Timeless Torah

They were the outcasts, the modern lepers shunned by the family of nations. With no country willing to harbor them, they were banished to the DP camps. DP, an acronym for Displaced Persons, or did it mean, Don’t Plan on staying here too long. This pitiful remnant of the Jews and others who had been herded into the ghettos and cattle trains only to be extinguished and cremated in the concentration and death camps, were unwanted.

Yet a sliver of hope did exist. One rabbi, the brilliant and flamboyant founder of the Va’ad Hatzolah, the Committee to Save, expended tremendous effort and energy to to uplift the Jews materially as well as spiritually. I recently discovered a story about this contemporary leader who like Aaron the High Priest before him perceived goodness where others only saw blemishes.

This amazing tale is most appropriate for the Biblical portion of Metzorah, which deals with the physio-spiritual plague of tzora’as. Tzora’as is a discoloration that appears in varying forms on human skin, on hair, clothing, and even on the walls of one’s home. The afflicted individual underwent a complicated process of purification in order to rejoin the community.

The Talmud explains that tzoraas is a divine punishment for the sins of slander and gossip. In fact, the Talmud in Ararchin 16b comments that the reason that the afflicted is sent out of the camp was because, “he separated friends and families through his words, and deserves to be separated from his community.”

Rashi and the Ramban explain that the first form of tzora’as does not begin on the person. Hashem in His mercy first strikes at inanimate objects — one’s possessions. Thus the discoloration first appears on the walls of a home, forcing the affected stones to be removed and destroyed. If that event does not succeed as a wake-up-call, and the person continues his malevolent activities and his clothing is affected. If that fails, ultimately the flesh is transformed and white lesions appear, forcing the afflicted to leave the Jewish camp until the plague subsides and the Kohen declares him acceptable to return.

Rashi tells us that the first stage of tzora’as — the home — is actually a blessing in disguise. Tzora’as on a home can indeed bring fortune to the affected. As the Israelites were approaching the Land of Canaan, the inhabitants, figuring that one day they would re-conquer the land, hid all their gold and silver inside the walls of their homes. When one dislodged the afflicted stones of his home he would find the hidden treasures that were left by the fleeing Canaanites.

It is troubling. Why should the first warning of tzora’as reek of triumph? What message is Hashem sending to the first offender by rewarding his misdeeds with a cache of gold? What spiritual import is gained from the materialistic discovery?

After the end of World War II, Rabbi Eliezer Silver (1881-1968) a prominent figure in the emerging American Torah Community visited and aided thousands of survivors in displaced persons camps in Germany and Poland who were waiting to find permanent homes. One day, as he was handing out Siddurim (prayerbooks) and other Torah paraphernalia, a Jewish man flatly refused to accept any.

“After the way I saw Jews act in the camp, I don’t want to have any connection with religion!”

Rabbi Silver asked him to explain what exactly had turned him off from Jewish practice.

“I saw a Jew who had a Siddur, yet he only allowed it to be used by the inmates in exchange for their daily bread ration. Imagine,” he sneered, “a Jew selling the right to daven for bread!”

“And how many customers did this man get?” inquired Rabbi Silver.

“Far too many!” snapped the man.

Rabbi Silver put his hand around the gentlemen and gently explained. “Why are you looking at the bad Jew who sold the right to pray? Why don’t you look at the many good Jews who were willing to forego their rations and starve, just in order to pray? Isn’t that the lesson you should take with you?”

Perhaps the Almighty in His compassion is sending much more to the gossiper than a get-rich-quick scheme. He is intimating to the first-time slanderer to look a little deeper at life. On the outside he may see a dirty wall of a former Canaanite home. But dig a little further and you will find gold hidden in the walls. So next time you look at a person only superficially — think. Burrow deeper. There is definitely gold beneath the surface. Sometimes you have to break down your own walls to find the gold you never thought existed in others.