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(This page is updated the tuesday of every week)
Sips From the Well by Rabbi Dovid Sipper
- Tazria, 5768
| "When a person will be afflicted with
tzara'as, he will bring it to the
Cohen" (Vayikra 13:9).
There's a Mishna in Tractate Nega'im (2:5;
which deals with afflictions of tzara'as
and the accompanying laws) which introduces a
very interesting lesson learned from this verse
in the Torah. That Mishna explains that even if
a Cohen will find a suspicious mark on his own
body, he too must take it to a Cohen. This
seems slightly difficult, though. Every Cohen is
trained in detecting this type of spot on other
people, and thus all this Cohen should need to
do is to look in the mirror and be his own
Cohen. Why must he go and call someone else
in to inspect him when he himself can look at
his own affliction?
Just as a judge cannot sentence himself for his
own crimes, the Cohen would be very happy to
find any possible way to excuse himself from
having tzara'as. Therefore, as our Sages
have expounded, "all nega'im
(afflictions) a person can detect except his
own," and this Cohen wouldn't be objective
about his own affliction, even with the stringency
of a Torah commandment weighed against him.
Thus, we learn from this Mishna how careful we
must be about our own character and our own
egos. Surely we can pinpoint the direct faults in
all of our neighbors, but rarely can we even find
the smallest blemish in our reflection when we
look in our mirrors. Therefore, even as the
Cohen needs to be reminded to ask an
objective other to assist him in determining
what's wrong with him, so must we.
That Mishna also expounds on a different point.
There is an additional Torah commandment to
give the first-born animal of every mother
animal to a Cohen. One is exempt from this
donation, though, if the animal has a blemish
and would be unfit for a korban (an
offering to Hashem), whereby it then remains
with its original owner. Therefore, in every
situation, the Mishna teaches, a person must
bring his first-borns to a Cohen for inspection,
even if can see that the blemish in the animal
is pretty obvious.
With this further teaching, the Mishna is adding
to the lesson it first delivered. Like
schoolchildren on the morning of a test, we
sometimes conjure up illnesses of our own in
order to exempt ourselves from obligation when
no such deficiency is present. The hard-working
farmer would very much want find any small
problem with his animal to be able to eat this
calf himself, and thus the Mishna commands
that since we can't always be objective enough
to admit when we capable of what we are asked,
we need to ask someone else.
So too must we be sure that those excuses we
make to get us out of our personal obligations
to be nice to others or to be honest and fair
aren't falsified for our own benefit. How often do
we negate our responsibilities to others because
of our laziness or because we're too busy?
Instead, we must remember to remove our own
false humility and instead step up to task when
we are called to duty.
Good Shabbos!
(Written by Binyamin Lieb as heard from Rabbi
Dovid Sipper)
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