From House to Heart - Tehila Gimpel (Parsha Metzora): The Land of Israel Fellowship

hi guys I hope everyone's doing well this week I want to talk about the portions that we read on the Shabbat and specifically the second portion we read on Shabbat of matsura this past uh Shabbat we got to double dip with two portions and I want to try to see if there's something for us to connect here with yomato Israel's independence Day that's coming up so you know this past we've read these two uh you know sections that have a lot of leprosy talk in the portion of tesria we learned that you can get leprosy on your body and on your clothing it's not really leprosy that's just like a loose translation that we use into English we don't know exactly how to define this disease but the Torah sends you away if you have this you know leprosy and then you leave the encampment and there's this process of sacrifices and purification and then in you know 14 chapter 14 verse 32 it says okay this is the law of those you know of how you make the sacrifices if you're you know poor you can bring the Lesser sacrifice and the high priest purifies you okay and you know what we see in the portion is that leprosy doesn't this you know I say leprosy doesn't seem to be like a physical disease or primarily a physical disease because you don't go to the doctor for it yeah you know you you have you go to the to the Cohen that means there's a spiritual cause here and the sages teach us that the primary cause for this Sarat for this leprosy is gossiping evil words slandering another person we see it hinted to in the fact that Miriam herself suffered from this kind of leprosy after speaking about Moshe but then when we finish you know this purification process it's mostly in parashat tesria and then we we seem to get to a change of subject in you know in Chapter 14 verse 33 it says that Hashem speaks to Moshe and Aaron it says when you come to the land of uh Canaan that I'm going to give you as a possession it's like great okay this sounds good new subject what are we going to talk about now what is the good news Hashem is going to give us about coming to the land and then it says and I will place a legion of Sarah out of this kind of leprosy upon a house in your possession the one who has the house goes and tells the Cohen and then you know it explains what happens the colon clears out all the property from the house and then and then you know no one actually becomes impure even per se but they lock up the house and they see if it goes away and if not then they dismantle a few stones and then they see if he goes away and if not eventually you get to a situation where the whole house is demolished now this raised a lot of questions like why is the issue of house leprosy separated from all the rest it would seem like it should just be one section like this is your body this is your clothes your house and like if you get that then do this that or the other and you'll be cured it seems like a new subject but it's kind of the same subject and it even has a different Torah portion like why isn't all in one Torah portion but then furthermore why does it start with saying that this is connected to coming to the land like the verses like you're going to come to the land of Israel it sounds so festive but then the verse tells us it's like you're going to come to the land you're gonna have these horrible lesions on your house right and we know and we see this in Miriam that this is like a spiritual sickness the spiritual sickness can happen in the desert right Miriam got sick in the desert so why does specifically the leprosy of the house only happen in the land what is it related to the land of Israel so the midrash says that it's actually separate because it has a different spiritual cause well this Sarah at leprosy of the body and the clothing are here for La Sean Hara for Evie's evil you know gossip use you know saying horrible words about another person slandering them leprosy of the home is for an entirely different reason it's a reason that a Hebrew is called iron like miserliness being cheap not sharing with others with an open heart and an open hand the midrash illustrates it very humorously it says that this would happen to a person that wouldn't share things with their neighbors it sounds like a magic okay like let's say there's this family uh and someone knocks on their door and they're like oh can I borrow some barley and then you say oh you know I wish I could but I just used my last cup of barley in my chill and uh better luck next time and then a different neighbor stops by and says like oh do you have a few dates I could borrow over my last few days you say oh I wish I could help you but you know my cat is allergic to dates I don't keep any cats in the house I don't keep any dates in the house so the midrash says that the punishment is so fitting because what does the Cohen do he says this is like let me address this is something that comes on the house of a person that wasn't sharing so imagine what the punishment is the Cohen starts clearing out like boxes and boxes of their stuff out into the front yard and some suddenly the neighbor passes by and says oh no dates and the other neighbor passes by and they're like eyeing the box they're like no barley it was all in the chilling huh and then this like humiliating process where your greediness and selfishness is kind of held up for everyone else to see but mostly for themselves to see and kind of like own up to it says kind of mirror that's held up to them and so the Torah he was giving them this gradual process it's like a chance like that mirror of iniquity is held up on our faces to allow ourselves to work on ourselves maybe it'll pass so the Torah gives you some time but if you don't get the message it's like more drastic steps the grant like the gradual dismantling of your home is what happens if you don't get the message and straighten out your attitude like if you don't know how to give to others maybe you don't deserve to have all the abundance that you have if you don't have like generosity then like literally and figuratively you don't really deserve the gifts that Hashem has given you and so it will be dismantled from you will be taken away from you and eventually demolished and you know so it explains why the approach here is different like with the body and the clothing leopard so you have to go away from everyone but in the house lepers you don't even become ritually impaired that kind of makes sense if you understand that it has a different reason because well speak English on harass slandering somebody is an obvious sin being miserly is not actually a sin like you have certain boxes that you need to take off of how much charity you need to give but even if you do that like you follow all the Torah rules about you know giving to the poor attempt and tithing and properly and doing everything you can still be kind of a jerk being miserly is like a Meda it's a trait that you need to work on inside of yourself it's about sharing even when you're not commanded to share so how is this connected to the land of Israel what was it not important to share in the desert like when people are living in tents well you know the what is what is happening here that the CLIA car has a great explanation that he gives for this he says that the constant test of having of