The Alter Rebbe brings three verses the show that great evil in the world is connected to the idea of someone wanting to have their own “Name,” which is the “Bad Name” of unholiness, which is the idea of Tzaraas:
This idea is similar to what is written regarding the Generation of the Dispersion, when the people made the Tower of Babel and were scattered: (Bereishis 11:4) “Let us make for ourselves a Name so that we shouldn’t become dispersed,”
Similarly, regarding the angels who ‘fell’ when they came to the earth, it says: (Bereishis 6:4) “The “fallen ones were in the land, angelic ‘men’ of Name,” and, so too, in the Gathering
We see from this maamar that the idea of Tzaraas is a general idea. All unholiness in the world is connected to the idea of Tzaraas. See the sicha of parshas Tazria-Metzora 5751, where the Rebbe brings numerous sources on this topic and explains how the entire exile (and all unholiness in the world, which is connected to exile) is similar to Tzaraas, and the Redemption is similar to the purification process, see there at length.
At the end of Parshas Bereishis it describes how mankind became degenerate and corrupt, which is why Hashem decided to bring a flood upon the world. As the verses are explained in the Midrash, there were angels who complained to Hashem about the corruption of men and how easily they give in to their evil inclination. Hashem’s response was to send some angels down to the physical world and give them an evil inclination to see if they would be more successful. The result was that those angels who were sent down and tested failed to pass the test and instead ‘fell’ from their spiritual level to the same level of corruption and immorality as men. However, the corruption became multiplied due to their supernatural powers beings used for corruption, rather than for holiness.
