Shalom everyone, and thank you so much for joining me in the parashat in the study of parashatta zria mezzurah. This week we're going to study both of them together because that's the way we're going to read the Torah this Shabbat. And today I would like to talk about the following. This is something very interesting. If someone gets a tzarat, and we're going to just translate it today as leprosy, even though it's really not, because it's not a skin disease. There are some kind of signs in the skins, in the skin that shows that someone has a tsarat, but it's not a skin disease. And how do we know that? Because you don't go to a dermatologist, you go to the Kohen. The Kohen to Aharon or one of his children, and then obviously their descendants, meaning you go to a Kohanim, and they will determine if that's a tzarat or not. And based on their decision, there is going to be some kind of a process. If they think that it is, so you're going to be secluded, and if it's the house, may it might be that you need to destroy the house and to basically throw them the bricks. Whatever it is, you go to the coin, which obviously creates some kind of uh some kind of a mystery. So what exactly are we looking for? How exactly the Kohen can begin this process of purification for the Metzuah and to allow him back in society? What is the lesson or what are the lessons that we can learn from it? So, in order to understand the story of the Tsarat and the Kohen, I would like us to study a different story. The story in Melachim Bet in Kings B chapter 5, verses 1 to 16. And the Tanakh describes the following Sarzva Melecharam aya ish gadoli fneadunav, unesufanim ki bonatanashem chuala aram Vaisha Yagi Bohail Metzorah. Interesting. Na'aman was the chief of staff of King Aram. And he was a very important man, and everyone respected him because Hashem delivered in his hands redemption to Aram. So I guess he was someone who brought victory to Aram. He was a warrior, he was a very strong bur strong person. But he was a Metzorah. And we're again we're going to translate it that he had leprosy, but he he has tzarat, he had tzarat. So look at this verse first. You see the contrast. On one hand, he's a chief of staff, he's respected, he has all this glory. Everyone is probably looking at him with so much admiration, but he can't really enjoy it. He's a metsurah. So when people look at him and they see all sorts of things on his skin, they probably take a step back. Now, before we continue on, let's just ask a question. What does it mean, kibonatan Hashem Chuale Aram? That Hashem deliver in his hand some kind of redemption to Aram? And also, why was he Metsurah? Was he punished for something? Or it was just like a bemet, maybe a skin disease? So we will go back to the source, but let's see. Chuale Aram Rashi says, Humashach bakeshetl tumove a ragit achav. What he did, he killed the Jewish king, Ahav. Akav was the king over Israel at the time of Elijah the prophet. He was not the greatest kings ever, but in a way he was a very good politician and he had a very good eye on the political powers. He went to a war and he went to a war against Aram. And Naaman, our guy, just basically shoot an arrow and killed him. And in ancient times, when the king is dead, basically that's a defeat. So Hashem chose Na'aman to kill Akav, and with that Naaman became famous. And that's why he was a Gibochai. So everyone basically admired him, and I guess the king of Aram appointed him to be the chief of staff. The Midrash says, Why was he sick with Sarat? Shaitau Khogasa. He was arrogant, he was pompous, he was full of himself. Why? Mikneshayagi Bokhai? Because he killed the king of Israel, and I guess he got all those medals and he got all those rewards and he got all these public announcements that he is such a treasured person to Aram. He became arrogant and therefore God punished him with Tsarat. So the same God that chose him to kill Akav also gave him tsarat. So immediately you see that tsarat is related to what? To becoming to someone who was arrogant, pompous, someone who thinks about himself too much. So that was Demitrashwaba. And Midrashtan Khuma, in different interpretation, says, Bishvil manitzara, why was he punished with tsarat? Bishwil sheshava me eretisna a raktana because he captured a little girl. At the war he captured a little girl. We will get to that in a minute. But what do we have until now? Let's go back to the story. So we have Naaman, who again was the chief of staff of Aram. He became a chief of staff because he killed Ahav and he became arrogant, and therefore God punished him with Sarat. So we see that this is more of a spiritual punishment for someone who does not know his place, someone who does not know how to keep himself humble, despite the fact that he was promoted, and also maybe because he captured this girl from Israel. So Aram, like in ancient times war, they basically would go and from time to time and they will go on a military expedition to Eret Israel, and one of their times they captured a little girl and they brought her to be like a maidservant to Naaman's wife. But Tomil al-Gvirta. So this little girl, this little Jewish girl, says to her lady, to her mistress, so this little girl says to her mistress, look, tell your husband, I see that he has tzarat, he should go to the Prophet in Shamron, which was at