Tazria - Metzora: 5783 - Rabbi Shimon Zonnenfeld with an insight on the weekly parsha, the parsha of the afflictions (negaim). Why is it said that "the merit of saying Tehillim is like one who engages in [the study of] negaim and ohalos"? The insight was transmitted…

00:00 Speaker 1 Please.

00:03 Speaker 2 The weekly parsha, Tazria-Metzora, discusses afflictions. The Midrash says that King David prayed to Hakadosh Boruch Hu and asked that when someone recites Tehillim, it should count for him as studying the laws of afflictions and tents—as though he had studied those areas of Torah. Of course, Hakadosh Boruch Hu granted his request. But the question is: Why specifically afflictions and tents? There are many subjects in the Talmud. Why not monetary law, for example? Why specifically these? One explanation is that with afflictions, it is specifically a kohen who must declare a person impure or pure. Even if the person himself is a scholar who knows the law—or even if he himself is a kohen—a person may examine any affliction except his own. The kohen has to say, “Pure.” Until the kohen says it, even a Torah scholar who knows exactly which affliction is impure and which is pure cannot make the declaration. It depends specifically on the kohen’s words—on whether he declares the person impure. That is why a groom is given all seven days of wedding celebration: as long as the kohen has not spoken, the impurity does not take effect. And this is what King David was asking: that the very act of reciting Tehillim should have an effect before Hakadosh Boruch Hu, even if a person does not understand what he is saying or know the meaning of every word. They tell a story about the wife of the Tzemach Tzedek, who was always reciting Tehillim. Once she complained to her son, “I say so much Tehillim. How is it that I still don’t know it by heart?” He told her, “Because each time you make different mistakes.” She was very hurt. So she said to her husband, the Tzemach Tzedek, “Then

02:11 Speaker 2 perhaps I should stop saying Tehillim?” The Tzemach Tzedek told her, “No. Keep saying Tehillim.” When he met his son, he rebuked him: How could you say such a thing to your mother? He told him, “You should know that what I accomplished in Petersburg”—there was a whole episode involving a dispute with the government about the rabbis—“was because of her Tehillim. That was the source of my success.” Have a good month, a good week, and Shabbos shalom.