Weekly Torah Portion Tazria/Metzorah (Lessons of Tzaras) Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz

okay hi everybody and again I hope you all had a wonderful uh and liberating and now of course we're already in the period looking forward towards the next and I'm not going to talk about SP tonight I'll leave that for a little later uh but makes the very clear point that the purpose of is to create a linkage between the holiday of freedom and the holiday of commitment to Hashem to as it as if it were one long holiday to teach us that without Matan Torah freedom is worthless because I'll make the same point when they note that the corbon of the OM and PES is a barley offering which was commonly fed to animals and the Corbin of shabos is a wheat offering which was eaten by human beings because the transition from freedom to responsibility is really the transition from Human from animal Liberation to human human dignity and that is why we have the SP om which is a linkage now one question people ask is if if that linkage is so important why don't you start counting the OM the first night of PES and there are a number of answers that are given but but I want to tell you an answer that the zor says zor says a fascinating analogy the zor says that shos is like a wedding it is like a between Hashem and the Jewish people that many of them in huging of a wedding are derived from mat the Torches the col Etc and we know that uh before a woman can in fact smart many of at all instead of reading AK which is a poem in AR that we read before the reading actually has a I don't know if you've ever seen it or heard of it in which it's written in the same style as a marriage contract in which hasem is the and and all of the obligations and responsibilities between husband and wife are proclaimed so Shas is a wedding now the Z says if shabas is a wedding then just as a woman must have seven clean days days without menual bleeding before she could be with her husband so we have seven weeks of preparation each week is equal to one of the seven clean days now we know though that you don't start the seven clean days until there's What's called the HEC Tara so he says the first day of PES we can't count as a totally clean day because we were still in Mitra at the beginning we still had the Tuma so the first day of PES is the he tahara and then we start counting the seven clean weeks the day after and that is what the zo says is the concept of spat om as I say that was not my topic for tonight my topic for tonight might be one of the most technical in all of the Torah and the Torah gives an extraordinary amount of detail here and the Torah gives an extraordinary amount of detail here and that is the laws of Le the laws ofat know it's quite amazing if you were to count the number of Pim that are devoted to shabas to kashus to believe in Hashem you know the fundamental ideas of Judaism so you might get you know 20 verses 30 verses for any one of those topics the amount of suim devoted to leprosy and all of its many types and all of its many uh combinations and permutation is like 100 verses extremely detailed very very difficult even people who have learned in Yesa for many years uh have difficulty just figuring out what on Earth is even going on here uh and the like now why the Torah gives such inordinate detail to S by the way I'm using leprosy you understand that um that is not really the modern disease that used to be it's not even calleda lepr Hansen's Disease used to be referred to leprosy when you have LEP colonies and all of that uh does not correspond uh to the torah's description of Saras in fact the closest thing that corresponds to the torah's description of sorat is the word psoriasis which is actually a Greek version of SAS and it clearly was a skin condition that is how it is described but as the rambam points out and the ram of course himself was a doctor it is not primar a medical condition it is rather a spiritual punishment that God would put on a person which would have a physical manifestation because of various sins and defects of character that are within the person and thatal emotional does bring out skin dis yes okay that could very well be so but but it is a spiritual message in fact the ran know you've done this wrong and that wrong yes the ramban points out the ramban points out that SAS is a mini form of Prophecy in which God is giving a person direct feedback as to what they need to correct in their lives and that is why the ran says interestingly enough when you no longer have prophecy you no longer get those direct messages so even though SAS is certainly unpleasant and SAS is a great stigma and there's a humiliation in being separated from people and the like but actually it is a form of prophetic feedback you I remember when I taught Law School uh for many years so you know uh in law school I don't know I don't know what they do in Israel but in at least in American law schools there's only one test at the end of the semester right we don't give quizzes or anything in the middle so students can go through a whole semester they really they really don't have a sense of feedback they often ask you know give us feedback and a person might say to Hashem you know give me feedback how am I doing God am I good am I now when there was man there was feedback do you know that with man uh the righteous people had their M right next to their tent and the people who were less righteous had to look for their M now you might ask me a question so if I'm next to AIC why don't I just take his M it's right there the answer is I didn't see it this is the miracle in other words it's not like you looked at the whole desert it was covered with mud if I was not a righteous person I looked I didn't see anything so I'm just walking around looking you know looking around for for my month so that that's a report card meaning if you huh you you would you just wouldn't know you just wouldn't know it kind of uh assimilated to the ground uh so to speak so it's quite so that was a