In explaining the details of tzaraas, the Sforno tells us that this affliction of tzaraas was an expression of HaShem’s kindness in His interest to help us perfect ourselves. With this insight he explains that the laws of tzaraas do not apply to non-Jews since they do not have that special relationship with HaShem. He goes one step further to explain that tzaraas occurs only for the people who are most worthy of HaShem’s special hashgacha. He writes that the majority of the Jewish people are not on a level of purity that should warrant this degree of hashgacha and therefore it was not a common occurrence.

What follows from this insight is that the more pure a Jew is, the more attention HaShem pays to his behavior. This tzaddik will get more messages from HaShem to perfect himself than the mediocre Jew. As with tzaraas these messages are not comfortable. The effectiveness of the messages are specifically the discomfort or even pain that they inflict. It is this pain that gets the attention of the one who receives it.

Behold! The better a person is the more they will suffer! It somehow seems counterintuitive.

Consider the bride whose wedding is two weeks away. In her wardrobe together with her regular dresses is her pure white bridal gown. She notices that there is a very small dark dot on the sleeve. You can well imagine that this dot will get special attention until it is removed. Right next to the gown is her colorful weekday dress which also has a dot on the sleeve. Actually, the
dot on the dress is somewhat larger than the one on the bridal gown. Chances are that she will forget about the second dress and may never come back to clean it. Why? For one, it is not so
noticeable and also it is of much less significance.

HaShem wants only good for His creatures. This goodness is achieved by reaching higher levels of existence. The more a person resembles HaShem the higher that level will be. For the tzadik who has achieved such a high level, even a small fleck on his personality lowers his level and diminishes the goodness he will receive. HaShem, in His mercy, treats him to an alert by which that fleck is cleared. For the regular folk, however, or as the Sforno writes, for the majority of the Jewish people, they do not deserve that alert.

I was once asked if the Jewish people are the ‘chosen people’ why does HaShem afflict them more than the other nations? The fellow asking me says, were we chosen for punishment?
The Sforno’s insight offers the answer. We were chosen to be HaShem’s bridal gown while the others may just be the weekday dress.

When considering the Holocaust, the sheer evil defies the imagination and one cannot fathom the intensity of the Divine fury that was unleashed. All that notwithstanding we must consider the Jewish world 75 years before the Holocaust and the Jewish world 75 years after the Holocaust. We will discover how that five year period of darkness changed the landscape of our nation and revived the spirit of our people.

Have a very wonderful Shabbos.

Paysach Diskind