Parshat Metzora Rabbi Chaim Brovender

Let us learn a posuk with Rashi

Hashem spoke to Moshe and Aharon: "When you arrive in Canaan that is yours to possess, I will inflict zaraas upon a house in the (newly) possessed land..." (14: 34).

Rashi is concerned that the verse contains a promise: Hashem will inflict the house(s) with zaraas, a necessary result of coming into the land. This is contrary to the usage in all the other afflictions. For example, "If a person will have on the skin of his flesh..." (13: 2). Here there is no promise, but a punishment for the sin of idle talk and lashon hara. Our verse seems to guarantee with no reference to transgression that a house will be afflicted.

Rashi resorts to the medrash in order to solve this puzzle: "The Amorites hid treasures in the walls of their houses during the forty years that the people were in the desert. The affliction (in the house) caused the Jew to break down the house and to find the treasures."

Rashi's position is clear. There is a problem in the text and it is dealt with by the words of chazal in the medrash. The question has an answer in a reliable source and that is Rashi's method. However, the story in the Torah becomes somewhat complicated. Why is this affliction different than the other? Why is the medrash so positive about zaraas even connecting it to hidden treasure?

Perhaps the Gemara in Sanhedrin 71a can help.

The Gemara says that (braita) "there never was an afflicted house." This seems to be an objective statement about the past: there never was a house such as that described in the Torah. The braita adds: "and there never will be." We don't know how the braita comes to this conclusion, but it is clear to the author of the statement. Why then is it included in the Torah? The answer in the braita: "study the material (Hebrew: derosh) and then you will receive your reward."

Perhaps this means that there is value in learning the Torah connected to the "afflicted house" for which Hashem guarantees reward even though it does not relate to the reality of life in Canaan; perhaps that, in the peculiar idiom of the medrash, is the treasure hidden in the walls of the "afflicted house."

Another meaning is possible. Derash is a method that involves searching for meaning in order to explain a verse often in a profound sense. Rashi teaches us that our verse is not, as we might expect, about punishment. Quite the opposite, even though the people had spent the last for forty years in the desert, they did not loose any advantage. Had the nation entered the land immediately (as originally planned) they would have benefited from the fear of the nations. However, when they didn't invade the nations took the opportunity to hide their riches in an attempt to deny them to the people of Yisrael.

Heaven determined that what the Amorites hid would be uncovered. Just as the Jews left Egypt with great wealth because the Egyptians feared them; so too, they would enter Canaan and take its spoils despite all their setbacks.

Those who studied the verse about "the afflicted house" with Moshe understood its special meaning. Without study they would have turned away from houses bearing the zaraas afflictions; with study, they could find hidden treasures. This is the meaning of the statement derosh and you will be rewarded. If you study the verse properly (derosh) then you will be properly rewarded.

Shabbat Shalom,
Chaim Brovender

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