daily report card you know how far did you have to go to get your MTH SAS is also a report card what type of defects now we know Saras comes in different varieties there's Saras of the flesh there SAS of garments there's SAS of houses kind of like mold in your basement and the like and K basically say that SAS of the flesh comes because of where you speak evily about people a person who says bad things about others uh we know of comes because of arrogance excessive Pride because clothing is often an expression of our pride and finally theat of the B comes from that means an over attachment huh I didn't hear you well it's it's described in the Torah now kazal actually say there is there are no recorded cases of this happening what is it it's it it's kind of you have like a leprosy on the Garment on the Garment itself and there's a procedure in which you cut it away and then if it comes back you got to burn the Garment uh with a house there again a procedure you cut it away and if it comes back you destroy the house literally the house is literally destroyed say again then you find gold in the wall yeah well that's actually part of the point part of the point was that um because you were self selfish with your possessions God makes you expose them to everybody and then they see how selfish you were so there's a Penance now one point about us that is very unique and that is uh the the leper is isolated he goes this is very unusual a normal T like even a t of from a dead body is not allowed to enter the Temple Mount but he can certainly be with people the MS must be quarantined now although it is tempted temp uh tempting to look at this as you know a public health concern for communicable diseases but the rambam himself explains the only communicable disease we are concerned about is lashar itself meaning Sarat is not uh a contagious medical condition uh but there is a mid mid here because a creates divisiveness P separation between people we want him to understand what it's like to be alone I remember when I was in um they used to call it Junior High now it's called medal middle middle school you know seventh grade sixth or seventh grade so there was a short story that we read a a man without a country I don't know if you if you ever read it so the concept was this was you know some story that goes back to the time of Aaron Burr you know this early Revolution against the United States government and uh one of Burr's collaborators uh you know said he you know he said to the judge that you know he thinks this is an unfair court and he wishes he'll never see the United States again so his Gaza was that he would be on a ship and he would never hear anything about the United States the newspapers were Etc and then the the the the message of the story was how much he yearned to be connected and that's what we tell the person you know the power of speech is amazing M says death and life I'm in the hands of the tongue the medish gives a very cute story the story but all the different limbs of the body we're arguing who is more dominant the arm says I'm the one that lips stay and the legs say I'm the one that you know runs and you know Etc so finally the tongue says nope I'm better than all of you so they started mocking the tongue and they said hey you don't even have a bone you can't even stand up you're Li Crown yeah what type of power you know do you have so the tong said I'll tell you so uh this body I guess it's a serpent is in front of the king and the tongue starts saying abusive things to the king you're a real jerk stupid the king says up with your head so now all the limbs are afraid the limbs are saying to the tongue get us out of this trouble you know you put us in this big trouble and the tongue apologized and the King forgave Etc uh must be nice King to forgive uh so he said you see I could kill you and I could give you life and again this is a mus because death in life has many many meanings it's not simply a question of physical survival or physical death but a person could be killed inside with humiliation with pain with the emotional torments of the unkind words that are expressed by people and on the other side speech is a vehicle for comfort and for the strength that we have the power in our words to give a person hope person courage right so all of that is death and life are in the hands of the T question if if indeed as uh theat that we read about in our parti is a spiritual and not a medical condition then why does tanak use the same word to describe the Affliction of General Nama who was a gentile no no no it is let me point out it certainly is a physical condition we're not we're not denying that it is it is described as a physical condition but it is a physical condition that is a punishment from God because of a spiritual Affliction are Gentiles subject to it generally not n was actually an unusual situation God wanted to show Alisha's power of Miracles Etc so n was put it typically is not not dtive that in that way now uh here is the by the here is the thing I want to go over there are many types of SAS indicated there is the basic three-fold classification is person clothing houses within person there are further subdivisions there is what you called no pun intended the plain vanilla Saras of the Flesh and then there's special rules of Saras if it's in a hairy area of the body like the beard and then there's a another rule is on top of the head and then there's yet another rule when it comes after a burn or after a boil different set of rules right we have many many ways this is sliced up and uh to go over even the description of this would be much more complicated we don't we don't have time to this at all but I want to take plain vanilla and and go through it and show you that even in the most technical Arcane parts of the Torah there are wonderful spiritual lessons that we learn and we can apply what happens here a person has a white splutch on his arm on his skin this does not apply today he is he or she is to go to the Coan the Coen is the