samet@sfmag.UUCP (A.I.Samet) (04/21/85)
> Just as an aside. R. Moshe is only as smart in modern technology as > the prson who aks him a question. R. Moshe's knowledge of physics and > chemistry is severly limited ( to put it nicely ). If a person asks him a > question regarding the use of a shabbat elevator, the answer would depend on > the person's ability to explain the exact mechanics of the elevator. > Eliyahu Teitz. Eliyahu, despite what some people say, Reb Moshe is NOT more naive than we are. The secular courts must often consider technical issues which are beyond the expertise of the judges. They can, however, handle such issues - by soliciting testimony from experts. Part of the process is to examine the credentials and the possible biases/interests of the experts offering testimony. Rabbis are often faced with the same type of problem. An experienced rav or posek knows that he must determine what sources are reliable for technical issues and will not issue a ruling without getting reliable information from an expert. This is routine, for instance, in matters of kashrus, where chemicals and processing are involved. For instance, there is currently a serious kashrus problem concerning bugs in vegetables like broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage etc. (due to a reduction in the use of insecticides). Some rabbis I know are currently collecting data from the department of agriculture, the FDA, universities, professors, farmers, rabbis around the world, and others, concerning infestation of parasites in vegetables. They have spent months visiting farms, researching data and halacha on these issues, as well as conducting their own experiments. This search is being conducted after having consulted with Rav Moshe Feinstein who gave them halachic guidance, part of which addressed the need for reliable data, and the criteria for acceptability of such data. It is silly to assume that reknowned poskim are more naive than we are concerning the need for obtaining correct inputs for their decisions. I've seen from personal experience, that poskim are scrupulously careful to avoid being exploited or duped by people posing shaylas. Anyone who examines Rav Moshe's teshuvas can verify that he cites medical opinions when he relies on them, and that he is shrewd in evaluating the reliability of such opinions. That's part of the job of a posek. Yitzchok Samet
klahr@csd2.UUCP (04/23/85)
DVAR TORAH: PARSHIYOS TAZRIA-METZORA
or
YOU'RE ONLY A BREAK IN THE WALL
_______________________________________________________________________________
This week, we have a doubleheader -we're reading two parshiyos of the
Torah this week, Tazria and Metzora. Interestingly enough, the two parshiyos
, for the most part, are thematically related. A large part of both of them
deal with the various types and aspects of tzoraas. Tzoraas is a broad term
that covers a specific set of discolorations of one's skin, clothing, or the
walls of one's house. Because one subtype of tzoraas affects the skin, the
word "tzoraas" is usually and erroneously translated as "leprosy", and
mistakenly identified with the infectious disease known as leprosy, which is
caused by Mycobacterium leprae. The fact that various isolation and apparent
decontamination procedures are associated with tzoraas would appear to support
the "humanistic" view of tzoraas as a paradigm of the "health precautionary
commandments". Nevertheless, as the Ramban, Sforno, and a host of other
Biblical commentators point out, a careful examination of the laws of tzoraas
show that it is NOT an ordinance proclaimed by the Heavenly Department of
Public Health. Just to cite one law that makes this obvious, a person with one
of four defined shades of discolored skin is proclaimed a "metzora", or one
who has tzoraas, if the discoloration is larger than a certain minimum size.
Yet if the discoloration covers his entire body(when his "disease"-if that's
what it is, would be expected to be even more contagious) he is "tahor"-
ritually clean and not a metzora! I could cite many other laws of tzoraas
that refute the health hazard theory of tzoraas, but let this suffice to show
that what tzoraas is,is some supernatural type of plague, whose significance
and relevance to us we shall now try to explore.(NOTE: See Rabbi S.R. Hirsch's
commentary on Tazria for one explanation of the "all is like none" paradox of
tzoraas that was just mentioned)
And now...away with the polemics and back to our Dvar Torah...
In Parshas Metzora (14:34),the Torah states:
When you will come to the land of Canaan that I will give you as a
possession, and (if) I will place the plague of tzoraas on a house in the land
of your possession...
Rashi on this verse, citing Medrash Vayikra Rabba, explains that G-d is
giving the Jews a good piece of news:
...because all forty years that the Children of Israel were in the desert
, the Canaanites hid treasures of gold in the walls of their houses, and
through the plague of tzoraas on their houses (in which,in some cases, the
house must be destroyed), the house would be destroyed and the present Jewish
owner would thereby find the treasure.
The attitude of this Medrash is that having the tzoraas plague affecting
your house is some type of good fortune or reward. How does this view of
tzoraas jive with the views on tzoraas of the house elsewhere in the Talmud?
"Tzoraas of the house is a punishment for stinginess..." (Yoma- Chap. 1)
"Tzoraas of the house comes as punishment for seven sins..." ('Erechin 16a)
Clearly, in these and other places in the Talmud, tzoraas of the house, and
indeed all forms of tzoraas, are regarded as punishments?
To try to understand this apparent contradiction, let us look at the begin-
ning of Parshas Metzora, which discusses the karbonos("sacrifices") brought
by the metzora when the tzoraas has gone and he has become tahor (ritually
clean) again. The metzora brings two birds, a piece of cedar wood, string
dyed red with a product made from worms, and some stalks of grass.
Rashi explains the symbolism of this offering thusly: He brings the birds
because tzoraas comes as a punishment for gossiping(Lashon HaRah), which
people thoughtlessly babble and chirp, just as a bird constantly chirps.
