Looking Forward by Rav Moshe Weinberger

Parshas Tazria Looking Forward Versus Looking Back

by rav Moshe Weinberger Adapted for publication by Binyomin Wolf

the laws of tzara’as – which some translate as “leprosy” – are very difficult to understand. When the pasuk (Vayikra 13:2) says, “When a person has a se’es, sapachas, or baheres on his skin, and it is a blemish of rzara’as...,” it is difficult to understand exactly what these afflictions are. One thing that we see, however, from the Mishnayos explaining rzara’as is that a major sign of the impurity of tzara’as is the color white. This seems very unusual. Usually, the color white is associated with purity, not impurity. The pasuk in Yeshaya (1:18) says, “If your sins are like scarlet, I will whiten them like snow, and if they are red like crimson, they will be [as white as] wool.” Similarly, on Yom Kippur (Yuma 39a), when the “gold ribbon turned white,” it was a sign that the Jewish people were forgiven. We see, therefore, that the color white is usually associated with innocence and purity, not impurity. Why, then, is the color white a sign of impurity for a Metzora, one afflicted with tzara’as? The Sefer Yetzira (2:7) points out that the word for the affliction of tzara’as, “negah,” has the same letters as the word “oneg,” pleasure or delight. It says that “there is nothing higher than ‘oneg,’ delight, and there is nothing lower than ‘negah,’ the affliction of tzara’as.” How do we see this? Even a person who is tamei because of tumas meis, contact with a dead body, is allowed to live in the community and he can even ascend to Har Habayis, although he may not enter the Bais Hamikdash. A Metzorah, on the other hand, may not even live in the community. He must dwell alone outside the city. We see, therefore, that there is nothing lower than “negah,” the affliction of tzara’as.

As the Sefer Yetzira explained, the letters of the words for affliction, a “negah,” and for “oneg,” delight are the same. The only difference between the two words is the placement of the letter ayin. In the word “negah,” the “ayin” is at the end of the word, and in the word “oneg,” the “ayin” is at the beginning of the word. This observation is also hinted at in the pasuk (Vayikra 13:25), which discusses the law of a garment afflicted with tzara’as which had been quarantined by the kohein but which retained its appearance even after the seven-day quarantine period. It says, “The affliction did not change its appearance, aino.” The word for “appearance, aino” can also refer to the Hebrew letter “ayin.” The pasuk is therefore saying that the garment was still afflicted with tzara’as because its owner did not “change” the “ayin” by moving it from the end of the word “negah” to the beginning of the word to transform his affliction into the delight of “oneg.”

At the beginning of the parsha, Rashi quotes part of a medrash (Vayikra Raba 14:1) to answer the implicit question, “Why are does the Torah teach the laws of purity and impurity relating to animals at the end of last week’s parsha before the laws of human purity and impurity in this week’s parsha?” The medrash quotes the pasuk in Tehillim (139:5) homiletically

translated as “at the beginning and at the end You have formed me.” According to the medrash, “Rav Simlai says, ‘Just as man was formed after domesticated animals, wild animals, and birds, so too, the laws [of man’s purity and impurity] are taught after [the laws of purity and impurity of] domesticated animals, wild animals, and birds.”

The medrash further explains, “If man is meritorious, they say to him, ‘You preceded the whole act of Creation,’ and if he is not [meritorious,] they say to him, ‘Even the mosquito preceded you.’”

The pasuk in Tehillim said, which means that man was formed both first and last. Therefore, if man merits to put the ayin first, then he is filled with “oneg,” delight and pleasure. If, however, he is not meritorious, and he puts the ayin last, then he is afflicted with a “negah” and is considered the lowest part of Creation. How does one move the “ayin” of “negah” to the beginning of the word, to transform it into “oneg,” delight?

Forward-Looking Forefathers

The way of the world is that when one encounters a person who is different, or who possesses a negative character trait, people ask what the person went through as a child or at some point in his or her life that created these problems. There is certainly a place for this approach, and good therapists who use this approach with people will follow up with a plan on how to move from the past into a more positive future. But for the most part, this is an approach of “achor,” looking back into the past. In this perspective, a person feels trapped by things that have happened to him or her in the past. The way of the Torah, however, is the approach of “kedem,” seeing himself as if he is starting at the beginning and looking forward into the future. In this approach, one asks himself, “How can I make tomorrow better than yesterday?”

We see this approach with our Avos, our forefathers, many of whom had every reason to assume they would never be successful. I would like to offer just two examples.

The first is Dovid Hamelech. He was a stranger to his own brothers, who did not understand him, as Dovid said, (Tehillim 69:9) “I became estranged from my brothers.” Even his own father, who was a tzaddik, did not think he would amount to anything. When Shmuel told Yishai that one of his sons would be the next king, it did not even occur to him to bring Dovid to Shmuel to see if he was the chosen son. When Shmuel sees that none of Yishai’s other sons were meant to be king, he presses Yishai to find out if he has any other sons. Having completely forgotten about Dovid, he finally remembers (Shmuel 1:16:11), “There is one left-over younger son; he is tending the sheep in the field.”

Shmuel has to press him to bring Dovid to him before he finally summons Dovid. Hashem then tells Shmuel to arise and anoint Dovid as the future king of the Jewish people.

