem's protection of all of Klal Yisrael should come together with the geulah shleimah in our days. Hazal tell us "Ba Nissan nigalu, we were redeemed in the month of Nissan u'va Nissan asidim ligael." And the future redemption will be in Nissan. B'ezrat Hashem, may we be zocheh to see the yeshuat Hashem, the salvation of Hakadosh Baruch Hu in all all different ways, all the ways that we need, the world needs. So Pesach is coming, Rosh Chodesh Nissan. And what I want to talk about is I actually want to talk about the parshat shavua but it will actually have a connection to Pesach so the things work out. Uh now this is only true uh in a leap year. Uh normally parshat Tazria which is the parsha of the week we're reading is normally read after Pesach. But in a leap year all the parshiyot because you add an extra month, so some of the later parshiyot are read before Pesach. So this year parshat Tazria, number one, it's not connected to Metzora because in a leap year the parshiyot are separated because you have more weeks. In a non-leap year, Tazria and Metzora are usually joined. Uh and number two, we of course read it before Pesach. So uh Vayikra as a whole, Chumash Vayikra as a whole has a very uh deserved reputation as being highly technical very difficult, full of rules that are difficult to uh number one even understand on a literal level and symbolically and spiritually are kind of a a mystery. I always think of a cute passage in Jane Eyre. Jane Eyre was a precocious little girl, not Jewish uh but uh she loved Bible stories. So she was asked at some point in the in Jane Eyre uh you know, what does she what are her favorite Bible stories? So she said she loves Genesis and a lot of Exodus but Leviticus is a little hard. She was like 10 years old and Leviticus is not her thing. And I think unfortunately uh that's true for many many Yidden, many many Jews as well. And yet I did mention a few weeks ago that Chumash Vayikra including all of these detailed halachot we're going to look at tonight was actually the very first Chumash that was taught to little children. When little children would begin Chumash they would begin not with Bereishit they would begin with Vayikra because we are told that the children before bar mitzvah are pure korbanos are pure. Let those who are pure occupy themselves with Torah ideas that are pure. So Vayikra was obviously uh you know, we began learning Chumash at five, that's what Pirkei Avot says. Obviously the thought was that even a five-year-old could absorb the basic meaning of Chumash Vayikra. Now even within Vayikra, however, the parsha we're dealing with this week is extraordinarily difficult. Now it starts off there there really two things in the parsha, it's interesting. Um the beginning of the parsha are referring to the laws of childbirth, but that's only a very small part of the parsha. The bulk of the parsha is about the laws of leprosy. So in a sense, although next week's parsha is called Metzora parshat Tazria is around 85% the laws of tzaraat. So I'm going to talk about both parts of it. I want to talk a little bit about childbirth and then mainly talk about tzaraat and I want to connect tzaraat to Pesach, the chametz and matzah and some of the messages of Pesach. First the Torah says a very interesting thing. A woman after childbirth uh is obligated to bring a korban to the Mishkan or to the Beit Hamikdash. If she gives birth to a boy she brings a korban on the 41st day after birth. If she gives birth to a girl she brings a korban on the 81st day after birth. 41st or 81st? 41st and 81st. 41st for zachar 81st for nekeivah. What's interesting is the obligation of this korban is not only if it is a live birth but even if God forbid it is a stillbirth a miscarriage assuming the fetus was already 40 days old so it was sufficiently some level of development there is a chiyuv of a korban. So question number one is why does a woman after childbirth bring a korban? Now the logical answer you would give is well it's an expression of thanksgiving like a korban todah. But the truth of the matter is that can't be the reason because I just said you even bring it when there's a stillbirth so there's no particular gratitude when the child is not born alive. Second of all, the Torah itself indicates this is not a thanksgiving offering. This is a sin offering. It is a korban chatat. The woman brings a sin offering after childbirth, not a peace offering, not a thanksgiving offering. So what's the sin? What's the sin involved? So again, there are a few different associations. One association is that going all the way back to Chava the pain of labor, the pain of childbirth is reminiscent of the consequences of the cheit of Adam and Chava in the eating of the Eitz HaDa'at. That's why the pain and travail of childbirth came into the world. So every time a woman experiences that pain and travail that brings us back to the imperfection of the world that was engendered by the cheit of the Eitz HaDa'at. So it's not so much she's bringing a sin offering because she sinned, it's not so much she sinned but rather what is happening to her is representative of the imperfection and the pigamim, the defect that exists in the world that needs to be corrected by redemption, by Mashiach, by whatever means that we have and therefore the chatat is symbolic of the imperfect, defective state of briah that of which childbirth in pain is one example. That's one reason. The other reason is Hazal actually say that the woman herself may be guilty of a sin at least in some cases. And that is the pain of labor might be so great that the woman might have taken an oath a shvu'ah in God's name that she's never going to do this again which is an improper shvu'ah. In fact, it's not even a valid shvu'ah because you you can't be mevatel you can't get rid of a mitzvah but she has to bring an atonement for the shvu'ah or for the attitude "I don't want to do this again." Which would explain of course why a stillbirth would need it because there even more so she might have the attitude of not wanting to go go through it. Okay, now there is another halacha of yo This is This woman is called the yoledet. Yoledet just means a woman who gives birth. So one halacha is the korban the other halacha is a certain state of tumah impurity that arises from childbirth. This is a little complicated but I want I want to state it so it people will have the facts on the