Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Hello, my friends, and welcome back to this week's episode of the Practical Parsha Podcast. This is Rabbi Shlomo Cohen, and I hope you are well.
[00:00:07] You're probably wondering, why do I sound different? Am I sick? Am I under the weather?
[00:00:12] But it's a springtime, and spring equals allergies.
[00:00:18] It's just coming in this week. And Baruch Hashem feeling okay? Not too bad this year. Just have a little bit of a, uh, you know, some allergy reactions. But we'll be able to do the episode, don't you worry. And before we begin, as always, if you have any questions, comments, would like to reach out to say hello.
[00:00:37] Don't be afraid. Send me that email. I know you're thinking about it. Maybe the last few episodes. Just do it. Say hello. I'd love to hear from you. My email address is Rabbi Shlomo konkohnmail.com this week's Parsha is Parshas Tazria Mitzorah, meaning it's a double parsha. There's Tazriya and Mitzorah Mzra together.
[00:01:00] And just to give a quick overview of the parshios, Tazriya primarily deals with the laws of a woman after she gives birth.
[00:01:10] There's a specific purification process that she must go through, and the parsha segues into this. The miraculous disease of Tsoras Tsaras was a spiritual disease that manifests itself on a person's physical body.
[00:01:35] And the Torah goes into detail.
[00:01:38] What is tsaras?
[00:01:40] And how is a person diagnosed with, with Tsaras? Now, just to give a little bit of a context here, you know, if you look in some translations of Tsaras, it's incorrectly translated as leprosy. But the point is, is that Tzaras was a spiritual disease that a person, um, got when they committed specific sins. And the Talmud tells us the different sins that a person committed that could cause Tsaras. Now, the most known and the, uh, sin that caused Tsaras was the sin of Lushon Hara, of evil speech.
[00:02:20] Now, that means if somebody spoke evil about somebody else, they committed the sin of slander. They would be afflicted by Tzaras. And now this miraculous disease, it had stages that it would go through. It wouldn't just first appear in the person, it would appear on their house and then their clothing, and then on the person. Hopefully, before it got onto him, he would get the message. But the point is that, uh, the person who would find this lesions on him, this type of disease on him, he would have to go to the Kohen to the priest. And the priest would diagnose him. He would look at the tzaras. He would look at the markings on the skin and the white marks. And the Torah really goes into detail about exactly what the kohen is going to look for. Now, some situations, the kohen would declare him tame on the spot. He would be impure, and he would have to be secluded.
[00:03:12] Other times, the parasha tells us, it would be questionable, and he would have to go into seclusion or isolation for a certain amount of days and then come to the kohen again to make a final decision if it's considered tsaras or not. And through a. A chuva process, through a person reflecting, you know, obviously he would be isolated from the rest of the community. He was impure. And hopefully by being isolated, having some time for reflection, a person would come back to a situation of regret and come back to being a better person, improving themselves. And that was the whole point of tzaras, to cause a person to think and to get him back onto the right track.
[00:03:53] That's really parshas tazria, which gives us the details about this spiritual disease of tzaras and the different signs that the kohen would look for in the processes that were used to deem someone tame, impure.
[00:04:09] Parsha, as mitsorah, deals with the purification process of someone who's coming out of the impurities of tzaras, the processes that they would have to take in order to become pure again and to re. Enter the camp.
[00:04:24] And there was a different. There's a different order that the Torah lays out for us. They would have to shave and they would have to, um, offer specific sacrifices to gain atonement. And only then would they be considered pure again to be able to enter back into society hopefully as a changed person, you know, through the process of mitzorah, they would, you know, they would, like we said before, gain awareness of what they had done and hopefully internalize to be a better person. The parasha also teaches us about tsaras on houses that even though. Less on that, even though the parsha, Parsha's metzorah also deals with tzaras on a person's house. So in tazriya, we talked about on a person's body and a person's garments and utensils. But tsaras could also afflict a person's house, the bricks of a person's house. And the parasha tells us about the different signs the kohen would look for and the processes involved. Additionally, the parasha finishes off with the different Impure emissions of a man and a woman and the different purification processes that is necessary for a person to become pure again after these specific bodily emissions.
