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As our Parsha Metzora is normally, in most years, the twilight side of a Torah doubleheader parsha, a few points of discussion from last week, the individual’s Tzara’as extrapolated onto national ills needs further examination.
Last week, the Parsha Shevua on Parsha Tazria spoke to the unity which is the very essence of the Kohan.
Rabbi Zelig Pliskin in “Growth Through Torah” (page 253) cites the Rabbi of Alexander who cites as the reason why, when one suspected an affliction with Tzara’as, that he must go to Aharon, the Kohen and
not to a scholar, a Talmud Chacham;
“One of the traits of Aharon was that he did everything he could to make peace between people.” The Sefer relates how Aharon
“exaggerated and told untruths in order to bring about peaceful relationships between people.” When people quarreled, he would tell each side how highly thought of they were to the other. “When someone was told that the other person was speaking positively about him, he automatically felt positive about the other person and this greatly improved their relationship.”
It seems axiomatic; with peace, there is unity.
And this author cited a Young Israel Rabbi’s parsha sheet dating back many years (subsequently misplaced or lost by me) which spoke of how Israel, in the depths of it’s corruption and idolatry during the reign of King Achav, won all of it’s wars.
Also cited was The Encyclopedia of Biblical Personalities, by Yishai Chasidah, which quote from Mesechta Megillah 11a;
Three men ruled over the entire world — Achav, Nevuchadnezzar and Ahasuerus. The world was comprised of 252 provinces and Achav ruled over them all. (Esther Rabbah 1:5)
So what was it on a national basis that gave Israel, under King Achav, the merit to win all of it’s wars and the merit to be one of only three national entities to have conquered the world while being Ovdei Avodah Zora?
It seems to this author that the answer lies in that there was a national unity of purpose rather than the divisiveness of sectors openly demeaning and disrespecting other sectors, each group decrying and gaining pleasure from detracting every other group.
It also seems to this author that unity of purpose was the key to the fact that the contemporary Jewish State, in it’s first 19 years of sovereignty, was largely unified, fought 3 wars, in 1948, 1956 and in 1967 winning each one convincingly, particularly 1956 and 1967 when they won overwhelmingly and completely.
And it seems to this author that just as under Chiskiyahu Ha Melech there was a great T’Shuva movement in which Avodah Zorah became covert, hidden between the sliding or folding doors thereby exposing a divide between those who clung to their idol worshipping ways and Torah Tzaddikim, so too, in the face of the great T’shuvah movement after the Six Day War, what may have manifested itself could be understood as a visible, more overt national divide between secular and religious, between one sector of religious and another, between racial sectors, i.e. Ashkenaz and S’fardi as a collective national tzara’as receding from covering the entire national body.
Whereas, between 1948 and 1967, the modern-day Medinat Yisrael subordinated that which divided them to collective unity, to the common good, i.e. an attack in the Negev or a sniping or mortar attack in Jerusalem or in the north was taken by all Israelis as an attack on their front door. You attack my fellow Jew, you attack ME — no matter where my fellow holds.
Over the past 20 years at least, we fail to detect this type of unity, the type of unity inherent in the Kohen.
Could it be that if we would have continued to display and exemplify the rock-solid collective unity of Israel’s early years, we would have merited not to have known the attacks, deaths, casualties and nesoyanim we’ve known in recent years? Is it possible that had we not gotten comfortable, complacent and willing to demean each other, that the modern politician and bogus shofat would not have been able to step in, divide and conquer all of the sectors who demeaned each other while equivocating and appeasing an enemy bent on our collective utter destruction.
And we learn that as long as the tzara’as covers the entire, visible body, the afflicted is deemed pure, but when affliction recedes and no longer covers the entire visible body, the afflicted is deemed ta’amei (contaminated) and most be quarantined.
May we be zocha in this coming year that our brethren — the refugee families from Gush Katif be permanently settled and be made totally whole, that our dear brother Jonathan Pollard and the 3 captive Chayalim and the other MIAs be liberated and returned to us and that we fulfill Hashem’s blueprint of B’nai Yisrael as a Unique people — an Am Segula, not to be reckoned with as with “the nations” and may we be zocha the Moshiach, the Ge’ula Shlaima, as Dov Shurin sings; “Yom Hashem V’Kol HaGoyim”, the Ultimate Redemption, bim hay v’yameinu — speedily, in our time”, — Achshav, Chik Chuk, Miyad, Etmol!!!
Good Shabbos!
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Moshe Burt, an Oleh, is a commentator on news and events in Israel and Founder and Director of The Sefer Torah Recycling Network. He lives in Ramat Beit Shemesh.
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