that time was Elisha. That was Eliau's student, Elijah's student, Elijah's disciple. And he will take care of your husband. So Naaman went to the king of Aram and he says to him, You know, this little girl, this little Jewish girl that I captured, she told me that there is someone in Israel, there is a prophet there in Samaria. I don't know his name, but she said that he can cure me. So you know what? I'm asking you, my friend, the king, maybe you can do something for me. So king of Aram says, sure, my friend, sure, you helped me so much by defeating Amisra. Now I am going to send a letter to the king of Israel now, and I will request of him to tell the prophet to cure you. So he sends a messenger with a book, with a letter, basically ordering the king of Israel to go and to do something that will cure Naaman from his Tsarat. When the King of Israel received that letter, he didn't know what to do with himself. He starts ripping his clothes as a sign of mourning and sadness and anxiety. It's interesting. Let's go back to the story. The wife says it to Naaman. Naaman goes to the king, says to him, Look, this Jewish girl told me that what that there is a prophet in Samaria and he might help me. The king of Aram says, Sure, I'll help you, sends a letter to the king of Israel, says to him, Take care of it. But he does not mention the Navi. So the king of Israel says, What does he think? That I'm God, that I can cure Naaman from his Tsarat? That he sends me Naaman to cure him? This is a conspiracy, says the king of Israel. The king of Aram purposely sends me a letter requesting of me to do something that I can't. And then he will blame me that I didn't want to help him. And then they will have a war against me. The king of Israel is terrified. He does not want to go to war with Aram. He will lose. So he doesn't know what to do. When Elisha, the prophet, he's the prophet, he is the prophet in Samaria. When he heard that the king of Israel ripped his clothes, which is obviously it's not dignified for a king to tear his clothes. So Elisha sends a messenger to the king of Israel, which by the way, they were not in great relationships. And he says to him, Why did you rip your clothes? Tell him to come to me, I'll take care of him. This is an amazing story with amazing commentary on the times in Kingsb. The times of the nation of Israel. The Jewish king did not even think for a second to ask the prophet to do it, or to ask the prophet to help him. He thought that the king of Aram sent him the letter to basically create some kind of a conspiracy against him, so he will say, No, I can't cure Naaman and then he will go on a war. The king of Israel does not understand that that's not what he asked. He asked, just somehow take care of it. But he never even crossed his mind to reach out to the prophet, which is a sad commentary that we see in Tanakh all over the place. That the kings, most of the kings did not really get along with the prophets. In a way, it was always like that, that the prophet has to stand up against the king, rebuking them, trying to inspire them, trying to influence them, but most of the times to no avail. So here is the same thing. So Elisha says to him, What are you doing? What are you so anxious about? Send him to me, I'll take care of him. Okay. So I guess the king of Israel says, Yeah, you know what? If Elisha wants to take responsibilities, go ahead. So Naaman comes with his horse and with his horsemen with a big chariot, and he stands at the entrance of Elisha's house. Now, it is so important to listen to the story. Naaman could just come with a simple entourage, just to come with his wife, maybe with his little Jewish girl, and maybe bring her back to her home. You don't need to come with all this delegation. But it seems to be that Naaman is still very arrogant. He thinks that he needs to show Elisha how of a respectful person he is, how dignified he is, how someone who needs respect, and therefore he comes with his entire delegation, and he comes and he stands at the entrance of Elisha's house. Thinking that Elisha, the prophet, when he sees such an important person, will probably run through the door and he'll say, Naaman, how can I help you? Surprise, surprise. Elisha is not doing it. Elisha does not even leave the house. He sends a messenger and he says, Tell Na'man, tell him to dip himself, to immerse himself in the Jordan River seven times, and his skin will be clear like a baby. That's it. So Elisha not only doesn't leave the house and doesn't show the respect that Naaman expected, he also tells him to do something which looks like very, what would I say, very regular. Just go and dip yourself in the Jordan River and you will be fine. We need to listen to this paso. First, I will translate it. Naaman was very angry. He had rage. And he left. And he will stand there and he will lift up his hands and he will cry out to his God to please cure Na'aman. And he will somehow lift his hand and he will take away that tsarat for me. This is such a pagan mindset. Na'aman, who is used to all his prophets and to all the priests that were in Aram, he thought that the man of God has some kind of magic. And I am sure, this is not in the narrative, but I am sure that Naaman tried to cure himself from this tzarat in every shape, way, or form he was able to try. He probably went to the doctors, wherever