referee what do the referee say it ain't to strike until I call it a strike or whatever it is SAS is exactly that way SAS cannot become Saras no matter what the condition is until the Coen proclaims it as such so you have an obligation to report to the Coen and the Coen has an obligation to call it in accordance with the but if he doesn't call it satat it is not satat yet that is why we have an that there are certain times of year in which in fact this is actually the ROM's proof that this is not a contagious disease you'll see because there are certain times of year where the coin is not allowed to Proclaim it as s that is during a the not Proclaim satat right the office ofat is closed because if a person were to become a during even that would take away from the joy of the if get married and for some reason there's Sarat that develops during the seven days of M the seven days of Celebration we don't Proclaim SAR now the ram argues quite convincingly that if SAR would be an issue of contagious disease what sense does that make I'm not going to I'm going to allow you to infect other people because you know we don't want to take away your happy occasion obviously it's not a contagious disease in that way it's a spiritual punishment and God says at various times we want to defer the punishment so you can enjoy the honeymoon or the Sim or the or the or or or whatever is okay but let's assume that no no the person has a white Splash so if it's a certain size and a certain color so step number one is he is quarantined for seven days at the end of the seven days on day seven the Coen inspects it's called the Nega the Nega is theat and looks for one of three things that might have happened either had there been a black hair let's say in the arm that turned white other words what starts off the process is the appearance of the Nega that's just the splot but then the Coen has to look for one of three s of Tuma Simon number one is a black hair turned white or Simon number two is the Nea grew bigger so the Coen has to measure San number three is maybe counterintuitive that sounds like something good is mik mik means in the middle of the there is the appearance of healthy flesh if either one of those three things happens he is upgraded or downgraded into a definitive M who can't get out of that condition till he brings sacrifices and everything else now let's say on day seven he still has the Nega but he does not have one of those three we wait another week and on day 14 actually it's day 13 because day seven overlaps on day 13 we once again the co not we the Cohen once again looks for one of those three s right the black hair turning white the Nega going bigger or the appearance of health is quaran during this time yes he is he is he is if he has on day 13 because day seven is both the end of the first period the beginning of the second period then once again he is upgraded or downgraded into a definitive M who will not leave that status until he brings sacrifices but what if on day 13 he still has the he has he has the he has but he doesn't have one of the three he goes home and he's fine he doesn't need sacrifices there is no re ual that he needs at all even though the Sarat actually didn't disappear still there now the technical term for this is that the two weeks the 13 days of quarantine he's all quarantine he is called a musar muskar comes from sag he's closed closed off but he's not yet right is when he's definitive so in order to in order to graduate from a musar to a you have to have one of the three of T and we only check twice meaning we we really don't care if if for example the Nega grew bigger in the middle of the seven days but we didn't see the growth as we only checked day seven and day 13 we ignore interim fluctuations if there would be any uh but the only way you become a is with one of the T so I'm using the vocabulary here uh on either day seven or day 13 without the s t the maximum quarantine is 13 days and upon the expiration of that period if there's no s Tuma he goes home even though he still has the ne got surra we don't know how long that's about to say that could be a very long it might be the rest of his life it might be another week you know whatever it would be uh but at that point we do not apply there is no longer a quarantine he no longer contaminates uh that which he touches yeah now if if for example he has it three months later some of these SE appear it doesn't matter oh no it certainly doesn't matter yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah in a way in a way it's a Time b in a sense because even though we let him go everybody brought it up even though we let him go on day 13 if there's no Simon Tuma if that SAS does not go away if at any time it grows bigger or the turns or there's M he's a full he's immediately a full see it's very technical if the SAS disappeared and then he gets it again we start the process over again really in other words the two weeks but if the SAS didn't go away if you get any of the S Tuma even 10 years later although it's not likely with he's a immediately you skip the how would we know would he be obligated yeah so there's an O now again you're correct it would be relatively easy for a guy to always covered this up when the huh when was this it's basically the B the Bas base on English this is a form of pracy so uh when the temple was destroyed yeah yeah uh he has a duty to report that you're correct you know there might be all sorts of boras out there who didn't fulfill their recording obligation if you didn't see it you didn't notice it if it's a part of your arm that you w know no mirrors so so if if another family member saw it it's their duty to report it it would have to be recorded it would have to be recorded again now you know I don't have the statistics how many people reported it I don't have statistics at all how many people were were M but this is the theoretical structure so the three terms you need to know is musar and to give you a little bit more vocabulary the three the hair