Whereas a picture talks for itself and we can often see much more than can be transmitted by speech. The genius of poetry is the use of words whose meaning are elastic. When one word can be used as a metaphor you gain a multi-dimensional picture because the words transcend their defined meaning.

The Talmud teaches us that is greater to serve the master than to learn from him in the classroom. The implication is that there will be more learnt and the lessons will be more profound when one serves the master than if one simply hears those lessons in the classroom. Perhaps the reason for this that when one observes the master conducting his daily life those lessons become alive; they are not limited to the words that are used to teach them in the classroom.

This week’s Parsha, Tazria-Metzorah, discusses the horrible skin disease of tzoraas. This disease is a physical manifestation of the spiritual decay of a person. The Talmud teaches us that
tzoraas occurs when one speaks loshon hara (gossip, slander and other forms of forbidden speech). The Torah alludes to the connection between speaking loshon hara and tzoraas by juxtaposing the prohibition of excising the tzoraas and the mitzvah to remember what HaShem did to Miriam when we left Egypt. The reference of Miriam refers to the story when Miriam spoke to her brother Aharon about the strange relationship that her younger brother, Moshe had with his wife. There was no malice in Miriam’s words. Her intent was only for good. Moshe was her younger brother, for whom she endangered her own life to save when Moshe was a baby. She spoke to nobody else but Aharon. In spite of all this, HaShem held her culpable for talking negatively about Moshe and she was punished with tzoraas. Since the Torah places Miriam’s incident adjacent to the prohibition of excising the tzoraas, it is implied that tzoraas comes as a consequence for loshon hara.

But why did the Torah tell us the story of Miriam? Is this itself not a form a slander? Naturally HaShem has license to do as He wishes. Nevertheless, why is He not concerned for Miriam’s honor? Presumably, HaShem used Miriam’s mistake as the lesson to teach us why tzoraas occurs. The question remains, however, why didn’t HaShem simply write that tzoraas is the
consequence of speaking loshon hara? It would be more succinct and we would save the honor of Miriam.

Perhaps the answer is because the gravity of the sin of loshon hara is so great, HaShem did not want to confine this lesson to words. He wanted to use a picture to illustrate it. It is for us to gaze at that picture and remember how Miriam’s sin was ever so slight and barely noticeable and in spite of that, she suffered tzoraas as a result. When we remember Miriam and her ever
so slight infraction of Moshe’s dignity, we will become better people and Miriam’s honor will be elevated all the more so.

Have a wonderful Shabbos.

Paysach Diskind