A BISSEL TORAH: OPPORTUNITY AND REBIRTH
By: Suri Davis
There are two broad topics in this week’s torah portion, one is the impurity of a woman who has given birth and the impurity of a man with leprosy, which is a result of gossip.
Rambam/Maimonides states that man is differentiated from animal because he speaks/Adam Midaber, i.e., he has the ability to reason.
When a child is born, he cannot speak. He has potential and his mandate is to actualize the potential to speak not just for mundane daily needs, but on topics of torah and good good deeds. In an ideal world his use of language charge would be ever increasing in speech related to religion and doing acts of kindness and charity.
It is the inverse of the man who has leprosy, who took his ability to talk and misused it by talking gossip, which negatively impacts those who speak gossip, hear gossip and about whom the gossip is spoken. But we learn from this parshah, once again, how beautiful G-d punishes and from this we must learn. G-d punishes in a way that is meant not merely as a potch/ a useless smack, but in a way that is meant to help the sinner repent and advance.
Those with leprosy are forced outside the general camp into solitary, where there are no other people. The leper misused his speech, and he is left to speak with no one, merely contemplate his sin, and activate repentance and change his path so he can elevate himself and realize his potential, as a newborn, with a lifetime to potential to actualize. Repentance, rebirth.
Shabbat shalom.
Suri