the doctors were at that time. He probably went to the priest, he probably went to the people who supposedly pretended to be their false prophets. So he experienced different methods of cure, and they all failed. So now he comes to Elisha, the Jewish prophet, and he thinks that the Jewish prophet probably walks like any other prophet. Which, what did they do? They go, they cry, they cry out to their God, and they do some kind of magic of a hocus pokus and abracadabra and no zarat. And a man is frustrated, he's disappointed. Not only that he doesn't even see the prophet, there is like a little agent that comes along, a messenger. The messenger tells him what? Go to the Jordan River, immerse yourself there, and you will be okay. Naaman says, And he says, to go to the Jordan River? We all know. Everyone who visited Israel know that the Jordan River. It's a river, but this is not a river. Says Naaman, I have better, larger, greater, bigger rivers in Syria. I have the Euphrithrus, Euphrithrus, if I'm not mistaken, it's called, and other rivers there, which are larger, bigger, deeper, much more impressive. If I want to immerse in a river, I can do it in my own country. I don't need to come to Israel to do it and to listen to this prophet. I'm out of here. I'm done. Na'aman is frustrated. So they approach him, his servants comes to Na'aman and they tell him, look, it's hard to know how to read it. Avi the var gadol and which means the interpretation I will give is what did he ask you to do? He asked you to do something simple. No, you are already here. Okay, so you're not impressed by him, but let's try it. Let's try it. Go to the Jordan River, dip there, immerse yourself there seven times. Utar, let's see what happens. Maybe, maybe this prophet is correct. So, what does he do? So he went down, he immersed himself by Yarden in the Jordan River, Sheva Phamim seven times, kidvar isha elokim, exactly like what Elisha said. Exactly what Elisha promised him. His skin was like a little child. It walked. So now Naaman obviously has two choices. He can go home and not to say anything, or he will go back. What does he do? Naaman takes his entire delegation with all his slaves, all his servants, all his soldiers, and he goes back to Elisha. Naaman knocks on the door probably and asks to see Elisha. Do you see the change from the beginning of the story to the end of the story? The beginning of the story, Naaman stands in the front of house of Elisha's house. He is waiting for Elisha to come to him, obviously. Naaman is the most important person, he's the chief of staff of Aram. He killed Achav. Everyone needs to admire him. So he stands there. You need to come to me. It reversed now. Naaman wants to see Elisha and he stands in front of him. He understands that there is the man of God in front of him. And he says, So Naaman says, Now I know. There is no any other God in this entire universe, but rather in Am Islael. Your God is the true God. No. Naaman is still Naaman. He recognizes God's greatness through Elisha and he says, okay, I'm going to pay you. This is again a very ancient slash pagan idea. The man of God, you're going to support him, you're going to give him money for his services. And Aman wants to feel good about himself, so he wants to pay Elisha. Says Elisha. You take an oath, Chay Hashem, that I stood before him, I'm not going to take anything. And Naaman tried to convince Elisha. Please take, please take. He refused to take a thing from Naaman. Now, when you look at these two verses, there's also something very interesting. In the third line before the end of the paragraph, it says, that Naaman came and stood in front of Elisha. Then Naaman says to Elisha, please take some money. And Elisha says to him, you stand in front of me. But I stand in front of God. I'm not looking at you. I'm the man of God. I'm standing in front of God. This is how I can cure you, and this is why I'm not going to take anything from you. So that's the first thing. The second thing is that you see some similarities between this story and the story of Avraham and the king of Zdom. The king of Zdom, after Avraham fought against the four kings and he was able to release the nation and Lot, his nephew, the king of Zdom says to him, Here, take everything that I have and give me the people. And Avraham says to him, not even Sruhnal. Nothing. Not going to take a thing from you. The idea that what that I'm not doing that in exchange for something. So you see it from that story that the idea was, at least in Nah's head, that the way to be killed from Tsarat is that there is going to be someone, like the man of God, who is going to say some kind of magical words of like an abracadabra, and the tzarat will go away and everything will be perfect. And basically Elisha sends him a message. It's not about that. It's about you changing your attitude. If tzarat comes as a result of being arrogant and pompous, be humble. Naaman gets it. If that's because you captured this little girl, I don't know what's the story, but it might be that Naaman brought her back, returned her to her family. Meaning tzarat is a sign that something spiritually with your attributes is wrong. That tsarat is a sign that you need to change your ways. And Naaman does it. And this is the story that is connected to our pawsha. Tsarat, you don't go to the doctor, you