ground. The tumah of yoledet is a two-level tumah. And the dates are different for boy and girl. I'll first talk about boy, then I'll move to girl. The first seven days after childbirth the woman is simply a niddah. She is forbidden to be with her husband. After seven days, however for the next 33 days she is permitted to be with her husband even if she's bleeding, but she's tame that she cannot go into the base hamikdash or eat carbonos. So, in other words, you have a seven and a 33 that adds up to 40. And then on the 41st day, she brings her carbon and she is now allowed to go to the base hamikdash. With a girl, it's exactly the same except everything is doubled. Upon the birth of the girl, there are 14 days her tumah is so strong that she cannot be with her husband. The next 66 days, even if she's bleeding, she's pure, but she's not allowed to go to the base hamikdash or eat carbonos. So, again, 14 and 66 is 80. On the 81st day, she brings a carbon, she's allowed to even go to the base hamikdash. So, this is very, very interesting halakha because normally when a woman sees blood that comes from the um from the uterus, she would normally be a nida and yet in the case of yoledes, there's actually a halakha that there are 33 days for a boy in which even if she's bleeding from the uterus, she is pure. And for a girl, that's extended to 66 days. That's actually an extraordinary cooler. Now, if uh any of you have children or or you're familiar with uh the restrictions on uh women after childbirth, this will undoubtedly sound very unfamiliar because that's not the way we do it. Uh we do not allow the woman to go to the mikvah and resume marital relations until she has seven clean days without bleeding. There is no concept at all in modern halakha that if a woman is bleeding from the uterus, the husband can be with her. So, it's true. It's true. Uh the Orisa for sure it's okay. The Rama says because of confusion and everything else which even, you know, what is menstrual bleeding, what is not, we do not use the heter of dam tohar. Dam tohar is blood of purity today. But in the Torah, there actually was a There is There is a concept that 33 days are dam tohar. That means even if the woman is bleeding, even if she's bleeding, the husband can have relations with her. And for a woman for a for a daughter rather, that goes up to 66 days. So, if you're if you've never seen such a thing, uh you will not see it because bizman hazzeh, we do not follow this halakha, but nevertheless, the halakha is still the halakha. Oh, we don't follow that at all. We don't follow it. The Rama writes simply because people will get confused. In other words, they may confuse dam tohar with regular nida and be makeel in regular nida. So, therefore, we don't follow the leniency, but halakhically well, at least halakhically, putting aside the minhag, there is such a leniency and this is called dam tohar. But dam tohar will permit a woman to be with her husband, it will not permit her to go to the base hamikdash or eat sacrifices, which is why you need that carbon on day 81 for a girl or day 40 for a for a boy. Okay. Now, one final little hora is uh why are the time periods doubled for girls and boys? For a boy, it's seven and 33. For a girl, it's 14 and 66. So, here I just uh want to bring out uh a very general idea that Rav Shimshon Raphael Hirsch mentions. And he says the central concept of tumah, impurity, is normally connected to death, right? In fact, the classic case of tumah is a dead person. And then we have lesser degrees of tumah for dead animals. Right? So, tumah is connected to death. That somehow uh when one is in contact with death, once again, it's a connection to the hate of the etz hadaas which brought death into the world and being banished from the temple because the primary consequence of tumah is your exclusion from the temple. The temple is considered to be the Gan Eden of the earth. And once again, when I experience death, that's kind of a reenactment of the sin that caused death. And what is the consequence? Expulsion from Gan Eden. Not allowed to enter the base hamikdash, which is the Gan Eden of of the physical earth that that we have it. Now, based on this fundamental idea that tumah is connected to death, you might ask a very simple question. So, why on earth should childbirth create a tumah first to her husband and then to the temple as a whole? Uh at least if it's a live birth, it's the other way around. It's it created life. So, one answer might be, well, even though it's not connected to death, but it is connected to the sin that caused death because Hashem decreed the pain of childbirth. But Rav Hirsch says a a different idea that's very, very interesting. You may You may buy it, you may not buy it, but this is what he throws out. He says that every birth is a death of the life that was within the woman's body. In her body, she had a growing human being. In fact, a human being that was in a very high level, learning Torah from the malakh that taught that baby Torah. The baby is born. Baruch Hashem, the baby has its no its own autonomous existence. But there has been a death within her. There's a vacuum. There's an emptiness. There's a void where there had been life. And now there is no life. I even remember reading somewhere, I don't remember that there's a certain that that that may be on some level spiritually uh a cause for postpartum depression. That's you know, it's a bereavement. It's very It's It's an odd way of saying it that a birth is a bereavement, but the notion that as a child grows, there's bereavement that is not so uncommon. For example, empty nest syndrome works that way. If I raise my child and he goes off to yeshiva or goes off to college or even gets married, you know, it's a real happy occasion, but there's a little bit of sadness there. The little boy or girl that I had with me all the time is now growing up, going off to school, you know, going off to get married, going off, etc. So, there's a concept that they were connected to me and now they're not connected to me in the same way. Right? That creates a certain sadness. So, Rav Hirsch wants to suggest that even pregnancy can work that way as well in which the mother is no longer as connected to that life. It is a death experience and therefore it generates tumah. Again, there there are some people buy it, some people don't buy it, but this is Rav Hirsch's idea that