white uh the expansion the Torah uses the word in the mishna it's called this is the term for and the healthy flesh is called in the Torah living living flesh healthy flesh so this yeah so the person who had all these signs or one ofs gives the carbon and goes home no no no no no no no two no no once he has these Sons he remains a m until it goes away and when it goes away he brings a car he does not go home till it goes away at that at that point he is stuck so he could be a m for a long time again typically it didn't have to be that long but whatever it took so obviously we're dealing with Hyper technical laws and uh as I say it's not only the that gives extraordinary detail uh I once saw an interesting explanation from Rabbi Sal Burman some of you might know the rabbi of he had been the rabbi of BL square and now I don't know what he just a law professor right now uh but he gave an interesting point it's kind of a legal perspective I I kind of identified as well that is he said like this he says that the reason that to goes into so much Det is precisely because the Torah wants there to be transparency when it gives such a power to another person over your life the coin is given extraordinary power right the co determine on S whatever it is that can really affect my life in a very very deep way but the Torah doesn't want that to be a black box the Torah doesn't want authority to have power over you unless you know exactly step by step by step what they're going to be doing to meaning it's not like a secretive process oh if the coing looks at you and thinks you're another if the Torah wouldn't give you the detail then there would be no check on abuses of power the Torah would simply say if a CO thinks you're a m you're a m without spelling out in excruciating detail what the standards are there is a great potential for abuse of power and therefore in order to limit abuse the Torah opts for a transparency of exactly what the Coen must do so if a Coen is abusing his power we or the or whoever would be able to determine that uh again that that has an interesting I don't want to get too political that is an interesting analogy in the way sometimes is done today in an ideal sense should also be a relatively transparent process the PO should give the reason and the sources and the arguments so we have a sense of what's going on what often happens today is they tend to be to use another religion analogy EX cathedra pronouncements in which we simply see a wall poster usually it doesn't even say who the rabbi is just says the great rabbis have declared that the internet is forbidden or that you're not allowed to go to therapy I've seen that as well therapy is yeah doesn't say doesn't say who the rabbis are that doesn't even say uh huh RAB well yeah something like that yeah so uh this is kind of the opposite of kind of explaining what the basis of well may not be at all but but again I understand the issue I mean some have argued again this is this is a an interesting issue that that sometimes uh if a rabbi tries to explain uh that may cause understanding meaning sometimes people just listen you know just do it don't don't ask why okay you know one could one could could could discuss this I mean I I I know in myself I I've sometimes encountered uh uh that in trying to explain something perhaps that sometimes maybe even tonight that may create more confusion than clarification tot doesn't that there doesn't a comparison also suggest there should be a process suppose I say know look this Co didn't wasn't wearing his glasses he's I don't I want I want another going is there an option well there's not an option of going to another Coen but but it would appear that the coen's Judgment because remember the Coen might not even be a learned person right the coin's judgment is subject to huic review by the Sanhedrin and the like determine whether he was following the proper standards so technically the Sanhedrin cannot proclaim a person to be a Ms or not a Ms but they can supervise the propriety of the decision making of the of the coing yeah okay so as a puzzled and challenged going yeah better learn um some of these you know this whole system seems so primitive for modern thinking and almost at risk for false accusation which is a major violation because the connection there skin problems that are not connected to spiritual problems that could be dietary or I I just wonder if people were fely something the law seems too you know clearly we have an understanding now skin conditions yes this system seems to lack compassion now that really is a very very excellent question and that is no no the the question becomes this the question becomes now it's like everybody has so much of their own gu whatever like coin so you're saying we have the spiritual problem yeah no the the question becomes I mean that that is a very good question I don't have a complete answer to this that is is there some room in the structure to weed out uh physical problems from spiritual problems meaning to say uh would the laws of Saras kick in only if it be determined there is not an underlying you know medical medical condition and it just comes from the heaven so to speak uh if I have to admit if you read the literally uh there does not seem to be a weeding out process for that but that would be that would be a very very interesting question I want to think about it some more but except there for the very reason that there are these three seon yeah it would seem that if it were something totally different yeah it could be the SE maybe the what of those seem could OCC in a medical condition yeah the expansion the expansion yeah you're right right you're right you're right you're right it's a good question but let me share with you the general thought that I I want to convey that I want to convey this idea of the three of Tuma and the fact that if they don't exist he goes home even with the SAS and that is f the ultimate spiritual message uh of the MS is we put him in isolation so he should contemplate the damage