[00:05:38] Now, in past years, I've really focused more on Pashas Tazriya and not so much on Parshas Mitzorah. This year, I want to flip it around. I want to say one idea on Parshas Tazria, and then we'll focus a little bit more, a little more extensively on Parsha has Mitzorah. We don't want it. We don't want it just because it's the second Parsha. We don't want it to be left out in the cold. Now, the first idea I want to share with you on Parshas Tazriya is really a beautiful thought. And what really strikes me about it is the fact that in Torah you could have the same word that can be used to, you know, to teach us different things, and you could have two different lessons from the same word in the Torah. And last year, I expounded upon an idea from the word Adam that in Parshas Tazria, it says when a person comes to the Cohen, it refers to him as Adam. And if I read the verses, the verse says as follows. Vayedaber hashem else hashem spoke to Moshe and Aaron, saying, If a person will have on the skin of his flesh, which is the type of, you know, this type of patch, or a sapachas, another type of type, uh, of skin lesion or some type of rash.
[00:07:07] Right? That's the Torah's words for these type of afflictions on a person's skin. And it will become a tsaras affliction on the skin of his flesh. He shall be brought to Aaron the Kohen, or to one of his sons, the Kohanim.
[00:07:19] Now, last year I talked about Adam, this idea that he's referred to as Adam. And I wanted to talk about that again this year, but just expound a different idea that I heard. And I thought it's very beautiful.
[00:07:29] And that's really the beauty of Torah. You could have many ideas, more and more ideas on the same word, on the same pasach in the same verse.
[00:07:38] So this idea that it says Adam, uh, there are many different ways to refer to a human being, but the Torah refers to the person coming to the kohen as Adam.
[00:07:52] Now, I heard said from my befriend that the highest level of referring to a human being is Adam, is referring to him as Adam, as man.
[00:08:04] All the other references, other words, there's Many different ones. Ish.
[00:08:11] It's not on this. It's not, you know, the same as referring to a person as Adam. Adam is the pinnacle, is the highest level.
[00:08:18] And the question that's asked is that we know that a person who had tsaras, right? What did I say before? In the introduction to the Parsha, Tsaras was a spiritual affliction that afflicted a person because they did averos, because they sinned. There's different sins that are listed. And we know the biggest sin or one of the most common sins that would cause a person to have tzaras is lashon hara, evil speech, speaking bad about another person.
[00:08:48] Now, if a person came, the person who was coming, who had saras, was coming to the kohen, why are we referring to him in such an exalted way as Adam? Oh, uh, he's such an exalted person. I can't imagine he was the best person around. And to make the question perhaps a little stronger, we know that first the tsaras would come on a person's house, and then if he didn't learn his lesson yet, it would come on his clothing. And then if that didn't work, it would come onto him. So he didn't get the message. This fellow, I can't imagine he was the best, the most lofty individual. So Rabbi Fran explains as follows. He says that when the Torah says Adam, it says he's brought to the Kohen. And really the kohen has a very. And the kohanim in general, the priests, they're the ones who make the diagnosis. And it's interesting. Until the kohen says that he's tameh, that he's impure, he's not imperial. He doesn't have to.
[00:09:44] He doesn't have to seclude himself. It's the kohen who makes a declaration and makes him tame. And from that point on, he has to be isolated and start the whole purification process.
[00:09:55] But there's a lot of involvement with the kohanim.
[00:09:58] So this fellow, he has to. In order for him to be able to be back in society, he has to go to the kohen if he wants to be cured from this disease. Going to a doctor, going to specialists ain't gonna help him. He has to go to the kohen. He has to go to the kohanim, and they have to see him, and he has to show it. He has to show it to them, wherever this patch may be.
[00:10:23] And then he has to go through this whole process.
[00:10:26] You know, it's not such a, uh, this is not something which possibly a person would not want to go through.
[00:10:33] You know, the natural instinct of a person to go through this, it's a lot. But this is what the Torah says we need to go through.
[00:10:40] The fact that he's willing to do this and he's a. He's a man, he's willing to go through this process of, you know, owning up to what he has done, to taking responsibility for his actions.
[00:10:54] That alone, the Torah refers to him as Adam, as the highest name for a person, Adam. And I think the lesson we see from this is the importance of taking responsibility.
[00:11:08] You know, it's always easy for us to throw the next guy under the bus, but ultimately in life, we have to be willing to take responsibility for ourselves, for our actions, and for the things that we're responsible for. And that's really. That's what makes us into a Adam, into an Adam, which is the highest level. That's what makes us great, is when we have the ability to take responsibility. You think about it, you know, for a second.
[00:11:40] If you look at people who have accomplished great things in their lives, you know, uh, I'm sure there's different things you could point to as something which is a common denominator. But I'm sure one of the things that you can see across the line by successful people and people who have accomplished and done great things is that they take responsibility.