childbirth is a death experience not only because it connects you to the hate of the etz hadaas, which is one interpretation, or another interpretation, which I didn't mention yet, is simply that it's a life-threatening experience. Childbirth is absolutely life-threatening to this very day. Uh but the third explanation is in the separation of the child from the mother, uh there is this bereavement. There is this death within her body that occurred. Yeah. Yeah, that's what I'm going to get to. I'm going to get to Yeah, that's where we get to. So, based on that, Rav Hirsch suggests the following. He says there's a difference physiologically between boys and girls. You know, boys are born uh without sperm, meaning the sperm doesn't develop until puberty. A girl is born with all of the eggs from which children can be conceived. So, in a girl's birth, there is a double death, so to speak. There is the separation of the daughter and the separation of all of the life that is within the daughter. As opposed to a boy, a boy is only a single life. A boy does not contain within him all of the seeds of future life. That's why Rav Hirsch says there's kind of a doubling effect because the death experience is in itself doubled. Again, very, very interesting uh thoughts of why childbirth is a death experience, even if it's a live birth. Obviously, if it's a stillbirth, that's obvious, but even a live birth, it's a death uh experience uh because there is this separation of the child from the from the mother. Uh this is what Rav Hirsch says. So, uh remember that uh when the base hamikdash In fact, uh even today, when the base hamikdash gets rebuilt bimheira v'yameinu, you're going to have to pay back taxes. Uh meaning all of the women that have given birth are going to have to bring their carbonos. They're not erased. Yeah, there's no temple today, so we can't bring them, but they do remain so to speak, responsibilities. They are liabilities. Uh there's no statute of limitations on carbonos. It'll get real complicated. It'll also apply to sin offerings and the like. It'll be very, very difficult to kind of reconstruct everything, but indeed, they do become obligations when the base of Miktash is rebuilt. In fact, the Gamorah it gives us a story about the laws of Shabbos that one of the great rabbis accidentally extinguished a candle on Shabbos after the Korban base of Miktash and he wrote in a notebook that when the base of Miktash is rebuilt, I will bring a Korban Chatas. I will bring a sin offering. So, the truth is all of us should have an obligation to make that type of book. Well, what we do is we read we read the parsha of of the particular Korban, right? So, if you are high of a Korban Chatas, you read the parsha and spiritually, at least until there's a base of Miktash, call Osek the parsha Chatas ki ilu ki ilu ki kirev a Chatas. Okay. Now, again, here the Torah does reiterate in the middle of all of this on the eighth day you circumcise. So, this is the repetition of the mitzvah of Brit Milah. Uh and the Gamorah learns out of here that even on Shabbos we do a Brit Milah. I just want to point out a very interesting thought the Gamorah gives. Why is Brit Milah on the eighth day? And there's a lot of reasons. And I think we've talked about this before. I just want to mention one very interesting almost sociological thought that the Chachamim gave. And they said when you give birth to a boy so husband and wife are not allowed to be together for 7 days. We don't want to do the Brit Milah when husband and wife cannot be together because it's not proper to have a Simcha when husband and wife are not in their full capacity of marital intimacy. And since the tumah vis-a-vis husband and wife is 7 days we do the Brit Milah on the eighth day. Now, lema'aseh, once again, I have to point out that that reason simply doesn't work today because since we don't have dam to'ah husband and wife are not going to be allowed to be together for many, many weeks after the Brit. But, nevertheless, the original kavana of the Torah was that the Simcha of Brit Milah would combine the joy of a child with the joy of husband and wife sharing intimate connection with each other. Uh the other idea again, there are many ideas, but the other idea is the Maharal's symbolic understanding of eight. I may have said this, forgive me for repeating it, I'll say it I'll talk fast just to get it out quickly. The Maharal points out that eight is a very important symbolic number in Judaism because the natural order of the world are 6 days of creation followed by seven. Now, seven, of course, is Shabbos. Seven is elevated, seven is spiritual, but it still exists within the physical framework of creation. So, you go from one to six culminating in seven and then you start over again. That is the repetitive cycle of physicality and materialism. Eight represents something that is above nature. It is above nature. The relationship of God to the Jewish people. The covenantal connection is above teva. Because in terms of logic and historical process there ought not to be a Jewish people. The Jewish people are a miracle. They are a miracle. Rebbe Yaakov Emden writes and Rebbe Yaakov Emden wrote before the Holocaust Rebbe Yaakov Emden writes in in the 1700s it's interesting, he actually died in a very important American year. He died in 1776. But, the Yaakov Emden Rebbe Yaakov Emden writes that if people ask, you know, why doesn't God do miracles anymore? If you were to contemplate the miracle of Jewish survival in spite of the greatest empires in the world trying to destroy us that is a greater miracle than the 10 plagues and the splitting of the Red Sea. And people don't realize that. The fact that we're here is a miracle. And what does it mean we're here? I don't mean we're here like in a cave in Afghanistan or Hamas under the under the tunnels. Here contributing to the world uh even in secular ways and of course, how much more so more importantly in Kedusha. And the building a a state of Israel again with all of the controversies that we face, these are miracles. These are miracles, pushy. And therefore, the Maharal says the Brit Milah is eight because eight represents that which is above the laws of nature. This is the meaning of God taking Avraham above the stars. The stars, astrology, whatever you want to call it, refers to the certain deterministic aspect of the natural order of things. The Jew