The Process of Eradicating Infractions

Parshat Ki Tetze

by Rabbi Avi Billet

“Hit me, don’t lecture me!” That’s one I learned to say as a child. 

 “Can I just get off with a ‘slap on the wrist?’” That one is a little more common for us to say, or for the biased media to say when they feel someone did not get the right punishment for an indiscretion or infraction. 

 Anyone who has ever been pulled over while driving has surely had a thought process that looks something like this. “I wasn’t speeding. OK, maybe a little. But come on. I was going with the flow of traffic. We all know the cop has an agenda. He has ticket quotas. Man, why is he taking so long? OK OK. Be calm! Smile. Say the right thing, and maybe he’ll let me go off with a warning.” Then the officer shows up, and asks the entrapment question, “Do you know why I pulled you over?” Of course not 😊! I’m such a careful driver! Maybe you can let me off with a warning? 

 “I could,” the officer might say, “but would you really learn your lesson?” 

Among the many mitzvos delineated in Parshat Ki Tetze we have a warning to “be mindful of the affliction of tzara’as, to be very careful and to do [what is required], as the Kohanim have instructed – whatever they have been commanded is what you should be doing. Remember that which Hashem, Your God, did to Miriam, on the road as you left Egypt.” (24:8-9) 

Rashi justifiably points to this as a warning against saying Lashon Hora. After all, Miriam having spoken Lashon Hora is what caused her to get Tzara’as (or is it? Could she have gotten tzara’as because she acted in a haughty manner? See the list of what causes tzara’as on Arakhin 16a) 

Netziv, however, feels that Rashi’s comment does not align with the peshat (simple understanding) of what the verse is saying. The text enjoins us to remember what God did to Miriam, not what Miriam did to deserve that outcome. Which lends itself for us to understand that this is all about, as verse 8 aptly points out, taking the affliction of tzara’as seriously. 

 Recalling his commentary on that narrative in Bamidbar 12, he notes that when Aharon turned to Moshe to be forgiving of the conversation Miriam and Aharon had, he asked Moshe to be considerate and to not view whatever had been said as Motzi Shem Ra (reputation-destroying, literally ‘giving a person a bad name,’ sometimes referred to as ‘slander’), which is a sin far worse than the general category of Lashon Hora. 

 Atonement for Motzi Shem Ra only comes about through the entire “Torah” of tzara’as, which includes all of the laws being followed through, and not merely through simply having the affliction. 

 God, it appears, did not accept Aharon’s request, which indicated that she simply have the affliction and everyone move on. God said, “Let her be isolated for a week!” which is the punishment for the Motzi Shem Ra, even though she had spoken errantly and mistakenly about Moshe, surely without real malice. 

 The reason she was held to this high standard, even if her intent was not mean, is because אדם מועד לעולם – a person is always responsible for one’s deeds, whether an action done on purpose or even by accident (through שוגג, a form of irresponsibleness). This is one reason why people are responsible for negligence, or for outcomes they did not intend… one has to consider potential outcomes before engaging in situations which may be unpredictable. Things happen, all the time. Life consists of much clean-up post mess-making (both in the literal sense and in the non-literal sense). Whatever emerges from people’s choices needs to be dealt with, especially when the consequences have been negative.

 The verse, therefore, is reminding us to take the laws of tzara’as seriously, and not to think that getting the affliction means the deed is in the past, it is over, and we can move on. Even the great Miriam essentially tried to get off with a warning, with a slap on the wrist, but God said, “No. She has to go through the process.” Clearly it wasn’t over right away, and there was no “moving on” without a purging process. 

 An interesting question to ask is why Aharon did not get Tzara’as if he was involved in the conversation with Miriam. It could be that the tzara’as did not come because of the Lashon Hora, but because of the haughtiness of the comments, as noted above. If that is the case, Aharon is not responsible. However, the Sifrei – Midrash Halakha on Bamidbar – tells us that Aharon DID get tzara’as. Rabbi Akiva in the Gemara Shabbos 97a says this as well, though he is criticized by Rabbi Yehuda Ben Beseira for suggesting so. When Aharon saw it on himself, it immediately went away. But when he turned to Miriam he was the one who noticed it on her, so it didn’t depart right away. (There is a big halakhic concern over how her tzara’as could be diagnosed. It is supposed to be diagnosed by a Kohen. Moshe was not a Kohen. And while Aharon was a Kohen, a. because he was a nogea b’davar (directly involved), as well as b. being directly related to her, no one could diagnose her! Rabbenu Bachaye suggests that God Himself diagnosed her. And while it is unclear how long she had tzara’as, it seems that her tzara’as was gone pretty quickly, on account of Moshe’s prayer for her. 

 This lends much support to Netziv’s premise that it’s not so much about the tzara’as – that’s the slap on the wrist. That’s the warning. 

The most important thing is the process, and what God really did to Miriam is make sure that she’d be isolated for a week, and that the nation would not travel until her isolation ended. 

This analysis makes the concept of tzara’as so much more relevant to us, as we live in a time when tzara’as is not part of our experience, but the sins that could have led to tzara’as, aside from Lashon Hora, are murder, swearing in vain, immorality, haughtiness, theft and stinginess, at least some of which, to varying degrees, may be part of our experience. 

 In our process of teshuva leading into the High Holidays, perhaps we can ask ourselves if any tzara’as-inducing behaviors are part of our experience. And if so, perhaps we can consider imposing a form of the “tzara’as process” upon ourselves to help eradicate that behavior from our arsenal.

If the Torah is to be relevant, this kind of warning must be heeded. I imagine most of us are grateful that tzara’as, which is annoying, inconvenient, not to mention extremely embarrassing, is not something we encounter. But the process of eradicating unfortunate behaviors that we know are bad for ourselves and our neshamas should and could be very much a part of our teshuva-oriented behaviors in the coming weeks, if not at all times in the year. 

 May we be blessed to be able to recognize the areas in which our improvement is warranted, and may we take the steps that will give us the satisfaction we would get out of overcoming the ways our Yetzer Hora tries to bring us down.