Tazria-Metzora - Transforming Curses to Blessings

you're listening to the weekly partial podcast with ari goldwag recorded with hashem's neverending assistance in roma israel 5781 2021. this week's prussia we have two parties tazria mitsura and they both speak about the idea of the negative the special spiritual leprosy they will come upon a person as our sages tell us who was involved in the vera the sin of negative speech gossip uh egotistical behavior all these things would bring upon a person this is and in order to understand saras we need to understand what is the concept what is the idea what does it mean what does it mean spiritual a spiritual leprosy what does it mean that because a person's guyva this comes about what does it accomplish what is the idea what does it accomplish that's our us torah tells us that saras doesn't only happen it doesn't only come upon a person on an individual it could also come in their clothing can come upon their home the magician explaining this brings the it says like this this positions in chapter 14 verse 34 and we're in the fifth section of parsha you zion in the madrish canaan if you shall come and when you shall come sorry to the land of canaan i'm going to place the nugget saras this leprosy the spiritual leprosy upon your home she wants to understand something very important it says when we come to the land of canaan now that's unusual usually atari says when you come when you shall come to the land we know we refer to arts israel as their israel the land of israel why does the torah here refer in the context of the tsaras coming upon a home coming upon the land when we the vase in the house of the land that you shall acquire that's going to be yours why does it refer to it as the land of kinan the light of canaan the way that the majestic actually asked the question is shiva amen why do we refer to only the land of canaan there are seven different nations there why why don't we refer to it as the eretzaprisi so the measure posits a few different ideas a few different concepts the first of which is that it says very interesting idea that kenan was punished for a sin that his father did we won't get involved in exactly what the sin was but kanan was punished for a sin that his father did so to the jewish people sometimes we sin and it causes a destruction to the land interestingly i'm thinking about the fact that admiration when he sinned the torah records the fact that he was punished and the land was punished the land will produce thorns it will take a lot of effort in order to get the land to give forth its produce to get the different all the 10 different steps that are involved in turning the bread into turning the wheat into bread but there's an idea that we cause damage just like kanan was caused damage he himself was caused damage because of the sin of his father so too the earth is caused damaged by our sins so perhaps in trying to understand this first point the message is saying that according to the sages that the sin when we sin what does our house get get to us why does it affect our home but the answer is that we have a spiritual effect as we said before it's leprosy it's not just leprosy like we find today it was a spiritual leprosy and we can have an effect on those things around us certainly obviously we have an effect on those are the people around us our sins the things that we do wrong affects our children can i was affected by his father's sin we have an effect not just on our children also on the very surroundings the physical surroundings our homes the earth and it represents the fact that what we do has an impact if i speak english and i speak negatively of somebody else it impacts me it causes me to have spiritual downfall and that in turn affects everything around me okay so that's the first principle yes we find that there's a further explanation as follows two different sages the rabbis the reason that we refer to this place is there it's kinaan it's because he was the forebear of the mall canaan gave birth to sidon his firstborn heist really israel who lived there in israel so he was the really all of these seven nations came from canaan that's what we refer to as eric's kin on the land of kanan prabhu and armory this are you cool different understanding of why we refer to them to this as land the land of kanan the word kanan doesn't just mean doesn't just refer to the canaanite people the people who came from kenan the son of ham but rather canaan can also have a different connotation it means a merchant and all of these nations were merchants by the arts is a verse in isaiah 23 verse eight refers to it refers to merchants as kin on el the word canine can also mean merchants what is the measure saying here so i believe that the message is saying in regards to the merchants if somebody goes around peddling his wares he's trying to sell something a person's trying to sell something with his lashing hara with negative speech right he affects everyone around him kanan was the was the it's a similar idea can i was the person who was the the in the first shot the father of all these different nations we have an effect on our children we have an effect on all of our grandchildren when we have a certain habit if we have a negative habit we have a negative spiritual approach to life so it affects our children our grandchildren and there we are going around like peddlers trying to sell our wares they all had that that aspect remember yeah eliezer who cannot now here's the main point that i want to get to it's really important eliezer was the servant of avraham avin of abraham who cannot he referred to as as the canaanite he came from canaan he was a servant now we know kenan was going to be a servant for old time to shem to the other son of nach that was this that was the curse and within the curse was a tikkun because by kanan being a servant hashem the thing that that bad media that was within him that caused his father to sin that was in him as well that could be rectified by connecting himself to shem who was it sadiq hashem the son of noah was a great righteous individual he was monkey said he was a spiritual a spiritual master ava mavino as well was a spiritual master eliezer came he was the son of canaan a great great grandson of kanan avraham avinu was a great grandson of shem eleazar came in and studied from avraham he became great he was the servant of avraham until which point [Music] so they refer to him as the blessed one of hashem they said come oh blessed hashem so you see that by elijah becoming attached to avraham avinu there was a rectification he turned around that curse and he became blessed how do we turn around the curse obviously if the message the measure is telling us that if if it refers to this place of errors cannon in the context of the negative in the context of the of the spiritual leprosy so it's teaching us a foundational idea what does it mean when my house when a person's house let's not talk about ourselves when a person's house gets sarasota what is the purpose of that how does that how does that serve him how does sir how does it how does the punishment fit the crime let's say or how does it rectify the crime but somehow we see just like kanan was rectified kanan was rectified through his connection to avraham avinu so to we are rectified when we do a sin of gossip we are rectified through our land getting leprosy through the home just like canaan was rectified we get rectified i once spoke about many many years ago it's included in my safer perfectly imperfect spoke about the idea of kenan and how he's rectified through coming close to abram venus for abraham but we see that it's not just true of a canaan it's true for us as well that