is above the stars. We don't deny the existence of that natural order. It's just not the way God relates to us. God does not relate to us via the natural order. God relates to us through eight. And that's why eight is very important. Last week, I think I mentioned that's why the dedication of the Mishkan is on the eighth day. Uh that is why in the Kodesh Hakodashim on Yom Kippur the Cohen Gadol sprinkles the blood eight times because forgiveness of sin is also a miracle. It's above nature. It's not logical. Kaparah is above nature, forgiveness and the like. So, that's another idea why Brit Milah is number eight. Okay. Now, after that relatively brief discussion of childbirth it then moves into a totally different topic. And it's an amazing thing. This topic of Tsara'as is covered in more detail than virtually anything else in the Torah. There is more about Tsara'as than Shabbos than kashrus niddah, all of the things that you think what are the fundamental teachings of Judaism. So, the Torah covers it in relatively few verses. Even Shabbos, you know, Shabbos doesn't have more than 20 verses in the whole Torah. In the whole Torah. In the five books of Moses. And maybe 20 is even more than I don't remember the exact number, but it's not more than 20. They make up for it in the Talmud. Yeah, the so the Talmud expands it. That's right. You know, but when it comes to Tsara'as you have like 100 100 sukum. You have most of this parsha and all of next week's parsha as well. So, it's quite amazing. So, I want to talk about it a little bit. It it is indeed hyper hyper technical. First of all the translation of Tsara'as as leprosy, it's well known that that's not quite an accurate translation. There is a modern disease that used to be called leprosy. I mean, it's not even called leprosy, it's called Hansen's disease. Uh which is a very serious disease. It was a contagious disease. They used to have leper hospitals and everything else, but its symptomatology does not correspond with Tsara'as. Uh Tsara'as is a skin condition and indeed, the closest thing that Tsara'as is is psoriasis. And indeed, psoriasis is a Greek word that is connected to the Hebrew word Tsara'as. But, the Rambam already pointed out that it's very, very clear that although Tsara'as is a physical skin condition it is not in the nature of a medical disease. It is not a contagious disease. And it is not treated and the Rambam wrote as a physician. It is not treated by going to a doctor. It's treated by going to a Cohen. And therefore, the Rambam says Tsara'as may manifest itself in a physical way. Yeah. But, it's not a physical illness. It is a manifestation of a spiritual defect that needs to be corrected by spiritual therapy of which the Cohen is an example of a teacher who teaches the wisdom that will help the person get over it. Now, the Rambam brings an excellent proof that Tsara'as cannot be understood. In fact, even the quarantine, right? Some people like to say, "Oh, Tsara'as is an early example of how the Torah imposed quarantines for contagious diseases." That's how people say, "Oh, the Torah now is so uh omniscient about the future that we know that you got But, the Rambam makes an interesting point. It's very, very clear that the quarantine of the leper of the metzora is not because the disease is contagious. Let me give you an example. The halacha is that even if a person has the skin condition he is technically not a metzora till the Cohen proclaims him as such. It's like the old baseball umpires used to say "It ain't a strike till I call it a strike." Tsara'as is exactly the same thing. You're not a metzora cuz you have the condition. You're only a metzora IF THE COHEN DECLARES YOU HAVE THE CONDITION. Until he declares it you're fine. Now the Mishnah says a very strange rule. Because of this there are certain times the Cohen is not supposed to make the declaration. It says, let's say a chassan or a kallah at their sheva brachas. All of a sudden the man or the woman, cuz men and women can get women can both be lepers. All of a sudden they have this dread condition. And the cohen sees it. The cohen is not supposed to proclaim them as lepers. Because he would then cause their separation. And that would mar their joy. Now, if this is a contagious disease, that makes no sense at all. That's like saying, you know, somebody has bubonic plague, I'm not going to say cuz it's going to ruin the specifically that did not mention COVID. I don't want to get into COVID. AIDS. I Yeah, but something that's really, let's say everybody would say, you know, it's a real dangerous thing. Right? You don't say, oh, let's not announce it. Ele mai it's not a contagious disease. It's a spiritual affliction and until the cohen proclaims it, it's not a problem. Uh similarly we don't proclaim or we mean a cohen a cohen does not proclaim tzaraas during a chag, including chol hamoed. That if somebody has tzaraas and it's during a chag, we say, come to the cohen after the chag. Once again as a contagious disease, that makes no sense at all. But if it's a spiritual condition, so God says this is not the time to deal with it, we'll deal with it later. Okay. So the truth is, tzaraas comes in many many different forms. There's tzaraas of a person, which I've been talking about until now. There's tzaraas of houses. There's tzaraas of clothing. And within a person, there's actually different types of tzaraas. There's tzaraas of the flesh, which is no pun intended, plain vanilla tzaraas in a white. There is also tzaraas of the beard, tzaraas of the hair areas. There's tzaraas that comes after a burn or after a bruise which has slightly different halachot. So the the the the classifications are labyrinthine and uh there's a whole tractate of Mishnah on it called Maseches Negaim. And Maseches Negaim, without question, is one of the most difficult and detailed tractates. There's no Gemara on it because Seder Taharos generally does not have a Gemara, but in terms of Mishnah, it's one of the most difficult tractates of of Mishnah. So, uh if somebody That's why you'll notice when people are in mourning are in aveilus and they want people to sign up to learn Mishnah and they have a sign-up sheet, you you will tend to notice Negaim is one of the the last to be taken uh precisely for this particular particular reason. So it's impossible to cover all of these things. But I want to cover plain vanilla tzaraas and I