Parshat Tazriah-Metzorah
By: Moshe Goodman, Kollel Or Shlomo, Hebron בס"ד
לשכנו תדרשו
Delivering the Message
of the Schechina
in Our Holy Land
"אשה כי תזריע וילדה זכר"
"Speedily bring upon us blessing and peace quickly from four corners of the earth, and break the yoke of nations from upon our necks, and make us walk upright towards our Land..." (second blessing of Shema) "Before she has birth pains she shall give birth to a son... for... Zion shall give birth to Her sons..." (Isaiah 66, 7-9)We have learned in the past of how the People revive the power of the Shechina in the Land, but it is evident from Isaiah's prophecy that it is ultimately Zion, the power of the Shechina in the Land, that will "give birth" and revive our People. We can say that it is specifically because of this Holy Presence that the Land is uniquely susceptible to leprosy. So we learn from the Rambam in Tumat Tzaraat 14, 11, that from the words of the Torah "the house of the Land of your possession" (Lev. 14, 34)" (national possession) we learn that leprosy of houses applies only in the Land of Israel.
It is well known that one of the primary causes for Torah-ordained leprosy is the sin of slander. Therefore, considering the sensitivity of the Land to ill-speech, it is clearer why the sin of the spies, who slandered God and the Land, was so severe, as HaShem tells Moshe: "and all my blasphemers will not see It (the Land)" (p. Shlah). With the same token, it is clear why the merit of Kaleb, who spoke forth positively despite the other spies, was so great.
From whom did Kaleb receive this great inspiration to speak up despite all the odds? "And he (Kaleb) reached Hebron" (p. Shlah) - our sages (see Rashi and more on this verse) teach that it is from the merit of Hebron, the power of our Patriarchs, that Kaleb mustered the courage to speak up for the sake of our Holy Land. Hebron means to connect (haber), to communicate. Also, "the term Avot refers only to three (Patriarchs)" (Brachot 16b).
According to Maharal (in many places), the number three is intrinsically related to the concept of connection and communication. He explains that this is because while the number one has no separate entity to connect to, and number two represents two separate entities disconnected in essence, three is the first number to represent two entities connected by a third "bridge". It is by connecting to the power of our Avot and Hebron, that we too can connect ourselves and communicate unto others the true meaning of our Holy Land.
It is by delivering this message to others that we give merit to our people to inherit the Land, just like Kaleb was granted Hebron in merit of his speech: "For to Kaleb I will give Hebron, for a different spirit was with him" (p. Shlah). Let us invigorate ourselves and others with the spirit of Kaleb: "We shall surely arise and conquer it (the Land), for we shall surely be successful" (Num. 13, 30).
(Note: Last week's last quote was a bit misleading (unintentionally), for it combined two similar verses which talk about the same matter into what was quoted as one verse. The 2 verses are: Lev. 9, 4 and 6)
Real Stories from the Holy Land #13: The same day that I sent our readers last week's story about hashgaha in connection to the parsha, I took my family to the zoo. The zoo was very crowded on Isru Hag, so on the way back from the zoo we decided to go by foot instead of bus. On the way we consistently saw caterpillars all along the path. Then I remembered that the only place caterpillars are mentioned in the Torah was in that week's parsha - "marbe rablaim"(Shemini-This is without mentioning all the animals in the zoo mentioned in parsha).