that he's perpetuated through and it should be a time of Chua and reflection the Simon of Tuma is ESS God telling the person you have not really gone through the process properly that is the following when a person is confronted with his sin right whatever it is in life when we finally are confronted with different things we did wrong the pain that we cause the people that we hurt the damage that we've done we look for all sorts of rationalizations all sorts of Escape Routes all sorts of evasions of responsibility and the S tum allegorically or metaphorically may represent the range of rationalizations and excuses that a person experiences which is why God says you got to go back into quarantine and rethink the first thing we might do is something called denial we might refuse to accept we did anything the guy deserved it the guy was ratten the guy didn't behave nobody lik any way that might refer to whitewashing the evil of my behavior denial the white hair the black hair turning white right this common speech we say when a person denies wrongdoing they're engaging in a white watching process so this if the S laan appear right the Nega is the warning to the person look at your life and try to correct it the S laan is saying well you been in quarantine 7 days or 13 days the hair is white you have not yet accepted responsibility for your actions you are in a state of denial go back and reflect that might be the allegorical meaning of the acknowledge and take responsibility now the second response might actually come from the other way around that is sometimes a person has such an excessive guilt and such a strong sense of their in adies and failures that they feel that any positive change is hopeless and impossible this is a term we use Yos is give up hope right a person is overly consumed with their failures their inadequacy they say I have reached the point of no return despair despair that is p the expansion of the Nega where the person says what's the use I've sinned I might as well continue there's no way I can correct it's the opposite of denial but it comes from a hyper sense of guilt inadequacy and despair you know with other marish we find a very interesting thing when adish eats from the the a so right so ad and are hiding because they're naked and said of course knows the answer says who told you that you're naked guys there's nothing wrong with being naked why are you ashamed uh did you perhaps eat from the fruit that I told you not to eat from is that what's going on so says remarkable he says yeah the woman that you gave me gave me the fruit I mean not he he's evading responsibility twice he's saying it's the woman's fault and you gave me that woman so don't blame me but there's a third Defence that the reads which we translate as can also be I will eat and according to the m say I'll do it again now that's kind of an astounding statement I did it I'll do it again I would do it again what is that ad is telling hasem that so some suggest it's a much more poignant statement he's not saying it to God to fight he said to God I messed up I'm such a failure I did it and I know it's going to happen again I don't know what to do I'm trapped that's say the person's attitude is what's the use I might as well continue I've gone beyond the point of no return that's P so again the message is oh you have not done the proper reflection go back and think about that in other words the Simon Tuma essentially is the message the person that he's not yet begun the process as he needs to begin it and that's why he's now there's a third response person which you might call emotional distancing meaning he knows he's not a hypocrite meaning he realized he did something wrong but he just doesn't want to think about it now maybe he doesn't want to think about it because if he thinks about it they'll become category number two and live in despair but he creates what you might call an emotional distance in between himself and the problem I just don't want it to penetrate my ious waking hours I don't want to think I want to repress it of course as fre said that is the cause of all sorts of neurosis and cytosis and and the like but repression is the common about sweeping the dust under the Right video where like there was a pile of like the rug was 30t above the floor that's under under the L but this is not see this is different than the whitewashing the whitewashing is when I lie to myself and I convince myself that my behavior was justified the third standard is when I simply don't allow myself to dwell on it and that's represented by the M you're surrounded by rocks all over you but you don't let it penetrate your inner your inner core as it were so the three Tuma represent the three forms of denial and equivocation that we go through in order not to accept responsibility and the reason why they make us T is because the whole purpose of the quarantine is to engage in this type of reflection and this is God's report card you have completed now M if after the two weeks or the 13 days there are not the so one of two things are possible perhaps as you suggested that indicates just a medical problem or perhaps even if it was a spiritual issue but Hashem is saying you've worked on yourself enough that you could go home and continue your Reflections you don't have to be in this protective and confining environment now what's interesting is you know we just finished we just finished P we know of course that the great prohibition of p is not to have right only mat so if you think about it these we know that is to the but if you think about it these three forms of denial actually correspond to different aspects of as well right one aspect of is well known probably the best wellknown aspect is is puffed up represents arrogance and GBA and arrogance and GBA comes along withal if I give excuses for my beh in other words if I whitewash if I in a sense defend the bad things that I did by defining them as good that is generally characteristic of an arrogant person who refuses to acknowledge with