[00:12:04] That's something we should do in our own lives, whether it be between ourselves and God, whether it be in our family life, between us and our family, whether it be, you know, in our professional lives, taking responsibility. And not always is it easy, not always is it comfortable. But it's something we need to do. And I think it makes us into a better person, makes us into a better person. It makes us into a great person. And that's a powerful lesson we see from this week's Parasha.
[00:12:32] Now, the next idea I wanted to share with you takes us to Parshas Mitsora. And I want to. Actually, I saw a few ideas, but I really think they all link together beautifully.
[00:12:41] Now, this is a, uh, three part thing thought, which I think all fits in one idea to the next. The Parsha says in Parsha's Mitzorah v'tsiva hakoein velokacher shitei tziporim chayos to hoyrois ve' eitz erez ushnei toilas vezoif. The coin shall command. And for the person being purified, there shall be taken two live clean birds, cedarwood crimson thread and hyssop.
[00:13:10] Now, the kohen commands this person who's coming, the person who has tzaras, who's coming out of it now, he has to give special sacrifices, special carbonos. And the carbonos that he has to give in order to gain atonement and become pure again are two birds.
[00:13:29] Now, Rashi explains on this that what's the reason why he has to give two birds? Specifically, like, there's many types of carbonos, many types of sacrifices that are offered in the temple, and it's not so often that birds are given, but why over here, by the person who's coming out of Tsaras, who just had tsaras, does he have to give birds?
[00:13:56] Now, Rashi explains on this that the reason why a person has to give birds, it says because since tsaras comes from lashon hara, shumaisa pit pute dvarim, it's from the chattering, from the chirping of words.
[00:14:21] So therefore it's appropriate for this person to gain his atonement by bringing these birds which tweet all the time, tweeting to gain atonement for the tweeting that he did. Now, what does this mean exactly? Birds tweeting, tweety, twitter, what's going on here? And the idea here that Rashi is explaining to us and the commentaries talk about at length on these parshios, we talk about lashon hara, evil speech, the evils of it, how bad it is, gossip.
[00:14:57] Even when it's true, you can't speak lashon hara. There's very limited circumstances of how and when you could speak negatively about another person. You know, that has to be for a purpose, and so on and so forth, different reasons. But the point here is, what's Rashi telling us about this? The person was tweeting, and therefore he has to bring these carbonos.
[00:15:18] So Rabbi, uh, Rukhi Levavitz explains that the Torah is giving us an insight into, you know, what causes a person to speak against others.
[00:15:29] When a person speaks against other people, a person is talking without thinking. They're just chattering all the way. What does a bird do? A, uh, bird just, you know, chirps all day long. Just chirps, chirps, chirps, chirps, chirps. And when a person speaks lashon hara, it means they're not thinking before they're talking.
[00:15:50] And this is just a very powerful idea for us to remember. You know, how many times have we said things that we've regretted the second they've come out of our Mouths Right. When we think without talking, it's like, you know, missiles could come out. Missiles, nuclear missiles.
[00:16:09] And the point is, is that when we, when we're in a habit of thinking before we speak, it'll help us to overcome this tendency of speaking against other people.
[00:16:22] Now, how does this tie into the next idea? Because it says in the pasuk, a person needs to take these two birds. Ve' ETZ veraz shneit olas vezayv. Aside from the two birds, he takes the cedar words scarlet and hyssop and rashi over there as well.
[00:16:39] He tells us that the cedar, which is, uh, a tall tree, symbolizes arrogance because tzaras comes from Hashanahara, right? And we talked about a person talking without thinking.
[00:16:53] But where does this root of. What's the root of that? What's the root of just talking without thinking?
[00:16:59] That also that comes from arrogance.
[00:17:02] And arrogance is represented in the cedar tree. The cedar tree is a tall, mighty tree, doesn't bend.
[00:17:10] And a person, in his sacrifice, he brings this cedar to remind himself that we need to be humble, we need to humble ourselves. And that's what the scarlet represented, because he would have to also bring scarlet. Scarlet comes from a low plant, and it's by Ahsop, it's also a low plant that the Kira, they needed to bring some humility to the arrogance that he or she had. The Chavitz Chaim comments that when a person speaks lashon hara, one of the primary reasons why a person speaks badly about another person or against another person is because we view ourselves as better and we think we're better than someone else. And therefore, if I'm better than this person or that person, I have the right to say negative things about them because I know better, I'm better. This is arrogance.