want to give you a technical description of it. And then try to show that even within the technical aspects of the Torah there are some very deep spiritual meanings. This is an important thing to understand. You know, I think there's a proverb in Russian that God is in the details. And that's very much true in in Judaism. That sometimes it is in the not not sometimes, all the time, in the details and in the technicalities there is great spiritual power. But you have to have the patience to look at the details. You see, we we we we like instant gratification, like candy. We want this instant spiritual nirvana. So I don't want to wait through this detail and that detail and that detail because I don't immediately see what the spiritual teaching is. But you got to be patient. You got to be patient then you go through it, you go through the details and initially you're not going to necessarily be edified or elevated. But once you have the detail, you can then connect the dots a little bit and then you can see some very beautiful teachings. So I'm going to spend a few minutes being very hyper technical, so forgive me. I hope it I won't uh turn you off. But then I think we can see some some very good meaning in all of these details. Okay. A guy wakes up in the morning and a guy sees, let's say on his hand a bright white splatch. Maybe it's tzaraas, maybe it's not because tzaraas also depends on size and it depends on color, shade of light. So I don't know. I have something, I don't know what it is. I am halachically obligated to go to a cohen. A cohen? Uh not every cohen was qualified. This was especially, but you go to a cohen who is qualified to be a tzaraas specialist. The cohen examines my white splatch. Uh he then examines it in two levels. Number one, the shade and number two, the size. Those are the those are the two variables. So, if either the shade or the size don't qualify I just go home. I'll buy some ointment. In other words, it then becomes then it becomes tzaraas, that's meaning garnish, there was no consequences. I'm not a leper. But let's say, unfortunately, the cohen examines the splatch and uh the cohen determines that the requisite size and the requisite shade is present. So, what happens is I am put in quarantine. I must go chutz lamachaneh for 7 days. Now here I want to correct a misconception which I think would also prove the Rambam's point that you're not dealing with contagious disease. When most of us learn even the Chumash, even the Chumash the impression we get from the Chumash itself is he is totally isolated. He is in quarantine. That's not really so. Uh quarantine here simply means he is sent out of the camp areas, meaning he would be sent out of the machaneh, he would be sent out of the Israelite camp. He would set up his home outside of the camp, but his family could join him. He could have his family there. He could have visitors. People could go visit him. He would be chutz lamachaneh. In the midbar, that meant, like Miriam who had tzaraas her her tent was outside of the machaneh. When we settled in Eretz Yisrael, the definition of machaneh was any walled city. So a metzora would have to leave a walled city. Now, that actually means if he's living in an unwalled city, he doesn't have to leave at all. Because the shiluach of a metzora is from an area that's walled. Okay. Be that as it may he remains in that quarantine if that's the right word 7 days. At the end of the 7 days or I'm sorry, not on the on day seven. On day seven the cohen returns for a second examination. And one of a few things could happen. One is the nega has grown bigger. That's called pisayon. Number two the nega there were hairs that may not be in the arm, but let's say it's on It may not be on the hand, but then the arm. That's, you know, you have a splatch of white on your arm and there are hairs there. If the black hairs turned white originally the nega was just the skin. If the black hairs turned white that's called se'ar lavan. So, these are called simanei tumah, simanim that make him tamei. One is expansion of the nega. The other is the black hairs within the nega turned white. The third is in the nega there is some clear flesh that materialized. Now you think this would be positive, but it's actually negative, meaning there was a splatch of white but on day seven in the middle of that splatch of white there is some clean clear flesh. If any of those one If any of those three things happens if on day seven any of those three things happens pisayon expansion of the nega or white uh black hairs turned white or michyah, live healthy flesh in the middle he is immediately proclaimed a definitive metzora. And he will not be freed from the state of metzora until those signs go away. And after that he'll be tamei for 7 days and have to bring a sacrifice. Meaning once he has the three simanei tumah he will not be purified till the simanim go away and that could be 6 months. And then he has 7 days and he has a full body shaving and he brings sacrifices. What if the three simanim did not exist on day seven? The nega is the same. So, he is kept in quarantine for another 7 days. And on the second seventh day, the same examination takes place. If he has seen money tumor, right? Either expansion, the black hair turns white, or healthy flesh, then he is upgraded to a metzora who will not get out of that state till the simanim leave, and then he'll count seven days, a full body shave, and a korban. What if, however, on day 14, there's no change? He still has the nega, but he doesn't have any of the simanim tumor? He is released. Which means it is quite possible for a person who actually was a metzora, the coin poskin he was a metzora, and he may go home still being a metzora without any need of korban if he didn't have the one of the three simanim tumor on either day seven or on day 14. Okay, you understand the general idea? Uh if there are simanim tumor either on day seven or day 14, then he is absolutely a metzora until one of those simanim goes away, he counts seven days as a full body shave, brings a korban. Okay? Now, you see how detailed this is? This is only describing one of many, many different types of leprosy, but this is the most common or basar, the leprosy of the flesh. This is full body shave? Yep. The hair? Yes, full body shave is hair, beard, pubic hair, underarm, everything. Legs, everything. Everything, everything. Full body shave. In