humility that they have made mistakes now another aspect of maral mat spoils and mat does not really spoil RS it can form mold and other things matah is something that does not spoil now sometimes it gets a little stale Etc but but by and large mat does not spoil that refers to the sense of Despair when a person just continues their WRA so can also represent the idea of feeling that because I failed I will just continue to fail for the rest of my life and finally the moral makes a third point that corresponds to inertia what do we mean by this uh we talked about this before PES that if flour and water come together you don't have to do anything to make it humm you don't need yeast you don't need a starter if water hits the flower if 18 minutes passes without people working the D Hally it is H now you might not even notice that it may not look you know you don't you don't see a noticeable rise necessarily but the contact of water and flour for 18 minutes if the dough was not being worked upon it is so you don't make is what happens by itself that is Ina Masa requires the action of arresting the fermentation by baking you bake it that destroys the fermentation by something based cannot become that they don't eat is not a requirement because obviously once mat is baked it can be in liquid you can make mat it doesn't become was created really by the B the first that it spread many groups uh that's simply because of a that maybe some of the was not completely baked therefore it could still become by contact with liquid from it spread to other and from other spread to the hotel industry in Israel because they want to maximize business so virtually every hotel with will not serve shough was I was at a place we actually did have uh mat balls mat balls but they were potato mat balls they were not mat balls mat balls uh so it's amazing how versatile the the Lonely Potato can can in be of course are very lucky there was a discussion around 300 years ago whether potatoes should be banned as kidney so there actually there actually was was a consideration that you wouldn't be able to have potatoes on P but eventually decided that would have been to that would have been impossible for qu to to survive without potatoes P but it makes a lot of sense actually think about it I mean if if kidney o was based on the idea that these things were Ground into flour like Curious potato potato flour you can do everything you do with the rice flour so it should have been kidney but still that that gets an interesting digression because here's the problem potatoes are indigenous to the Americans I don't know potatoes were not native European so in the time of the goning when the laws of kitney when the minog of kitney was formulated there there was no potato so that's a general issue did the gon establish a principle meaning things that are ground up into flour and therefore as new things get discovered we assimilate them into the prohibition or did the Goon only prohibit very specific things now the here is very inconsistent because okay rice they had God got you they didn't have corn they didn't have corn so corn is also Native American so if you're going to tell me that only the stuff that the go had is n and Kos and not the stuff that comes later then logically corn should be okay peanuts should be okay some say peanuts are okay uh quinoa would certainly be okay and say what soy beans even soybeans you're correct El the the that which were is because established a principle if they establish a principle that should apply the potatoes as well so there's a lot of inconsistency in this and even something like kid you know that's the q i n o Ain lot of know the and many American yeah they go back many American approve do not approve right so K goes back and forth right you don't have any problem and then people argue now that we're all now that we're inel and we're back go back to okay yeah I don't I don't want to get into that well say again back to the and the water what was that one that was the which one is there is there a connection yeah yeah yeah I was saying yeah yeah I was saying is this I was saying that if it represents inertia that is not letting yourself go to the place where you need to go that's kind so therefore it's interesting that the three symbolic meanings of correspond to the three of the again symbol number one the arrogance of that it's puffed up and it rises that corresponds to whitewashing and denial when I justify my behaviors as being righteous and holy uh step number two the rotting of the spoilage of K that represents the despair of continuing in my WRA because I think there's no way I could be the and number three uh the M the healthy flesh which represents uh emotional distancing and not thinking about it that corresponds to the inertia of which you don't move to go where you need to go because that's going to be too painful for you so the three associations of H do correspond to the three Tuma of the right so again interesting point again U it's useful to as I said before realiz you said when you that last one that you did go home you said when you the last S no he does not go home no no no let me explain if the whole if the whole Nega goes away he goes but here we're talking about the following he has a white splotch yeah and in the middle of the white splotch there's the appearance of a healthy flesh but it's still surrounded by the white splot there that's a similar Tuma that's called m but if Thea goes away that that's a separate thing that he's no longer going to be a leper even if he has s that's how he gets better he brings his coros and actually he counts seven days and brings coros and then and then he's okay you didn't hear the U what happens if he has the C they don't go away do he remain a his own life yes yeah yes yes once he has thega and the one of the he is a s until they go away when they go away he then counts seven days and brings coros until they go away he is a and there's no automatic termination for that status other than the seum going