[00:18:02] And if we focus on our own faults, we'll tend to look less and at the faults of others, thus preventing ourselves from speaking lashan hara.
[00:18:13] Now to continue this three pronged idea.
[00:18:17] The question is like, what can we practically do to try to help ourselves to prevent speaking lashon hara? The Talmud tells us that the sin of lashon hara is so great that everyone is touched by its dust, that, you know, it's very, very hard to keep away from.
[00:18:36] And, you know, we have to learn the laws of evil speech.
[00:18:40] We have to be cognizant, um, and, you know, obviously having the right attitude, not looking at the faults of others. But what's something we can, you know, take away maybe a little bit concrete for ourselves?
[00:18:53] From this week's parsha that can maybe help us. And I think that segues into the next idea, because further on in Parshas Mitzorah, it talks about how a person's house can be afflicted with tzaras, that on the stones of the house there can be an outbreak and the kohen will declare it impure. And there's a process. The stones have to be taken out, and everything goes through a purification process as well. The posse reads as UVO as, uh, The one to whom the house belongs shall come to the kohen and declare to the kohen. Saying something like an affliction has appeared to me in the house. Now, the question that could be raised is that if you look at this verse at the Pasuk, this fellow is coming to the kohen with this, you know, tsoras blotcher. It looks like it on his house.
[00:19:54] And he doesn't say to the Cohen, I have tsoras on my house. He says, something like an affliction has appeared to me in the house Kinega near Alibabaez. It looks. I think. I think this is tsoras on my house. It's interesting, you know, when someone comes with a question, it's like, there's tsaras on my house. What's this? I think this is tsaras. It's interesting that the Torah, when the Torah is trying to tell us about a case in halacha and how to proceed, doesn't usually speak like this. And if you look at Rashi, Rashi explains to us, even if the person coming is a Torah scholar and he knows the laws of Tzaraz, he knows how it looks.
[00:20:43] He shouldn't say 100% definitively that this is. That I for sure saw this blotch on my house, rather say, I think I see it on my house. Right? He shouldn't get ahead of himself, right? He's coming to the kohei now. He shouldn't say for sure. Even if he knows the halachos, he knows the laws, he shouldn't be definitive. Now we learn out a very powerful idea from this Rashi. Rabbi Yorukim Lvavitz explains that like we said before, practically, it makes no difference if it's it is or it appears to be. What's the Torah teaching us here? And really, I think the question is stronger because if the Torah is trying to teach us halachah of how to proceed and what to do, it shouldn't say kineerially that I think it's. It's tsaras. The lesson we can learn from this is that when we, we should develop a habit of saying, it appears to me, I think perhaps, meaning we shouldn't always say absolute statements.
[00:21:43] Now granted, there are situations we need to take a strong stand and say, you know, something definitively.
[00:21:50] But more often than not, we are human beings and human beings make mistakes.
[00:21:57] And if we accustom ourselves to speak in a way that's not absolute, not definitive, it's, you know, I think this is the information.
[00:22:06] I believe this is the situation. So we're training ourselves to remember that we're human, that we could make a mistake. And when we do make a mistake, it'll be easier for us to correct that mistake and to, you know, to accept what's true and what's miss.
[00:22:26] Because if we always say things definitively and we always have to be right, it's just going to lead us to arrogance and to trouble. And I think this ties into the last idea because we talked about Lashon Hara, we talked about evil speech, how it's rooted in arrogance. And the question is, what do we do? How do we get rid of that arrogance? How do we prevent ourselves from arrogance and thus protect ourselves from Lashon Hara is perhaps one concrete way of doing that is to speak, to have this sense of humility incorporate into our lives and how we conduct ourselves and how we act, to not always say things that it's for sure this way and it's my way or the highway to have that Maybe it's not always in, um, just how you speak of saying, perhaps maybe this is the way you could speak with confidence. But even when we give over information, there's ways of giving it over in a way where it appears that a person's has some humility, that a person's willing to hear what the other party has to say. And I think that's a very important idea. We see from this week's Parsha that when the Cohen, that when the person comes to the Cohen, he doesn't say it for sure, but rather he says it in a way that he shows that he's willing to hear what it is. He wants to hear what the truth is. And I think that should be our outlook as well. So that will keep us humble and, and that will prevent us from speaking Lashon Hara, God willing. So with that, I'm going to finish for today's podcast. I hope you enjoyed. If you have any questions, comments, or would like to reach out, feel free to send me an email at Rabbi Shlomokon kohnil.com have a great day.