fact, he actually has two full body shaves, meaning he has a full body shave when the simanim tumor left him, which means before he starts the seven days, and then he has a full body shave, of course not too much grew back, uh after the seven days, before he brings his korban. He's actually shaved twice. So, the details are are interesting and they're intricate. Question is, like, what does it all mean exactly? What what messages can we take out of all of this stuff? Yeah. Is this something that happened often? So, how often did it happen? So, the Emma says we don't have statistics, so obviously in fact, the truth is the two cases of leprosy in the Torah actually didn't follow didn't follow this protocol at all. They were like special divine leprosy. One was Moshe Rabbeinu. When Moshe Rabbeinu said bad things about the Jewish people, they're not deserving, so God said, "Put your hand in your chest." And he pulled out and his hand was white as snow. God gave him leprosy because of lashon hara. Cuz that's the primary sin. The primary sin of leprosy. I'm using leprosy, but I mean tzaraas, is lashon hara. And Moshe got tzaraas because of lashon hara. And later when Miriam spoke about Moshe, she got uh And you know that she said that, "What gives him the right to separate from his wife?" She was punished with tzaraas. But what's interesting is bedavka, those two cases of tzaraas in the Torah did not follow this halachic system. Miriam, for example, didn't bring a korban. We don't find any body shave that she went through, etc. She was fully the whole body had tzaraas, so she was metzora, she was pure. Well, that's yeah, that's another interesting anomaly. Well, okay, but there there is another rule that if a person's totally covered with tzaraas, he's pure. That's an interesting rule. Uh but but but that didn't apply to Moshe. Moshe Moshe was only a yeah yeah. All right, so you see, those were exceptional, just like, for example, the laws of nazir. Uh Shimshon was a nazir. And that's why he couldn't cut his hair. But the full laws of nazir didn't apply to Shimshon because one of the laws of a nazir is you're not allowed to come in contact with dead bodies. Shimshon had plenty of dead bodies that he came in contact with. So, the answer is these were special, like private things that Hashem did with Shimshon was a nazir from Hashem. So, so it's interesting that there are exceptional cases where the full halachic regulations don't apply. They were like unusual, one of a unique type of situation. Uh but how often did it happen? So, we don't really know, but it's interesting that the Ramban writes that the prevalence of tzaraas actually correlates with prophecy. Because it is a form of prophecy. You know, a person goes through life and we often wonder, "Gee, if only God would tell me what I need to fix in my life. If only I would know my mission, a little feedback from God." Now, God gives us feedback all the time, in truth, but it's a little hard to decipher. It's not so explicit and the like. When you had a prophet, people don't realize this. We look at prophets as kind of the public voices. You know, God is giving a public message for the Jewish nation. But the Vilna Gaon writes that prophets had private functions as well. You could go to the prophet and you could say, "Should I take this job or that job? Should I live in in Ramot or Arnona?" You could actually ask a prophet and they would give you answers. You could ask a prophet, "What should I focus on in my avodas Hashem?" Now, you have free will, cuz people could ignore the prophet. Listen, if we ignore God, we can ignore prophets, too. I mean, a prophet is a voice of God, but you actually had that type of individual guidance. People don't look at prophets that way, but that actually is the meaning of the Gemara. The Gemara says that there's only uh 50 56 I'm sorry, 55 prophets in Tanakh, 48 men and seven women. But then the Gemara says, "What do you mean? We have a tradition that you had as many prophets as people who left Egypt, 600,000, and some say double, a million 200,000. Why are you telling me all you have are 55?" The answer is the 55 were giving prophecies that have an eternal value. The others were giving prophecies that didn't have an eternal value. What does that mean? What is a prophecy without an eternal value? It means they were private. They were they were the the equivalent of they were the sacred psychotherapists, so to speak, that gave you messages from Hashem that pertain to you. They were not national messages, and what the navi said for you would not be relevant to me, and therefore it was not recorded. But there was a large number of nevi'im who essentially were servicing the private sector, and they were not necessarily giving messages to Klal Yisrael as a whole. So, that was a a noble profession. Remember, to be any type of navi, you had to be an extraordinarily great righteous person, Who was regulating that? So, who's regulating? So, we have to assume the Sanhedrin would kind of give navi licenses. They would determine if a navi was authentic. Now, remember, we do know we do know from Tanakh that there was an epidemic during the First Temple period of false prophets. This is Yirmiyahu. The nevi'im talk about this all the time. Yirmiyahu, Zecharyah, they talk about false prophets, and I want to emphasize these are not just false prophets who are saying things in the name of idolatry. In a way, they were not as dangerous. These are false prophets who spoke in the name of Hashem. And these false prophets, the nevi'im are very harsh because they felt that these false prophets were giving people overconfidence. They're not Like Yirmiyahu was coming in and saying, "God's going to destroy the Beit Hamikdash. You better do teshuvah. Don't fight against the Babylonians." What were the false prophets saying? They were saying a message that on some level we think is good. "Oh, God loves you. God loves the Jewish people. God would never do anything to Am Yisrael." You get the same ones today. Yeah, right. Yeah. So, so they were like sweet, you know, uh cookies and cream, peaches and cream prophets. And people loved them. So, "Oh, whatever you're doing, you know, you think, you know, God's going to punish you for anything? Of course not." So, it was Yirmiyahu that was getting in trouble. Yirmiyahu was accused of being negative, of hating the Jewish people. So, if you