Parshas Tazria Metzora: Tzaraas: Sometimes a Bad Thing Can Be a Good Thing

Parshas Tazria Metzora: Tzaraas: Sometimes a Bad Thing Can Be a Good Thing

This week’s Torah portion speaks about various physical blemishes and conditions which can afflict a person.  The tzaraas, which is commonly translated as “leprosy” is not really a physical malady at all, but rather a spiritual one.  From the sages we learn that it comes about as the result of evil speech, or lashon hara, and afflicts not just his body, but his clothing and his house as well.

The Talmud, in the tractate Negaim, which deals with these types of blemishes and conditions, notes that “a person sees all kinds of blemishes except for their own.”  Although being afflicted with tzaraas was undeniably something we would want to avoid, it is not necessarily a good thing that we do not experience it today.  Tzaraas was G-d’s way of showing people the error of their ways and giving them the opportunity to correct and improve themselves.

The Midrash relates that Rabbi Shimon ben Gamliel asked his servant, Tavi, to buy him something good from the market. The servant returned with some tongue. Rabbi Shimon then asked his servant to buy something bad from the market. The servant returned with more tongue. “How can this be? I asked you to buy something good, you bought tongue; I asked you to buy something bad, you also bought tongue?” Replied Tavi, “It has good and bad. When it is good, it has a lot of goodness. When it is bad, it is very bad.”

Thus we see that our tongues and our mouths have incredible power.  We can use them to do incredible good, but all too often we use them for bad, too.  We speak badly of others or eagerly spread juicy gossip.  In essence, it is best to stick to the mandate, “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.”

Indeed, Rabbi Shimon ben Gamliel taught, ”I grew up my entire life amongst scholars, and I did not find anything as beneficial to the body as silence; action is the main thing, not talk, and whoever speaks too much will bring sin [upon himself].” In the words of King Solomon, “Even a fool is considered a wise man if he remains silent.”  The more we speak, the more likely it is that we will stumble and accidentally begin to speak badly.

This week, let us all work on reducing the amount of lashon hara we speak.  This requires intense concentration on what we are saying. We must carefully watch our words.  It is a good start to pick one hour during the day and to work on not speaking badly during that one hour.  Then we can expand that hour to include two or three, until we become accustomed to being fully conscious of and in control of our speech. In this way, perhaps, we will earn the right not to need tzaraas anymore.

Shabbat shalom!