possessing the land of Israel is the test of living with abundance and still not forgetting Hashem like the constant trial that we're going through to recognize that Hashem gives us everything and it's not from our own strength like in Devine Deuteronomy chapter 8 it says that our big problem is going to be lest you eat and be and be satisfied and build good houses and dwell within your heart is going to grow haughty and forget the Lord your God and you're going to say to yourself my strength and the might of my hand has accumulated this wealth for me so it's for that reason you know that we need to be extra careful in the land of Israel so for that reason you know it's like Hashem we're taught that Hashem doesn't give us a Nile doesn't give us like a river that provides water for the land of Israel but we're always dependent on rain because the challenge of living in the land is not if we can be good in bad times but if we could be good in Good Times you know I just finished reading a book called a light in the darkness about yanish kortak and the book talks about the unbelievable generosity of spirit that people have in the ghettos during the Holocaust trying to save one another you know janish kortak he barely was standing he was old and sick and starving and he would go to the end of the Earth in the sacrifices he made to provide food for the orphans in his orphanage like generosity in the good times check but what about excuse me generosity in The Bad Times check but what happens in the good times you begin to think the things that you have are actually yours and if you can say to yourself gave these things to you know so I must deserve them but no Hashem tells you having abundance is not just a gift it's a responsibility you are chosen to have everything you have not because you're so worthy of possessing it but because Hashem knew that you would be the right Steward for that to be able to properly use it for good and to share with others and so this Parsha is maybe not coincidentally juxtaposed to yomato to Israel's independency because we look around and celebrate these huge milestone of 75 years of living in the land I can see how Israel went from this place of so much lacking so much poverty just a band of refugees literally Skin and Bones rising out of the Holocaust to build a country where we have just so much blessing that the challenge is always just like in the Torah portion if you want to keep that gift if you want to keep that home you need to remember that it always came from Hashem remembering where it came from Expresses in an open Express itself in an open heart to give to those around you now Israel has been blessed not only with physical abundance and agriculture science and technology and all that but also and maybe even more importantly in spiritual abundance more people learn Torah in Israel than ever in Jewish history but are we going to choose to be a light to others are we going to keep all that to ourselves or do we share it with the world we're going to shine the light of Torah you know forth from Zion in a way that shows that we recognize that both the physical and the spiritual that Hashem has given us in the land is because he chose us to be the stewards of that that can share that with the world you see this idea really Illustrated also in the Hofstra the process that Hashem wants us to go through in the second book of Kings chapter seven we read about these four lepers sitting outside of the city and it's a time where the Arabians and basically choked off Samaria from all sources of food and basically are starving them and at that point people are God forbid you know I mean not it's happening people are eating their children and the king king yorum is is portrayed as being completely helpless and passive and you know incompetent and it is at that point that Alicia the prophet prophesies that Hashem is going to save everyone and create tremendous abundancy promises that food is going to become so inexpensive like people that hear him just scoff the guard hears him and scoffs No One Believes and no one takes him seriously we're starving now these four leopards are sitting outside and they say to themselves look we're gonna starve no point of staying here let's throw ourselves at the mercy of the army and they'll probably kill us but that's better than starving to death and who knows maybe they'll actually have you like a one percent chance maybe they'll have mercy on us and and take us in and feed us so they go to the Army and encampment and they find it in bed abandoned but what they don't know is that Hashem made this miracle and the Arabians are thousands of soldiers and thought that maybe the the king of Israel had hired mercenaries to come and fight them so they fled they left everything behind and ran away but these lovers come and they see tents packed with like food and goodies and and and and animals and they start like squirreling away little stockpiles of food they go out of the Wilderness bury something in a hole and come back and take more they're burying and they're going back and burying but then they have this change of heart in verse 9 they say wait this is good news but we're keeping it quiet to ourselves we don't want to incur guilt like why are we allowing others to starve let's go back and relate this to the king so that everyone can come and enjoy this abundance and it's like an amazing process because it's like hinting to us that this is what it's about they start out selfish they want to keep everything to themselves but they transform look the kind of people they started but then while they're eating they realize it's not really theirs and open their heart to share the good news and it was from that abundance that they essentially saved all of the city I mean all of Samaria from starvation now if Hashem would have wanted to provide for Samaria it could have just dropped food like Manna From the heavens there's a million ways Hashem could have fed everybody but it's like Hashem wanted it to unfold in a way that you see internal transformation of people first before the physical Redemption comes it's like through working on our own Mido and our own generosity Hashem says that is what is going to bring Salvation could make all our problems here in Israel go away in an instant but he's not just seeking Solutions he's seeking our hearts he wants us to work on ourselves not just to follow the Mitzvah but to go beyond them it says to change our traits to to go to to have a posture of responsibility for those around us and for those all over the world to bring what we have realize that it's from Hashem and bring that to others so it's like Hashem is hinting to us through the Torah portion and through the half Torah that our blessings and our final Redemption are not just going to you know plop down on us but the secret to achieving them is doing the inner work that's required of us of keeping the Torah but then going beyond the Torah and realizing and living in that state of mind of knowing that what we have is from Hashem and as things are from Hashem it is our responsibility not just our privilege but our responsibility to reach out to others that might have less both physically and spiritually and share that abundance with everyone so with that I wish you guys a beautiful week and happy a happy Israel Independence Day bye guys