away or the or the Nega going away so the three Lepard who went out and discovered the empty Camp of the Assyrians yeah where we assume in that category that they were long but we don't know how long but but yeah at that point they were yeah yeah now of course we do know if you remember there was one recorded instance of one of the Kings of Israel who became a leopard this is Uzi yaho and that's very very interesting that it is said that yaho wanted to take the prerogative of being a CO he wasn't a CO but he figured I'm a king so why can't there be a CO too so he entered the which only only and immediately there was a bright flash of on his forehead and uh because this was the Arrogant this is the arrogance of thinking he could take on this particular role and uh that was in fact Rashi says in many ways we consider a to be similar to a dead person so if you remember Isaiah's great inauguration to be a prophet when he sees Hashem sitting on the throne of glory and theim say k is based on this they Sayad this is taken from yes's inaugural prophecy so it mentions that this prophecy came to him in the year of the death of the king of uzio of the king uu and Rashi explains chronologically uzo did not die but that was the year that he became a leper and his son turned over the took over the M yeah the in the temple you had the AAR and they said there were four bers there yes one was for the yes what was it there for the yeah yeah this is an interesting point this refers yeah you're correct this refers to the problem okay there's a certain Paradox in the laws of M let me explain this this is referring to a Ms who the the SAS has gone away he counted seven days and he's bringing his Corban note now now let me explain what the problem is there's a certain problem here is not allowed to enter the temple until he brings his Corb but but part of how he brings his Cor note is that the coin has to apply blood to his thumbs and his ears so you have a you have a classical Catch 22 he's not allowed to be in the BET mikdash until he brings his corbon but in the bringing of the corbon he has to be in the bet mikdash he can't do it long distance because the Coen applies the blood of the corbon to the MS so the answer basically is he stands outside the Gate of the bet mikdash and he puts his hands in and the co is applying the blood right imagine you have the Gate of the bet mikdash the MS is standing on the outside but his hands are on the inside and theor discusses is partial entry permitted Etc so that chamber is is is to enable uh that that to happen yeah but that's not referring to someone that actively has cess there's no connection to the BAM mikdash at all SAS spreads the to the whole body yes yes that that's very interesting that that is that is an interesting anomaly and that is uh if the whole body has SRA that's 100% if every single part every single part is sarra so even though you would think that should be the worst SAS of all paradoxically he is toor uh if a little bit if there one qu inch that's not SAS any stach if it's 100% uh again it's it's hard to understand uh the reason I can't explain every single thing it could very well be that uh at that point you know he he can no longer live in denial meaning it's impossible when hasem says 100% you know he understands at that point you know you've gotten his attention as it were so he doesn't need the whole uh the whole presence but you but you are correct uh it's similar but it's not the same reason it's similar to another anomaly Ina you may recall uh by a capital crown crime capital crimes uh have to be adjudicated by a Sanhedrin of 23 judges it's a big Court 23 judges so if 22 of them say he's and one says he's exempt so he he gets the death penalty you need a majority of two actually a majority of one is not sufficient so if it's 13 to I'm sorry if it's 12 to 11 actually the truth is you can never get a majority of two but if it's 12 to 11 for conviction he does not get killed because you need a majority of two but that would be 13 to 10 so you know it'll be majority of three practically but okay but the Paradox is what if you have a unanimous verdict for conviction what if you have 23 judges say he deserves to die 23 so he goes free he goes free because if if not a single person could see any type of exonerating circumstance we have to suspect the process was not pure because in an unbiased process somebody will see something now this creates a very fascinating ethical dilemma here's the ethical dilemma I'm sitting with my colleagues on the Sanhedrin we're 23 judges and I'm the last guy I'm the youngest judge right so uh my vote is last so uh I believe the guy's guilty and so do 22 of my colleagues so I'm hearing guilty guilty guilty guilty guilty guilty I'm Mr 23 now here's the Paradox if I say guilty he goes free if I say innocent he gets executed so what should I say uh should I lie in order that the truthful verdict as I see it will be carried out or should I tell the truth if if that will result in what I believe the truthful verdict will not be carried out so the says you are not allowed to lie meaning you must distance yourself from a lie so even if as a result of your telling the truth what's going to happen is something you think is not truthful but gu but God's is that the guy goes free so in effect Hashem is obviously considering that to be the correct result so actually you're not allowed to lie under those circumstances if you lie that you don't believe in the process so then you shouldn't be part of the Court well that that that may be the a good argument why you don't lie yeah yeah can I make two possible solutions to this problem going to lie the guys going to go so you have to believe that aem's going to take care of him yes or there's the the pit you can always into the pit gu's a serial killer you can't let him lose well if he yeah okay I mean that would that would that would work yeah yeah yeah yeah there there are other you you know again I mean as as you know when there is a there a p well well