Since tzoraas also is a punishment for arrogance, he brings wood from the
tall and mighty cedar tree. Since the "cure" for tzoraas is to "lower oneself
as the worm and the grass", he brings representatives of these species as well.
The Sefas Emes asks: If the cure for tzoraas is humility, I can understand
why the person must bring symbols of humbleness as part of his offering, but
why must he bring the birds and the cedarwood, the symbols of the sins that
were his downfall? If anything, he should go out of his way to avoid any
referenceo the bad traits he is now trying to avoid?
The Sefas Emes answers along the lines expressed in Yoma 86b. There, the
Talmud states that for one who repents out of love for his Creator, his sins
are transformes into virtues. I can understand a sin being forgiven, but how
can a sin be converted into a virtue? A person can achieve a degree of
penance by "reforming" and turning away from his errant ways, henceforth
blocking out some past aspect of his life( this is known as doing repentance
out of fear of the Creator). But to achieve true repentance-"teshuva" in
the full sense of the word, namely, a returning to one's source, how can you
just excise a piece of your life? Instead, the person must somehow
incorporate his past mistakes into a positive experience- now that he has
sinned and regretted it, he can feel a greater revulsion for the sin than he
did to begin with, having experienced the negative effect the sin had on his
omn personality. In retrospect, then, his act of sin has become a stimulus
to make him be a better and higher person. This is what the Talmud means by
saying that true repentance turns sin into virtue.
Similarly, the Sefas Emes says, for the metzora to achieve a full forgive-
ness for the sins he was punished for, he must realize that his previous
arrogance was instrumental in his now being a less conceited individual than he
was before. This is why he must bring symbols of his former sins as part of
his korbon offering.
On one level, then, we can now resolve the apparent contradiction in the
attitude of the Talmud towards tzoraas of houses. While the plague of tzoraas
of houses is the topic directly being referred to as a reward, it is only
serving as a model and object lesson for all the plagues of life-all the pain,
suffering, and difficulties that we all encounter in life. The Torah is saying
that all the problems we face in life are ultimately for our own good, to make
us into better and higher people than we were without the problems, by
actualizing much of the potential that had lain dormant within ourselves, in
the same way that the penitent can realize that his mistakes and follies were
in reality powerful stimuli to his own personal development.
And to provide us with a very concrete example of this principle, the
Torah selects tzoraas of the house-the tzoraas that seems to involve the
greatest monetary loss of any tzoraas, the destruction of his house. And
it is literally through the "punishment" of his house being destroyed that
he finds the great treasure that was hidden in its walls by the Canaanites-
to show that ultimately, punishment and difficulty are also blessings.
On a different level, the Sefas Emes has another way of understanding the
reward/punishment paradox of tzoraas of houses. But on this level, the reward
or "good news" is a collective, rather than an individual, one.
As previously mentioned, the Ramban and Sforno both explain the tzoraas
concept as something beyond the realm of ordinary nature. Ramban asks why
are we "immune" from tzoraas in modern times, if tzoraas is a punishment
for Loshon HaRa, gossip, egotism,selfishness, and the like-commodities that
we are unfortunately not in short supply of. He answers that the ability of
the Jews to be afflicted by tzoraas was a testament to their high moral fiber.
While a bum on Skid Row can develop a cast iron stomach and tolerate anything
that goes down his throat, someone accustomed to eating only the finest food
will be adversely affected by food that's only slightly spoiled. The more
refined one is, the more sensitive one is to impurities and coarseness.
The word "metzora" comes from the Hebrew words "motzi rah"-a manifestation
of evil. For Lashon HaRa and the like to not only impinge on one's spiritual
state, but even to manifest themselves on his material existence-his skin,
clothing, or house, a society must be at a high spiritual level, indeed. In
our times, Ramban writes, there is no tzoraas due to our own spiritual
poverty. We are so steeped in sin, he says, that we are dulled to the
effects and consequences of our mistakes, so that often we are barely
even conscious of committing our mistakes, and certainly far from having
these errors "breaking out" into our physical lives, a la' tzoraas.
(In light of the above, perhaps we can understand why tzoraas is referred
to as a plague with the word "negah", rather than the more conventional word
for plague,"makeh"-as in the Ten Plagues,the Makos. Makeh comes from the word
"hitting", while Negah is related to the word for "touching". Tzoraas is best
described as a Negah-a touching, or better yet, a sensitivity. It is only due
to a sensitivity on one's part that the effects of his sins are made manifest
not only on his own skin, but even on his inanimate clothing and house.)
What was the good news G-d was telling the Jews? What were the hidden
treasures He was promising them? According to the Sefas Emes, G-d was telling
them that even though they were entering the land of Canaan, the place
where a highly decadent society dwelt, they had the ability to create a society
of such holiness that not just their bodies, or clothing, but even their
houses-the very essence of their material acquisitions- could be sensitized
to sin to the extent of being "touched" by tzoraas. The good news was
that the Jewish people have the ability to tap a resovoir of potential
for holiness-to "reveal hidden treasures" (or in Kabbalistic terminology,
to "raise sparks of holiness) out of even the apparently most mundane
aspects of life and the world. These are the true "hidden treasures"-the
ability of the Jewish people to broaden its horizons, to create a higher level
of expectations, to raise their sensitivities to the point that they could
actually create an environment in which telling gossip could actually cause
a "motzi rah" of tzoraas to affect their houses.
Good Shabbos.
Pinchus Klahr...klahr@nyu-csd2.arpa....allegra!cmcl2!csd2!klahr