Parashat Tazria discusses the laws of Sara’at, what we call leprosy in English, which comes to someone who speaks Lashon Hara or commits other sins.
The Midrash Tanhuma on this Parasha (chapter 8) says that when a person sins, Hashem brings things upon his body. This is different than a human being, in that when someone goes against a person, he has to come at him from the outside, with chains and whips etc.
Hashem doesn’t need to go from the outside. He is in control and He can get the person from the inside.
The Sefer Hinuch, in Mitzvah 169 explains the theme behind the mitzva. It says that when a person has Sara’at, he has to come before the Kohen and follow the directions. He can’t look at the disease as if it is a coincidence. He has to say that it came because of his sin. This causes a person to set in his soul that Hashem’s supervision is on every individual. He is watching everything that we do.
We have to pay attention to the things that happen to us, and realize that there is a reason they happened. We can’t look at it as happenstance.
The person has to come to the Kohen, whose job is to bring kapara and cause the person to think thoughts of Teshuva. The Kohen puts the person in quarantine for a certain amount of days so that he will be alone, away from everything, and be able to take stock, and make an accounting of his soul. That is the reason for the quarantine. It is not that the disease is contagious so they have to be separated. This is a spiritual disease. The purpose of the quarantine is to force the person to think. This is an important rule in general.
Today, we don’t have time to think. Things happen all around us, but we don’t pay attention or connect them to God, because we aren’t thinking. We are always on the move. The Sara’at was there in order to force the man to think and realize the connections between the things that were going on. Sometimes a person had to go into multiple quarantines because the first quarantine may not have been enough, or he may need a partial quarantine, because it got a little lighter, so he has to work harder.
He says, maybe the person thought of returning only half of what he stole. Hashem will slowly push him along. And all of this is because God loves us and He supervises us and He is watching to see that we do to Teshuva.
That is the way it works. Once a person thinks of Teshuva, the problem immediately goes away. When a person finds the reason and is able to fix the cause of the problem, the problem goes away because it was only there in order to arouse him to do Teshuva period.
The concept of the Sara’at Quarantine is very important. We can talk a lot about Emuna and Bitachon and Hashem’s Hashgacha Pratit, but if we don’t have time to think and place it on our hearts, it won’t do anything.
Paroah symbolizes the Yetzer Hara, and we all have a little Paroah inside of us. Mesilat Yesharim says Paroah was very wise. He did not want the Jewish people to think, so he kept on giving them more and more work. Because if you don’t think, you’ll never change… you will never regret.
There is a similar lesson in the plague of hail. The people were warned to take in their cattle. And the pasuk says that the ones that feared God put their cattle inside but the person who did not, “take it to heart” did not take his animals in.
The Chiddushei HaRom asks why these phrases are juxtaposed. It should compare the one who feared God to the one who didn’t fear God. Why does is compare one who fears God with one who doesn’t place it in his heart? He answers that the deciding factor between having fear of God and not having fear of God is whether you place it to your heart. Do you take out the time to think and concentrate?
After Rav Chaim Kanievsky passed away, Rabbi Avraham Schorr quoted this where it says, “The Sadik is missing, and no one pays attention.” Paying attention doesn’t just mean being aware of it. Paying attention means you take the time to put it on your heart and contemplate and change.
This is what we are always supposed to be thinking when things happen. But we have to think. Rav Wolbe used to tell his students to take walks and think, so they could begin to realize what was going on inside of them, and build their self awareness. If you never think and you’re never alone, and you aren’t self-aware, that’s what the Yetzer Hara wants- that we should always be busy.
Having your iPod on while you’re walking, even if you are listening to a class, means that you are busy and not having time for yourself.
A young boy from Rav Wolbe’s yeshiva, Be’er Yaakov, was once taking one of these walks and after a few minutes he came running back. There was a mental institution down the block from the Yeshiva, and sometimes those patients would take walks too. They weren’t dangerous and they would even stop at the yeshiva occasionally.
This fellow came running back after five minutes. The rabbi told him, “Do you know why you came running home? Because you met somebody. You got scared.”
The boy denied meeting anybody, and they went back-and-forth until the rabbi told him, “You met someone you’ve never met before-yourself .You have been in yeshiva for the past 18 years and you have never been alone. You’re either with your family, your roommates or your havruta.. You haven’t been alone. There is a stranger inside you, called, “You.” You have to get to know yourself.”
That is why Sara’at quarantines the man. Because if you aren’t alone with yourself, all the bitachon and Emuna classes and Hashgacha classes will not do a thing. You need to find time to contemplate and internalize all of these thoughts.
What a powerful take away message from this week’s Parasha. Have a wonderful day.