Part I. The Pot of Gold
Plagued Houses
In this week’s sedrah, Hakadosh Baruch Hu is talking to the Am Yisroel about coming into Eretz Canaan and He warns them like this: יּƒכ ןַﬠַנּ¿כ ı∆ר∆‡ ל∆‡ּו‡ֹבָ ̇ – When you will enter into the land, ̇י≈בּ¿ב ַ̇ﬠַרָˆ עַ‚∆נ יּƒ ַ̇ ָ̇נ¿ו ם∆כ¿ ַּ̇זֻחֲ‡ ı∆ר∆‡ – I will give a plague of leprosy in the houses of the land that you inherit (Metzora 14:34). The Torah is introducing us here to the subject of nigei batim, leprosy of the homes; besides for tzaraas that comes on the skin of a person, there's also such a thing as leprosy on a house.
Today, if we find a stain or a certain growth on a wall, we just wash it off; and if washing doesn’t do the job so we might scrape it off. But during the period when the Jewish nation was living on the land and conducting itself according to the Torah laws, you couldn’t do that. You had to first bring the kohen over to your house and he had to view the nega and according to certain rules, if the color and its location on the walls were a certain way, he would declare it to be a certain fungi which is called tzaraas.
That was the beginning of the process because after a certain amount of time and under certain conditions – there was a procedure of waiting and watching, of studying how it spreads or doesn’t spread – they go so far as to tear down the wall or even the entire home. That’s what had to be done sometimes in order to fulfill the law of negaim according to the Torah.
The Secret Gift
Now there are very many details involved in nigei batim – those people who don't know about it won't learn much about it from my words now and those who do know about it don't need these words – but our point right now is something else.
Our Sages took note of an unusual word in our possuk: יּƒ ַ̇ ָ̇נ¿ו – I will give leprosy in your homes. Instead of “I will place leprosy" or “I will send leprosy,” the Torah says, “I will give you leprosy.”
And because of that small change, our Sages discovered a big lesson. “There’s a secret hidden in that word v’nosati,” the Sages say, “because ‘to give’ implies a gift.” And so Hakadosh Baruch Hu is saying, “When you come into Eretz Canaan and move into the old Canaanite houses I’m going to give you the gift of leprosy on the walls of your homes.” That’s what the Gemara says about tzaraas: הָר¿ּׂ ַּ̆ב¿ ̇ƒנ הָבֹטו הָרּוׂ ̆¿ּב ל≈‡ָר¿ׂ ̆ƒי¿ל – The Jewish people were given good tidings here, the good news that there's going to be a leprosy in some of their houses (Rashi ibid.).
Good news?! That there will be a nega tzaraas and you might have to move out of your home. And if the house is declared tamei and the kohen gives the fateful order, sometimes there's nothing to do except to knock down the house. And so with a heavy heart, you’ll take a chisel and a hammer and begin banging away. You know they had good heavy walls in those houses; walls that were built generations ago by the Canaanim. Not homes like in Flatbush that are wood with some stucco on top of it. No, they were solid stone walls made to last a thousand years. At least that's what he thought when he moved in; but now he sees he has to knock down the wall. He’s tearing down his home! What kind of “good news” is that?! It’s a tragedy, a disaster!
A Lucky “Break”
And so our Sages go on and tell us the end of the story; listen to what happens. As he starts dragging out the big pieces of chiseled stone from the wall – he’s crying but he’s a loyal Jew and so he fulfills the requirements of the Torah – he sees suddenly there’s a big hollow there. A hollow in a thick wall? He’s curious, so he takes a look and he can't believe his eyes. He sees something shining, glittering.
So he digs a little more and he finds there a whole stash of jewelry; diamonds and golden rings and bracelets. They were concealed in the wall, hidden there by the ancient inhabitants of the land. These were their walls before the Am Yisroel came into the land and they didn’t have banks in those days where they could rent safe deposit boxes, so many people hid their valuables in their walls. And then, in their haste to escape when the Bnei Yisroel entered the land, they left over their hidden treasures.
And so it happens now that the proprietor who is mourning for the loss of his house discovers that in the walls there was hidden away a chest of treasures, a pot of gold.
Now, this Jew would have lived there forever without finding the treasure. In stone walls you would never discover what's hidden. And now this! “Ah,” he says, “now I understand why the nega tzaraas came.” He looks back and he understands why this misfortune occurred to him. Hakadosh Baruch Hu sent the leprosy to cause him to break down the walls in order that he should discover the hidden valuables.
And now, all his life he looks back with gratitude to that misfortune. If not for the leprosy on the walls of his house, he would have remained a poor man all his life. And now, he’s wealthy! He could buy a new house if he wants. He’s able to support his sons-in-law in the kollel. So that’s the besurah tovah, the good tidings that nisbasrah l’Yisroel. What he thought was a tragedy, ended up being a windfall.
