by Rabbi Avi Billet
A man who was afflicted with tzara’as was given clearance by the Kohen, but even after washing his clothes, shaving his hair and dunking in a mikveh, and returning to the camp, וְיָשַׁ֛ב מִח֥וּץ לְאָהֳל֖וֹ שִׁבְעַ֥ת יָמִֽים. He still needs to camp outside his own tent for a week.
He’s almost there! He’s gone through the transformation! He’s examined his deeds, he’s merited to have the tzara’as disappear. He can go home! His job is done!
But he has to wait outside his tent for another week! How could this be?
Alshikh explains that it’s true he went through an important process. But the most important process begins when he is on the threshold of his house when he is barred from entry. It’s onlyאחר רבוי ימים יתחיל לתקן העבירות - after the days are extended that he can begin to fix his sins. A process is one thing to begin, but if a real transformation in a person’s approach hasn’t occurred there is no home to which one can return. In other words: Externals are wonderful. I’m not demonstrably speaking lashon hara. I am not exhibiting signs of stinginess. But has my heart changed as well?
Alshikh further explains: when a person merits to return to the camp – this is the Holy Camp. However, he is not ready to reenter his own domain. It’s one thing to settle one’s score with others. In a way it is much easier. But how does one settle the score with oneself? The soul needs its own personal tikkun.
Back in Parshat Vayetze Yaakov worked 7 years to marry Rachel, and the Torah describes those years as if they were days. Alshikh employs a reverse equation here. That ימי שנותיו שבעים שנה are alluded to in this seven day period. When the seven day period is over, it becomes, in a sense, a rebirth for the person. 70 years – a lifetime! – has passed. You’re outside your home. You see day to day life going on, and you can’t be a part of it. It’s almost like the final scene in Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town.” You’re watching life go on, but you can’t be a part of it.
Seven days feels like an eternity. But in truth, that seven day period – which is a time of further introspection, of furthering our full commitment to changing beyond the externals and changing the heart – is very liberating. When we finally understand why we’re waiting outside, we know who we are, and we see what real change needs to take place in order to return home. What must I do? And what can I expect of others in order to achieve that coveted return to the home?
Some of the commentaries utilize the gemaras in Moed Katan 15 and Krisus 8 that say his being forbidden from “returning home” is a metaphor to “returning to his wife.” In other words, his inability to return home means that marital relations are forbidden for another week.
The Vilna Gaon [as seen in Haktav V’hakabbalah] points to the Mishnah in the last chapter of Negaim that says he is both מנודה מביתו שבעת ימים ואסור בתשמיש המטה. He may not enter his house, and marital relations are also forbidden as his wife can’t visit him outside either.
Some point out the disparity. If it were a woman who had tzara’as, the prohibition against marital relations would not apply – it says מחוץ לאהלו (he sits outside of his tent) and not מחוץ לאהלה (no reference to sitting outside her tent). It’s only the man who had been a metzora who had this prohibition. The Torah Temimah suggests that perhaps the 7-days that the man waits outside is reminiscent of the 7 days the woman waits in her taharah reality before she actually goes to the mikveh. It is a precautionary preventative to avoid a prohibition. It is to be sure that in case a relapse occurs – in the metzora’s case through the return of tzara’as – they will not have been living in sin. He was tameh for a while, now he is having 7 pure days to prepare for their reunion.
Why is the additional week-long prohibition only on the man when he had tzara’as, and not on the woman if she had tzara’as? Torah Temimah explains: because we don’t want her to become further denigrated in the eyes of her husband.
Why should there be a difference? Don’t the marital relations involve both parties anyway? Perhaps the Torah is suggesting a sociological reality. All of the laws of tzara’as are addressed in the masculine, except for two times when a woman is mentioned (13:29, 38). Both could get tzara’as, but it’s not as pervasive in women.
Perhaps we can suggest that the attainment of tzara’as was more common in men than in women. It’s almost expected that a man will go through this process. But a woman? Could a woman be as guilty as a man?
Speaking in generalities – the sins which the Gemara claim caused tzara’as are lashon hora (slander and gossip), murder, swearing in vain, immorality, haughtiness, theft, and stinginess. Surely women can do these too, but it’s not farfetched to suggest that (again, in general) men have cornered the majority of most of these markets.
A man will deal with the embarrassment, the stigma, and may even roll his eyes when it comes around again. He looks good bald and he doesn’t mind having no eyebrows. For her, however, the ordeal itself, plus the removal of the eyebrows is devastating enough! Don’t further bring her down through keeping her separated from her husband, whom she, of all people, may really need after her ordeal, to help her cope with her new reality. This is a wonderful example of the Torah showing sensitivity to a woman’s needs.
Most men, on the other hand, don’t put as much stock in their looks as their female counterparts. And if they need to go rugged another week, they accept it as the price to pay, understanding that the transformation is not complete without this week. And so this week becomes a time of thought, introspection, commitment, and real change.
The final 7 day period, of being so close and yet so far, is meant to drive home the idea that just because a negative ordeal seems over, it is not over yet until the person has gone through the complete process that was the purpose of the project to begin with.
For a former metzora, it is understanding the real nature of the act that put the tzara’as ordeal in motion and making a real move to change.
For a husband, it’s a different kind of appreciation of his wife.
For a wife, her emotional needs become increasingly clear to her husband.
And perhaps, to stretch the thought to the coming holiday, the 7 day period when we are out of our comfort zone – with no chametz – maybe it is to help us appreciate what we have throughout the year just a little more.
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