the basic problem with this the basic problem is that forgetting about this particular case of the unanimous verdict that's just a particular problem the overall problem is that the Sanhedrin procedure to impose capital punishment is an extremely difficult standard to ever meet because you have to have eyewitnesses eyewitnesses not circumstantial evidence uh the witnesses have to be two men they have to be Jews they can't be related to each other or to the victims they have to be Sher shabis people uh and they have to give the murderer warning before he murders don't do it and the murderer has to acknowledge the wording I'm going to do it anyway and only then and then the Witnesses are cross-examined separately on very minute details like what color were his socks and if one if the witness says I don't know we throw out the testimony meaning we create a system where it's almost impossible to execute anybody uh and uh as the gamar says M says makos a Sanhedrin that killed somebody unlike the state of Arkansas that apparently uh loves to kill multiple people in the same day yeah they did twoo they wanted to do eight but they okay they only did two uh but it says a Sanhedrin that killed once every seven years was called a bloody Sanhedrin and according to another opinion 70 years and RAB yiva who was after the Sanhedrin made the point if he would be in the Sanhedrin nobody would get killed so on one hand the Torah gives you this capital punishment for many many sins on the other hand K's understanding of the procedure makes it almost impossible so you're never going to do it but then you have a problem that uh if there's not going to be this type of punishment then you know murderers are not going to be deterred right this debate about Catal punishment there's no deterrence for murderers and the like so because of this what's very very interesting is that kazal envisions an alternative system meaning there's the normal judicial system in which almost nobody's ever going to get executed but when there's rampant lawlessness this system may be suspended you don't only need one witness circumstantial evidence and there are also rules for serial uh violators serial murderers or the like uh either they could be executed or they could be indirectly killed the expression would be they be thrown into a pit they would be given barley and water which kind of causes them to explode or or whatever whatever their stomach would would break you know what whatever it would be uh different in other words the point basically is that side by side with the legal system is a system a little akin to martial law or extraordinary circumstances of lawlessness extra Jud yeah extra judici it was done it was done by a court but it was a bit of an extrajudicial procedure but as I say but in terms of the unanimous uh verdict uh once again uh the judge is not supposed to lie uh it is intrinsic in the judicial process uh as one would expect that one must be honest and conscientious in executing their duties even if the net result will be something that you think is not the uh proper is not the proper uh result okay um all right what happens in the under normal conditions where you have a Serial say a Serial murderer to 20 victims and for each murderer there was only one witness but 20 different Witnesses yeah it's amaz they got to see the same thing that's the problem they have to see the same thing even if one witness now there is an argument by money ining myus let's say one witness saw Ruan borrow $100 from Shimon on Monday and one witness saw Ruan borrow $100 from Shimon on Tuesday now had there been two witnesses each day ruen would owe 200 $100 but there's only one witness but since there's one witness on Monday's transaction and one witness on Tuesday's transaction we do have two witnesses that he owes $100 so that so in Money Matters there is a m would that be sufficient to allow them to combine but for capital crimes uh that's would not be enough they would have to see the same the same thing they would have to see the same thing but I want to point out the other point Rob post is also very very important and that is in a system that is predicated on Hashem in a sense when bad guys Escape it really isn't so bad meaning in the sense that they may Escape Earthly human justice but they will never Escape Divine Justice and therefore in effect there is no such thing as the bad guy getting away maybe we're not going to catch him but if we don't catch them there'll be other things uh other things that that will happen I mean uh take an example OJ Simpson OJ Simpson uh got away with murder right quite literally he got away with murder that's fine so then he gets he gets thrown into prison for years and years with some crazy little thing about robbing a robbing a trophy what whatever he did kind of you know the person think get away with murder and then you get trapped over the smallest little stupid thing that winds up to turn into a so really Hashem has his has his ways in in in many many different yeah with regard to right yeah destroy yes according to the med that that that was the case yeah yeah but it could be you know Hashem kind of because is also a public humiliation so that's a gives you word but again actually say that S and S were theoretical they actually never happened so it's hard to reconcile the M according to yeah there must be different midrash it's very difficult to reconcile all of these there are teachings to say there was no such thing other say this is how the Jews discovered all of the different different goals and the like okay you all be well so M yeah one I think there one more question one note of compassion and modernity from a compassionate Goin is like the third kidney for skin diseases now it's a sign that they should e more of a pure diet with fruits and vegetables more water and less CU we're surrounded by synthetic and things that is not really food all right it's a sign compassionate sign from God a warning sign we need to improve maybe warning sign that way okay