This Shabbat we study the Parsha Tazria, meaning “conceives” (Leviticus 12:2) It continues the discussion of the laws of tumah v’taharah, ritual impurity and purity. A woman giving birth should undergo a process of purification, which includes immersing in a mikvah (a naturally gathered pool of water) and bringing offerings to the Holy Temple. All male infants are to be circumcised on the eighth day of life. Tzaraat (often mistranslated as leprosy) is a supra-natural plague, which can afflict people as well as garments or homes. If white or pink patches appear on a person’s skin (dark red or green in garments), a kohen is summoned. Judging by various signs the kohen pronounces it tamei (impure) or tahor (pure).

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Chabad.org

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In this week’s Torah reading we have the description of afflictions which may beset man, the examinations by the kohen, and the laws of the quarantine, if necessary. The Mishnah teaches that “all afflictions one sees, except his own.” No man examines his own afflictions; another must do this.

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Afflictions, moral shortcomings, are obvious and readily condemned in another. We are sensitive to the grossness of another’s poor manners, repelled by arrogance, shocked by stinginess, dismayed by that fellow’s insufferable complacency. We are struck with the full force of the repulsiveness of his poor character traits and moral deficiencies. Our clarity of vision, our objectivity, our courage and candor in denouncing shortcomings “right to his face” is a source of considerable pride to many of us. No fault escapes detection and forthright denunciation. “All afflictions man sees . . .”

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But must we carry the burden of constantly correcting everyone’s failings on our shoulders? Will we be forgiven if we ignore others’ afflictions for a while as we examine our own? May our spiritual ministrations be directed toward ourselves, just for a while? This selfishness may be exercised with impunity. Let’s be selfless, if we must, in more mundane affairs.

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From an article by Rabbi Zalman Posner

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Our words are the camera that determines reality: According to how we focus, so our world will be. With a small breath of air, we determine whether it is beauty that sprouts from the earth, or monsters growing as large as our imagination. True, there is a time for all things—even a time to speak in negative terms, to make clear that something is wrong and needs correcting. But there is a caveat to negative words. For if they do not reach their goal, their bitterness still remains. Speak good words, kind words, words of wisdom, words of encouragement. Like gentle rain upon a dormant field. Eventually, they will coax the seeds beneath the soil to life.

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From an article by Rabbi Tzvi Freeman

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Our Sages have stated that tzara’at was actually a physical manifestation of a spiritual deficiency. In the Talmud (Sanhedrin 98b), the title Metzora—the person afflicted with tzara’at—is actually employed as a metaphor for Moshiach! Chassidic thought explains that the appellation Metzora applied to Moshiach is actually a reflection of the world’s state of near perfection in the last moments of Galut/exile. This is exemplified by the way tzara’at manifests itself. It shows up only on the most external organ of the person—his skin. Today’s challenge—the challenge for Moshiach and for all of the Jewish people and, indeed, for the entire world in this pre-Redemption era—is to finally rid the world of the skin-deep evil that is the last impediment to an ideal world—the world of Redemption. Moshiach—and by extension, the entire Jewish people—are therefore compared to the Metzora, whose challenge is to remove this peripheral vestige of evil.

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From an article at chabadwestside.org

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A wealthy businessman and his coachman arrived in a city one Friday afternoon. The rich man was settled at the best hotel in town, and the coachman went off to his humble lodgings. Both washed and dressed for the Shabbat, and then set out for the synagogue for the evening prayers. On his way to shul, the businessman came across a large wagon which had swerved off the road and was stuck in a ditch. Rushing to help a fellow in need, the businessman climbed down into the ditch and began pushing and pulling at the wagon together with its hapless driver. But the businessman was hopelessly out of his depth. After struggling for an hour in the knee-deep mud, he succeeded only in ruining his best suit of Shabbat clothes, amassing a most impressive collection of cuts and bruises, and getting the wagon even more impossibly embedded in the mud. Finally, he dragged his limping body to the synagogue, arriving a scant minute before the start of Shabbat.

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Meanwhile, the coachman arrived early to the synagogue and sat down to recite a few chapters of Psalms. At the synagogue he found a group of wandering paupers and, being blessed with a most generous nature, the coachman invited them all to share his Shabbat meal. When the synagogue sexton approached the poor and homeless to arrange meal placements for them with the town’s householders—as is customary in Jewish communities—he received the same reply from them all: “Thank you, but I have already been invited for the Shabbat meal.” Unfortunately, however, the coachman’s budget was hardly equal to his generous heart. It would be most difficult to believe that his dozen guests left his table with more than a shadow of a meal in their hungry stomachs. Thus the coachman, with his twenty years of experience in pulling wagons out of mudholes, took it upon himself to feed a small army, while the wealthy businessman, whose Shabbat meal leftovers could easily have fed every hungry man within a ten-mile radius, floundered about in a ditch.

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Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak of Lubavitch told this story, and explained its lesson: “Every soul is entrusted with a mission unique to her alone, and is granted the specific aptitudes, talents and resources necessary to excel in her ordained role. One must take care not to become one of those lost souls trying their hand at every field of endeavor except for what is truly and inherently their own.”

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Told by the sixth Lubavitcher rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn; translation/adaptation by Rabbi Yanki Tauber.

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