look through the nevi'im, you will see over and over and over again the bitterness that they had towards the false prophets because they blamed the false prophets for the korban because they basically said, "If you wouldn't give people this false confidence, there would be introspection, there would be teshuvah, and maybe tragedy could have been averted." When you give people false confidence and you give them a message, "You don't have to do anything. God loves you." Of course of course God love I mean, God does love us. The truth is, even in the korban, God loves us. But the notion that the love will have no negative consequences, that's a very dangerous idea. We have to understand that God's love is tough love. You know, God's love has standards. God's love has requirements. The false prophets, again, very much like people today, were giving that message. Okay. So, the Ramban says tzaraas was a gift because tzaraas was God giving you a report card on what you needed to improve? It was a private message to you. And that's why when we lost prophecy, we lost tsara'ath. That's why we don't have really tsara'ath today, because God is not communicating to us in that open and explicit way. Okay. So, here is the thing. So, a person goes into quarantine, God is showing in his physical body a veyros that need to be corrected. The main aveira is lashon hara, although that's not the only aveira. It also mentions gaiva, arrogance. It also mentions stinginess with your property. Different aveiras, and a person looks into it. So, what's the purpose of the quarantine? To give you time to reflect on your life. In fact, even the word uh the word for jail, penitentiary, it's a term that comes from the Quakers. Penitent is like doing chuva, because the original idea of prison, kind of didn't turn into that, was it was a place of isolation where you would reflect on your deeds, and you would do a chuva shleima. Again, the Lubavitcher Rebbe points out that unfortunately the modern prison is pretty much the opposite. Uh you take an 18-year-old who commits a minor crime, and you put him with 30- and 40-year-olds who are murderers, rapists, and molesters. Uh in what direction is that 18-year-old going to go if this is his chaver, right? These are the people that he's going to be hanging around, and that's why we have what is called recidivism, in which once you were in prison, the likelihood you're going to go back again and again and again and again is like 70%, 80%, depending, you know, even even higher. That's why the Rebbe had a whole position that optimally you don't put you don't put troubled people with bad people. You try to put them with good people, and you try to create community programs where they could be inspired. Now again, obviously if somebody is dangerous, if somebody is a you got to put him away just because of danger, but but a lot of crimes, you know, they're not dangerous. People are not dangerous. They just committed They They know they stole something or whatever it would be. Uh they're nonviolent. So, the Rebbe was a actually against the standard model model of prison for any type of nonviolent crime. He said it is destructive, counterproductive, and the Torah says we try to rehabilitate people, and not simply make them worse. Okay. But be it as it may, but in the case of tsara'ath, however, the purpose of the quarantine is to allow him to be reflective to reflect. Now, here is the pshat. The same way that the initial tsara'ath itself indicates there's a spiritual flaw, the simanei tum'ah are external indicators that the reflective process of chuva is not working. Meaning, you're not doing your chuva. How is that so? Because we are creatures of rationalization. We're very creative. Whenever we've done something wrong, we find different ways to avoid taking responsibility. Let me mention three ways, three evasive techniques that we have. Evasive technique number one is to simply deny I did anything wrong. I deny it. I had the right to get angry. I had the right to break person's vase because of the way they treated me. I didn't do anything wrong. Denial. Another term for denial is whitewash. So, the black hair turning white is God telling the metzora, "Hey, you haven't accepted responsibility for your action. You're still denying it. You're still justifying it. Therefore, you're going to be a full metzora till you go through this process, until that goes away." So, the simanei tum'ah of sa'ar lavan, white hair, connotes the mindset of whitewash and denial. There is a second maybe evasive technique is not the right word, but it's a way of preventing us from dealing with the problem, and this may be the opposite. My sense of guilt may be so overpowering that I think there's no hope for me. I just give up. I feel I'm on the road of no return, and there's no way back. This is very different than denial. This is actually the opposite. Denial is the refusal to acknowledge to myself that I need to fix something. This is a hyperacute sensation of guilt and self-loathing in which you feel, "I'm beyond help." That's represented by the expansion of the nega. Because a person's attitude is, you know, "I'm a bum. I'm hopeless. I might as well continue on this path." Expansion. Once again, God says, "Ah, you're not doing chuva properly. You're a metzora. Go back into quarantine." Now, the third evasive technique might be a little different, and we'll call that emotional distancing, and that is the person is not actively denying, and the person is not consumed with guilt. But precisely because they don't want to be consumed with guilt, they don't allow themselves to think about it. "I don't want to think about it. I don't want to go there." Meaning, I will distance myself and not think about things that make me feel unpleasant, uncomfortable. That's represented by the healthy patch of flesh. You're surrounded by rats, but you don't allow it to penetrate your heart. Now, in truth, I do want to say uh I think that the third method does have a certain legitimacy sometimes. Meaning, there are times where we're not spiritually ready to confront something. So, there may be a makom temporarily to put things on the back burner. Meaning, the third method has a certain legitimacy that the other methods don't have. But as a long-term spiritual modality, it is also defective. Because eventually we do have to confront our lives. There may be a time, there may be