don't go to a magician, you go to a coin. The coin is going to guide you because the Kohanim's ancient historical position was to teach, to inspire. That's what the Prophet Malachi says. That the lips of a coin will observe knowledge and you will seek Torah from his mouth. He's like God's angel. The coin is supposed to talk to the person who has the tzarat and to try to listen to what does he need to correct? What does he need to change in his life so the tzarat can go away? And that's the story of Naaman and Elisha. Naaman comes with this pagan mindset. Oh, there's going to be someone who is going to take care of me. Elisha says, I will help you to take care of yourself. But you need to change your ways. Yes, the Jordan River, small little river, shows humility. Very much like Sinai Mountain, Har Sinai, the lowest one. That's where you find cure for your tsarat. He says the following. He talks about the story of Elisha and Naaman. He says, He explains Naaman's approach and attitude. He says, Naaman thought that when he will come to Elisha, he's going to pray to his God and he will get an answer. So the run says that, you know, God could have worked like that. That Elisha will go out, he will pray to God, and God will somehow take the tsarat. But he didn't. And why? Because that's too simple. He wanted to send a different lesson. Elisha used an unconventional way to send a lesson. Look, it will not take away from the miracle if Elisha would come out, pray to God, and the minute he would pray, God will cure Naaman. It will still be a miracle. But Elisha wanted to teach Na'aman a lesson. To tell him something that looked so ridiculous. Oh, you came to Israel, go deep in the Jordan River and you will be fine. It's the same miracle. At the end of the day, Naaman got rid of his tsarat. Who cares if he dipped in the river or if Elisha would pray? But Elisha wanted to show Naaman there is a different way. Meaning Elisha purposely told him something that sounded ridiculous, looks ridiculous, and against Naaman's mindset. He basically taught him a lesson. I'm going to tell you something that is totally illogical, and you will see if you will follow it. If you will give up your own thinking that you know everything, but you are so full of yourself. I'm going to tell you to do something illogical, and I'm telling you, if you will follow it, you will be cured. This is a test to na man to give up on his of him being so arrogant. After Naaman was cured, he realized. He did something that was totally illogical, illogical. Something totally against anything he believed in. So he realized the Jewish God, the God over Israel, is the true God. Because he cured him through something that has no meaning, no logic, no connection to his cure. Meaning sometimes you look at Am Israel and you see things that are totally illogical, and somehow it works. So what's the lesson? What's the story? So let's go back to the first source. Adam ki yebesar. Amen. Everyone, including Naaman. Any person who has this tzarat, take a look at the word vehuva. He will be brought. The Kohen at the beginning does not go to him. He comes to the Kohen. He leaves his place. And not only his geographical place, but his little bubble of thinking about himself so highly. He goes to the Kohen. And he basically exposes himself to the Kohen. Because the Kohen is going to ask him, What did you do in the last week? How did you approach your friend? Did you speak Lashon Hara? Did you speak evil on someone? Did you gossip? And you will need to say, Yeah, uh yes, I did. And the Kohen will look at you with his eyes and will basically dig into your soul and will say, you will need to change your ways. This is a sign from God that you might be too arrogant, maybe you spoke evil on someone, maybe you didn't do something right. Do some soul searching. The tzarat is not a skin disease. And the tzarat will not go away because of some magical words. It will go away if you will change your ways. If you will feel a bit isolated, you will feel that you do something sometimes that it might be against your logic, but you will follow it. The story of Naaman and Elisha is the story of Tsarat. There is no magic way to make life better. It's walk, it's efforts that you need to put. And it starts with you. The Rambam in Il Khotan Yod in the Laws of Fast Days says that if a person experienced different experiences in his life and he continues to do whatever he does, a rezo derecha yut. If he says that everything is a mikre, it's happenstances and it just happened to be, he says it's it's cruelty. It's cruelty to you. If you go just by your life, and you don't listen, you don't look at what happens to you. I'm not talking about trying to understand it. That's something beyond us. But to try to look at the things that happen to you and ask yourself the question, okay, how should I react? What should I do? How can I change my ways? You're really cruel to yourself because you will never change. The tsarat is an opportunity for change. We're not looking to get tzarat, God forbid. But if it's there, learn the lesson. So the story of Tsarat and the story of Naaman and Elisha basically teaches us. Look deeper in your life. See what we can change. We all can be better people on so many different levels. And then we will use this tzarat, this sign, to better ourselves. Thank you.