Even as the years went by, Dovid experienced pain and suffering. He was pursued by Shaul, endured a rebellion led by his own son, and witnessed the death of another one of his sons even after he davened like never before for his recovery.

Dovid Hamelech had a greater excuse than anyone else to take the “achor” perspective and look back at all of his difficulties and conclude that he would never be successful spiritually or physically. But instead of looking at the past, he always took the “kedem,” the forward-looking approach. Not only did he not use his past as an excuse not to succeed, he took every difficulty he encountered and composed chapters of Tehillim! In this way, he attained an even higher level than Aharon Hakohein.

Aharon achieved a great level when, immediately after his sons Nadav and Avihu died, the pasuk (Vayikra 10:3) says, “And Aharon was silent.” Dovid Hamelech, however, reached an even higher level. When he was faced with suffering, he said (Tehillim 30:13), “In order that I should sing a song of glory to You [Hashem] and I will not be silent.” Not only did the difficulties in his past not hold him back, he turned each one into a new chapter of Tehillim.

Another example from our Avos is Yosef. No matter how bad our relationships are with our family, very few of us can say that our siblings tried to kill us and sold us into slavery. He was sold to Egypt, which was called (Bereishis 42:12) “the nakedness of the land” because it was the most morally degraded place on earth. In addition, he was isolated and alone in Egypt. He did not have even one Jew with whom he could share what was in his heart. Nevertheless, instead of accepting his fate as being cut off from the G-dliness of his forefathers, he lifted himself up to become a Yosef Hatzadik. iletically translated as “at the beginning and at the end You have formed me.” A Jew must make a choice every day of his life whether to look at the world through the eyes of “achor,” where he looks back on his life as if he were at the end, as if everything has been predetermined because of his past. For such a person, everything is a “negah,” an affliction, the lowest thing in the world. Alternatively, he can put the “ayin,” his eye, at the beginning of the word, and keep his eyes focused on the future. That is the attitude of “kedem,” where one sees himself as standing at the beginning, where he feels that “today is the first day of the rest of my life.” This is the choice every Jew must make.

Let me offer a simple example. Let’s say there are two Jews who take their service of Hashem seriously. Both of them are saying Shemona Esrei. Right before the last paragraph, “Sim shalom, establish peace,” each one realizes that he did not concentrate on one single word of davening. The one who looks backward, with the attitude of “achor,” looks back at his lackluster Shemona Esrei and thinks to himself “It’s over, this Shemona Esrei was a complete failure. It’s all over.” Such a Jew will speed through the last paragraph of Shemona Esrei as well.

The other Jew will look into the future and say, “I may not have concentrated on the first part of Shemona Esrei, but there is still one paragraph left, which is a beautiful prayer. I will now have the best ‘Sim shalom’ possible.”

We can now understand why white, usually associated with purity, becomes a symbol of impurity for a Metzora. Someone who looks at the word from the perspective of “achor,” who looks backward and sees only limitations and “nega-”tivity, sees even a symbol of purity as negative and impure.

This choice between “achor” and “kedem,” between the forward-looking versus the backward-looking perspective, was the main focus of Viktor Frankl’s book “Man’s Search for Meaning.” As you are aware, Viktor Frankl was an accomplished psychologist before the War and was a survivor of the concentration camps. I want to quote a few sentences (p. 80-81) from this book, which encapsulate this choice between the perspective of “oneg,” looking into the future, and “negah,” looking toward the past:

A man who let himself decline because he could not see any future goal[,] found himself occupied with retrospective thoughts... Instead of taking the camp’s difficulties as a test of their inner strength, they did not take their life seriously and despised it as something of no consequence. They preferred to close their eyes and to live in the past. Life for such people became meaningless... [W]e could say that most men in a concentration camp believed that the real opportunities of life had passed.

Yet, in reality, there was an opportunity and a challenge. One could make a victory of those experiences, turning life into an inner triumph, or one could ignore the challenge and simply vegetate, as did a majority of the prisoners. Any attempt at fighting the camp’s psychopathological influence on the prisoner by psychotherapeutic or psychohygenic methods had to aim at giving him inner strength by pointing out to him a future goal to which he could look forward. Instinctively some of the prisoners attempted to find one on their own. It is a peculiarity of man that he can only live by looking into the future... And this is his salvation in the most difficult moments of his existence, although he sometimes has to force his mind to the task.

My father also told us that in the camps they could tell when someone was about to die even without a Nazi standing over him. Near the end of the War, shortly before the liberation, the Nazis stopped providing the Jews with even the moldy bread were previously given. Many Jews stayed active, looking for a way to survive, and others just receded to the corners in a semi-vegetative state. The others tried to strengthen and encourage them, but it was often no use. The other prisoners knew that such a person had only a few more hours to live because they had stopped looking into the future and had given up on their own lives.

Even outside of the concentration camps, we are faced with the choice between looking into the past, living in the world of “negah,” affliction, or looking at the opportunities of the future, the world of “oneg,” delight.

May we merit to look at the world through the forward-looking lens of “kedem,” and our lives will be filled with delight rather than affliction. May the world soon be filled with the delight of “chadeish yameinu k’kedem” with the coming of Moshiach soon in our days.