a place. It may not always be the right time to focus on it. Yes, but eventually you got to deal with it. You got to deal with it. So, if you have that clean flesh in the middle of the rat, that means you've emotionally distanced yourself. So, you see what's going on. The nega itself says, "I got a chet. I got to work on." The simanei tum'ah are indicating that the chuva process is not proceeding as it should. Either I'm living in the world of denial, whitewash, the black hair has turned white, or I'm living in the world of despondency and despair, the expansion of the rat, or I'm living in the world in which I'm just not thinking about it cuz it hurts too much, which is the healthy flesh. There God says, "You haven't done the process. You're a metzora. You're remaining until those signs go away." But if after 2 weeks I still have the nega, but I don't have any of the signs, so God says, "Hey, listen, you got this aveira, but your chuva is proceeding. You can do it at home. You can be an outpatient penitent. You can do your chuva without the confines of the quarantine." You see? So, this is the meaning of the simanei tum'ah. Now, what I just want to say briefly about Pesach is that these three evasive strategies that prevent us from concentrating on our spiritual tikkun. One is denial, whitewash. The other is despair and hopelessness, which is pisayon, that's the expansion of the nega. And the third is emotional distancing. "I just don't want to think about it cuz it makes me too upset." Actually corresponds to three evils of chametz. Right? Chametz is treated as the yetzer hara. Right? During the year we eat chametz, but it is symbolic of the yetzer hara. Because there are three messages here. Uh what makes chametz symbolic of the yetzer hara? So, there's actually three ideas. Idea number one is chametz is puffed up. It represents arrogance, ego. Ego is what fuels denial. "I don't accept responsibility because I didn't do anything wrong. How dare you even suggest that I'm capable of making mistakes. So, the notion of whitewash and denial very much correlates with the egotism of chametz. Yeah. Okay. Now, another aspect of chametz, Maharal says, is chametz rots. Chametz spoils. Matzah doesn't spoil. Right? The chametz has agents in it that cause spoilage. That's fermentation. Eventually turns into into rot. Well, that represents the hopelessness of taking a bad situation and making it worse, thinking there's no way you could be metaken. So, chametz represents the spread of rot, which is similar to the spread of the tzaraat. That's emotional depression and despair. The third uh symbolic aspect of chametz, Maharal says, is chametz represents inertia and inaction. How is that so? Because when water falls on flour, you don't need to do anything for it to become chametz. You don't need yeast. A lot of people think you need yeast. You absolutely not need yeast for chametz. And you don't need a starter. It happens automatically. Chametz is what happens. Matzah is you have to do something to arrest the process by putting the dough in heat to kill the fermentation bacteria and the like. So, Maharal says, matzah repre- I mean, chametz represents inertia. Matzah represents the positivity of action. So, once again, inertia is the modality of emotional distancing. I just do not have the energy to put myself in that situation. So, the point is that the same way that we have three simanim of tumah that indicate I'm not properly doing introspection. Chametz is connected to the yetzer hara on those three levels. The arrogance of chametz, the ego of chametz, is the idea of denial and whitewashing. The rot The rotting of the chametz or the rotten nature of the chametz represents the notion of hopelessness and despair, in which I just continue the rot. And the notion of inertia represents the emotional distancing of not thinking where I'm going. So, there is a correlation between the elements of chametz and the elements of the simanei tumah of the metzora. I just want to say generally that one of the very important lessons of tzaraat in the most general sense is the power of speech, the power of the words. Uh now, people think, you know, we're told as children uh the you know, secular saying of the old English proverb, "Sticks and stones may break may break my bones, but names will never hurt me." It absolutely is not true. Well, sticks and stones can break your bones, but we know that baruch Hashem, particularly for children, the bones usually heal. But the pain that comes from humiliation that can carry you a whole life, a whole life. I remember an hearing an interview with Richard Nixon, who certainly went through a lot, right? He was you know, impeached, he had resigned the presidency. What was he talking about in the interview? He's talking about playground insults in sixth grade. He was still remembering that, still suffering from that. Words are very powerful. And HaMelech says in Proverbs, HaMavet v'HaChaim b'Yad HaLashon. Life and death are in the hands of the tongue. Now, that's true in the literal sense. You can say words that will kill you. You reveal secrets or something. Military secrets. You can say words that save lives. But you have to understand, life and death are not just physical life and death. Words can crush a person. Words can Maybe I didn't take a knife and stab somebody, but my words can destroy somebody. And my words can build up. Now, the Torah's goal is sometimes we make a mistake, you know. Baruch Hashem, there is a lot of emphasis now on sensibility to the yetzer hara sens- sensitivity, rather, to lashon hara. But the goal is not to keep quiet. The goal is not I don't talk. The goal is to use your speech in ways that build up people. Give them support. Give them chizuk. Give them strength. God created the world through speech, primarily. Pirkei Avot says, 10 utterances Hashem created the world. Dibbur was the Whatever that means, whatever divine speech means, it's not the same as human speech. But whatever it means, speech was the medium of creation. And we are in the image of God. And our speech, our speech is a medium of creation. We build worlds. We destroy worlds. Mavet v'Chaim b'Yad HaLashon. We got to use our words in ways that build people up. And then we're living godly lives. We're following HaKadosh Baruchu, who uses his dibbur to create and to give life. So, wish you all a chag kasher v'sameach, a wonderful Pesach.