QUESTION: Why did Hashem give Na’aman the type of tzara’as that only a Jew is supposed to have as written in the Torah?
ANSWER: Na’aman became a metzora. It wasn’t a Jewish tzara’as. Tzara’as is not a Jewish sickness.
QUESTION: But the type of tzara’as in the Torah is meant for Yidden. And when Geichazi contracted his tzara’as, he was put out of the city and that’s only done if you have the tzara’as of the Torah.
ANSWER: Na’aman the general? He wasn’t driven out of the city. Among goyim they didn’t follow the Torah laws of tzara’as.
QUESTION: Geichazi was sent out. And he contracted Na’aman’s tzara’as.
ANSWER: So?
QUESTION: So, if he contracted Na’aman’s tzara’as, he had to have the tzara’as that’s written in the Torah, where you get ostracized from the city. Because he was one of the four who were outside the city.
ANSWER: If a Jew had tzara’as, chalilah, a gentile could catch it from him, no question about it. It’s no kasha at all. When a Jew has a cold, can a gentile catch a cold from him?
QUESTION: But Geichazi caught it from Na’aman?
ANSWER: It makes no difference. A cold is a cold. A sickness is a sickness.
Reprinted from the Parshas Vayikra 5786 edition of Toras Avigdor. (Transcribed from a classic Thursday night hashkafah lecture delivered by Rav Avigdor Miller in November 9, 2000.)