somehow through the punishment the punishment which we get for a sin it's it's not just to to you know god is angry he smites us with leprosy the purpose of it is to turn us around to fix us to give us something good we've done something wrong we needed to to fix ourselves to rectify ourselves to be picked up he was a certain great sadiq he would come and he would visit people's homes he would as he was leaving there's a concept because i'll teach us the sages say that when you take leave of someone you've spent time with them there's an idea of giving a giving a dvar torah when you leave saying an idea a spiritual concept before you leave so that he should remember you so when he would leave robyakov he would say over this idea um if eliezer left the idea they left the concept of being cursed and he became someone who was blessed how by serving someone who said sadiq be serving someone who was righteous said he was a great person he was giving a compliment to the person who had served him the person who had spent time with this person who had a meal with you he would say you have served somebody you have shown honor to the goddaugher to the great ones of our generation you certainly will be able to be blessed as a result what happens when we serve people who are great what happens when eliezer starts averaging he becomes great why because he learns from him he becomes great because he learns from him when we are living in eretz israel perhaps we could say when we are living in our tistral the kadusha rubs off on us the goodness rubs off on us and when we see when we see that we caused damage to earth israel we cause the spiritual damage not just to ourselves and our souls we don't just see it on our skin we don't just see it on our clothes but we see it in our homes the base area in the house in the land that you are inheriting so it has to remind us of what happened with eliezer why are we here next israel we're here because there's a special kedusha here there's a special holiness here it's got to rub off on us we can be makako we can cause destruction to we can denigrate it heaven forbid with our negative actions with our negative speech we can bring a curse upon ourselves and upon our homes heaven forbid but the opposite is also true we can also learn just like kanan learned just like eliezer avid avraham the servant of abraham this is like he learned and became a greater person he lost his status of cursed became blessed we can also become blessed israel that's why says the manchester that's why moshe abano exhorts the jewish people when you will come to the land of canaan there's a reminder there's a reminder within the the leprosy there's a reminder within a spiritual leprosy to pick yourself up if you fall pick yourself up get right back up and the next measure says something which is pretty famous but i think it's important hashem says when you will come to the land of canaan i will place upon you i guess harass i'll place upon your house so negat this leprosy it's usually when he said when hashem says i'm going to give i'm gonna i'm gonna do something it sounds like he's doing us a favor my favorite is this tana tanya when the canaanites heard that the jews were on their way the jews are coming the jews are coming they hid all of their treasures they hid all of their money in the houses in the fields they didn't want the jews to find it when the jews came through um says the amazing thing hashem says i promise the jewish people that they're going to come to houses they're going to they're going to take over this land they're going to commit to being the emissaries of god in this world and remove all the idols from israel all the the kanani idols the idolatry they're going to remove that all there's going to be only one god and replace all the idols with the servants of hashem i want to bring them to a place which is full of good i wanted to to find homes that are full of good stuff so i'll show you this promise the candidates are gonna thwart as it were hashem's plan what does hashem do is he places this leprosy upon the house the house has to be knocked down and then they find the treasure this very treasure that the canaanites left there in order to try to hide it hashem says not so fast you're not gonna be able to hide it the jewish people are going to find it so this thing that looks bad this thing that looks terrible my house has serrated leprosy my home is gonna be it's gonna be demolished right there they find a treasure and i think that what the message is teaching us on a deeper level besides the push-up shot which is of course true they did find these treasures but there's a deeper idea and that is that when we do something wrong when we do when we when we sin we speak negatively of others you know hashem gives us a wake-up call sometimes it can happen in times of the terror that happened in the form of spiritual leprosy sometimes it can happen in the form today of negative social consequences we say something wrong about somebody people stop trusting us we say something wrong gets back to that person can get in trouble what do we do with that what do we do with the negative social consequences do we use that to create a new fight a new a deeper problem do we recognize and admit oh that guy you know now he's he's saying negative things about me you know i'm gonna create a bigger problem or do we recognize and admit our mistake do we take our part do we clean our side of the street what do we do with it the message is teaching us there's an opportunity here to find a treasure we've done something wrong we've done an aveiro we've we've become cursed we've lost our connection to god but what do we do with it now where do we go with that the message is teaching us you've done something wrong attach yourself back to spirituality attach yourself back to people who are spiritual attach yourself back to a land that's spiritual return to art style come back to the land come back here come back here wherever you are come back you're gonna find an immense spiritual treasure it might be a challenge at first you might your your home might get knocked down you might have troubles and challenges your kids might have a hard time here but you're going to be you i promise you hashem says the bottom lane called your ass is going to be filled with only good you're going to find a treasure here you're gonna find a treasure here that's a the tire is asking of us that tyre's asking of us when we mess up we do something wrong and it comes back to haunt us don't get destroyed by it don't get destroyed by it it's an opportunity to find a treasure only all we have to do is realize we made that mistake we need to reattach ourselves to those who are blessed those who we want to follow their lead those who can transform us from people who have done wrong to people who now can do right i want to bless you and ask you to bless me hashem should help us to recognize the parts of ourselves that we're not proud of the various that we we've done that we do the sins that we commit hashem should help us to recognize the stain that it brings upon ourselves and it brings upon those around us and how it affects our environment shem should help us to recognize that not so we get depressed not so that we feel bad yes that we feel bad in a way that sparks us to change to try to be better to try to find a better environment for ourselves to try to be a better person to admit the problems that we've created and to turn it all around thank you so much for listening have a wonderful shop miss this podcast was made possible through the gracious donations of listeners like you for more podcasts like this please visit www.ariegoldwag.com or search on itunes ari goldwag