Broken by the Business
Now, from this Gemara, from the plain pshat, it would seem that that is the purpose of all misfortunes. Every tzarah that comes on a person is a besurah tovah; every misfortune is a treasure chest. And to a great extent we do say that; we see it again and again. Like the man whose business was torpedoed. A true story – a man in my shul. He took a big order from a Stop and Shop store, a chain store. And he didn’t know that this store was already a customer of someone else, someone in the mafia. By accident he took away a customer from the Italian mafia and so they came the next night and they firebombed his store. He’s out of a job now. And he thought he was ruined. He was finished.
But the truth is that the business was breaking his health. His nerves were frayed and his heart was sick – he was sacrificing his life for the store. But now nothing was left so he went out of that business, and he went and got another job; a nine-to-five city job where his health was maintained. And he had time even to start learning. The man never learned Gemara before but as a result of the firebombing, he finally started learning Gemara. He became a talmid chacham, a shtikel lamdan too.
Like they used to say a joke, a frum joke: י≈נָ ָ̇ ̃ יƒכָה¿ו ‡ָר¿ּסַחƒמ יƒרּסוֲח – A man lost his money and that's how he began learning. There are people like that; people who would have wasted their lives but their business went broke so they said, “Oh, forget it. I’ll just let it go. I'll sit in a kollel someplace and I'll be mistapek b’muat.” I know a man like that. And then he spent his life, a long happy life, learning Torah!
Broken Engagements
There are all kinds of ways that misfortunes turn out to be good later in life. What about that beautiful girl who was engaged to a doctor and everybody was so happy? It was sasson v’simchah, the culmination of the dreams of her family, that the daughter should marry a doctor.
And then the engagement was broken. His mother interfered and he called it off. Oh, you could imagine the tragedy in her home. A yelalah went out, an outcry. “Oy yoy yoy!” The family was sitting shivah. They had lost that golden shidduch.
But I know that this doctor happened to be a bum. I knew him. He was a very modern Orthodox man and a bum too and it was going to be trouble for her. And soon after the broken engagement there came along a wonderful young man, a frumme ben Torah who was making a good living in computers. It was a wonderful match! As a result of the ‘tragedy’ she was married to somebody else who was ten times as good and they lived happily ever after. She was saved from the doctor by this tragedy for which they were sitting shivah.
Of course, I'm not recommending breaking engagements, but many times in life we see tzaros have a benefit in this world. And looking back we see it was a stroke of good luck, that nothing better could have happened.
From Tragedy to Treasure
I recall a case of a kollel man, a ben Torah, with a beard, a frum young man, and he happened to be in a certain place where gentile boys came and annoyed him outside the door, outside the window. They were banging on the window and disturbing him.
This kollel man happened to be a husky fellow and hot tempered, the very strong type, so he ran out with the intention of doing something to them and they fled. And as he was pursuing them, he tripped on the concrete and he fell down and broke both of his arms!
I happened to meet him subsequently – I visited him and both his arms were in casts – and I told him it's a stroke of good luck for him. Because he would have beaten them up and then their big brothers or their fathers would have come. And they might come with a weapon! So he got off easy, this fellow. The breaking of both arms, that's the way that he was prevented from getting into trouble.
Thousands of Stories
If we study, if we look back, on very many of the misfortunes in our lives, we will see that they were blessings sent to prevent some later misfortune. There was a woman in our kehillah who crashed her car; she had a smash-up and so she had to go to the hospital for a checkup. And the physician discovered there was a lump on her breast and so they quickly made an operation and she's still alive; it's twenty years and she's well.
Now, I don't know if she realizes what a great blessing that crash was. Had it not happened, she would have perhaps postponed until it would have been past the time of healing. If someone had said “Mrs. so and so, what about going for a checkup?” she wouldn’t have listened. Had she received a letter or maybe some friend would have told her, “Let's go,” so she would have postponed. She never would have found it until it would have been too late. When finally Hakadosh Baruch Hu sent her the letter, the tzarah, she responded and she was saved.
Such things happen again and again. These stories are in the thousands only that we're lazy about thinking; we’re not accustomed to looking back and seeing how Hakadosh Baruch Hu is rescuing us and helping us. But what the Chumash says here is that you must get accustomed to that. Because that’s the great lesson of ַ̇ﬠַרָˆ עַ‚∆נ יּƒ ַ̇ ָ̇נ¿ו – I will give you a gift of tzaraas in your home. It’s the lesson of seeing the Hand of Hashem, how tragedy leads you to the treasure.
