Metzora – Mitigating the Miser’s Mindset

Nega’im, “plagues” that consist of certain types of spots of discoloration that appeared on the walls of a house after Klal Yisrael entered their land, signaled tzarus ayin, literally “cramped-eyedness,” what we would call stinginess. (See Arachin 16a and Maharsha there.)

Thus, the house’s owner is commanded (Vayikra, 14:36) to remove utensils from the house before it is pronounced tamei, spiritually unclean – letting others see things he has that he may have been asked to lend but claimed he didn’t have (and, by Hashem “saving” the vessels from tum’ah, demonstrating the very opposite of tzarus ayin).

The Kli Yakar explains that the words that translate as “[the house] that is his” (Vayikra 14:35), reflect the miser’s mindset, that what he has is really his. What he misses is the truth that what we “own” is really only temporarily in our control, on loan, so to speak, from Hashem.

Puzzling, though, is that Chazal also describe nig’ei batim, the “plagues of houses,” as a blessing, because the Emorim concealed treasures in the walls of their houses during the 40 years the Jews were in the desert, and when a Jew whose home was afflicted would remove the diseased wall stones, he would discover the riches. (Rashi, ibid 14:34, quoting Vayikra Rabbah 17:6).

A reward? For having been stingy?

No, but perhaps a lesson in the form of a reward.

Being stingy bespeaks a worldview, as noted above, that misunderstands that what we have is “self-gotten,” not on loan from Above. And that mistaken worldview yields an assumption: that we need to hoard what we have, lest anyone deprive us of it.

The once-tzar-ayin-afflicted homeowner, having had to remove a stone from his wall and belongings from his house, is presumably chastened by the experience. But now he is shown something to fortify his new outlook: a demonstration that wealth can come (and, conversely, go) unexpectedly and suddenly, and that we waste our energy and squander our good will by “cramped-eyedness.” We get what is best for us to have. And it comes from Above, not below.

Shemini – The Abominable Eight’s Missing Member

The nachash, the snake, makes two appearances in the parsha. Actually, one is better described as a conspicuous non-appearance and the other is one where it is described in words but not by name. And that latter reference includes something unique in the Torah: a graphic representation.

The eight “creeping creatures” – the shemonah sheratzim – convey tum’ah, ritual impurity, when their corpses contact a person, a food, vessel or garment. The particular identities of each of the eight are not clear but what is clear is that the nachash, strangely, despite it being the animal-world representation of evil (as evident from the account of the first snake, in parshas Beraishis), is not among them (Vayikra 29:30).

We do find the snake referenced, though, among creatures forbidden to be consumed (ibid 11:42), in the phrase “all that travel on the belly.” And the letter vav in the Hebrew word for “belly” – gachon – is written enlarged in a sefer Torah. It is also, the mesorah teaches, the Torah’s middle letter. It might be said that the Torah pivots on how we deal with what the snake represents – evil, and its manifestation, the yetzer hora. And a vav resembles a snake.

Paralleling the oddity of the nachash not being one of the “abominable eight” is the fact that, in the following parsha, Tazria, we are taught that, while a white patch of skin on a person is a sign of the tum’ah attending tzora’as, if the patch spreads to cover a person’s entire body, he is considered free of tum’ah (ibid 13:12-13).

How to explain those two seeming paradoxes, a tahor snake and super-tzora’as?

What occurs is that, while in the world in which we live, evil and tum’ah exist, and we must deal with them, they are ultimately phantasms. When one would expect them to be most ascendant, they dissolve into nothingness, like popped soap bubbles.

In the end, in ultimate reality, ein od mil’vado: “ there is nothing but Him” – divine Goodness.

My Father’s Matzo

A Pesach-themed piece I wrote for the Boston Globe can be read here.

Courage and Carnage in Gaza

Whether the anti-Hamas protests that have taken place, and put down, in Gaza herald any future larger revolution against the terrorist regime can’t be known. But Hamas’ evil is evident as always, and some Americans need to wake up to it, as you can read here.

Silenced Voices

President Trump’s executive order to dismantle the US Agency for Global Media, which oversees American independent news outlets like Voice of America, was greeted with cheers in some circles. In others, not so much.

To read about the issue, please click here.

Tzav – The Import of the Ashes

An interesting Midrash is cited by Rav Yosef Nechemia Kornitzer (1880-1933), a great-grandson of the Chasam Sofer who served as the av beis din of Cracow before World War II. The Midrash is found in the Tanchuma manuscript discovered by Solomon Buber, published in 1885.

The Midrash speaks about the end of history and quotes Ovadiah (1:18): “And the house of Yaakov will be fire and the house of Yosef flame; and the house of Esav, straw. And they will light them aflame and devour them. And there will remain nothing of the house of Esav…”

Rav Kornitzer quotes its continuation: “And where did Moshe say this? [In the words] ‘it is the olah on its mokeid throughout the night until the morning… And the kohein will lift up the deshen [ashes ]… and place it next to the mizbei’ach’ ” (Vayikra 6, 2-3). A puzzling citation.

To explain it, he quotes his forebear the Chasam Sofer as casting the kohein’s lifting of the terumas hadeshen as the need for the kohein to not avert his eyes from the “lowly of worth.” He has a responsibility to lift them up and bring them to a holier place.

Rav Kornitzer asserts that the kohein’s responsibility is paralleled in our own vis-à-vis the rest of humanity – that we are in galus (the “night”) to spread knowledge of the Torah and to, by our dedication to Torah, attract those among other peoples, the “deshen”, to join us. That, he contends, is what will bring about the fulfillment of Ovadiah’s prophecy, the destruction of evil.

He then quotes another Midrash: “Rabi Yosi ben Kisma’s students asked him when Moshiach will come. He responded ‘This is the law of the olah’ ” (Vayikra 6:2).

Concludes Rav Kornitzer: “When the Jews fulfill their mission and ‘lift up the deshen’… Ben Dovid will arrive, may it be soon in our days.”

Sadly, the galus didn’t end in Rav Kornitzer’s days. May it end in ours.

Nasty Blast from the Past

My most recent Ami Magazine piece can be read here.

“No Such Thing as a Palestinian?”

A rumination on the meaning of “Palestinian” can be read here.

Vayikra – A Phenomenal “Fat”

Among the eimorim, the portions of non-olah animal korbanos that are burned on the mizbe’ach, in contrast to the animal’s meat, which is eaten, is the cheilev she’al hak’layos – the “fat atop the kidneys.”

That reference is not to “fat” as we define the word, but, rather, to the yellowish glands that sit upon the kidneys of mammals and birds. That is to say, the adrenal glands.

Those structures are what produce epinephrine, also known as adrenaline, which plays the dominant role in the “acute stress response,” often called the “fight-or-flight” reaction, to a danger.

Epinephrine might be thought of as an “amplifier” or “heightener” of a body’s readiness to act. When produced, it causes pupils to dilate, allowing more light to be sensed; it opens airways wider; it directs blood to muscles and makes hearts pump harder and faster.

We don’t know, of course, how korbonos “work,” what effects they have in the spiritual realm. And those who offered them can be assumed to have lacked knowledge of what physiological effects the “fat atop the kidneys” have on organisms. But it can certainly be argued that korbonos are, if not exclusively then largely, expressions of determination and decisiveness, of readiness to take action.

And so it’s intriguing that the cheilev she’al hak’layos are associated physiologically with “acute stress response,” or what we might deem a “call to action.”

Pekudei – One Thing Leads to Another

It’s intriguing that, just as Chazal place importance on being masmich geulah litfillah – placing a reference to redemption immediately before prayer, i.e. the amidah (Berachos 4b, 9b) – we find something similar in the Torah itself.

The first part of Sefer Shemos, the Torah’s book of geulah, concerns, of course, Yetzias Mitzrayim, the redemption from Egypt. And the latter parshios deal with the mishkan, the place of korbanos, which were accompanied by, and eventually replaced by, tefillah. And the sefer is followed by Vayikra, the sefer of korbanos.

What’s more, the segue into the concept of tefillah is hinted at as well in the final parsha of Shemos. As the Yerushalmi notes, there are 18 times in parshas Pekudei that the phrase “as Hashem commanded Moshe” is used, corresponding to the 18 brachos of the amidah. (And the phrase “as Hashem commanded” occurs without an object once, which could correspond to the added nineteenth bracha, birchas haminim.)

And, although the Gemara regards the introduction to the amidah, the short prayer “Hashem, open my lips and let my mouth speak Your praises,” as part of tefillah, it, too, may itself hint at the geulah, since the word for “my lips” is rooted in the word for the seashore, the “al sfas hayam” of kri’as Yam Suf we reference in Shacharis leading up to the bracha of Go’al Yisrael.

Why being masmich geulah litefillah is a desideratum isn’t obvious, but it might be because, as we are about to beseech Hashem, hakaras hatov, recognition of His favor toward us, embodied in the concept of geulah, is something on which to concentrate..

May our tefillos lead, in turn, to the geulah ha’asidah.

Rabbi Avi Shafran

Reflections on Jews, Judaism, Media and Life