Tazria: 5784 - In Midrash Tanchuma it is written that King David asked Hashem that whoever recites Tehillim be considered as if he were engaged in the study of the laws of nega'im and ohalos. Why specifically these laws? Presented by Rabbi Shimon…

00:00 Speaker 1 Please.

00:01 Speaker 2 The weekly parsha, the parsha of nega’im: “If a person has on the skin of his flesh a raised mark, a spreading mark, or a bright spot,” he must come to the kohen. Then there are all the laws, the signs of purity and the signs of impurity. The Midrash Tanchuma says that King David asked Hakadosh Boruch Hu that someone who recites chapters of Tehillim should be considered as though he were studying Nega’im and Ohalos. Now, interestingly, there is a book called Nefesh HaChaim, by Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin. He writes there: It is true that King David made this request of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, but we do not know whether Hakadosh Boruch Hu granted it. The great Torah sages disagree with him, and the great Chassidic leaders in particular said that this is not so. Certainly Hakadosh Boruch Hu accepted his prayer, and someone who recites Tehillim is considered as though he were studying Nega’im and Ohalos. The question is: Why Nega’im and Ohalos specifically? Why not as though he were studying Kodashim or Taharos, and so on? Why specifically Nega’im and Ohalos? There is a very beautiful explanation. With nega’im, as we know, the halachah is that even someone who has a mark is not impure until the kohen sees it and says, “Impure.” As long as the kohen has not said he is impure, it does not render him impure. So during a groom’s seven days of wedding celebration, he does not come—the kohen does not examine the mark. Why? Because as long as he has not said “impure”—

01:40 Speaker 1 he is not impure.

01:40 Speaker 2 So he is given the seven days of wedding celebration. Similarly, if it is during a festival, the kohen does not examine it, because until the kohen says aloud “impure” or “pure,” the mark has no such effect. It has to be the kohen. So even if someone is a scholar and knows the halachah better than the kohen, and determines whether the mark renders the person impure, that does not help. He has to tell the kohen. The kohen may be unlearned and not know. The scholar tells the kohen what the ruling is, and the kohen has to say “impure” or “pure.” The kohen’s saying it is itself what brings this about. That is why King David asked that reciting Tehillim be like studying Nega’im and Ohalos: someone recites Tehillim, and even if he does not understand what he is saying—he sees the words but does not know what he is reading—it nevertheless has an effect, just as the kohen’s words have an effect. That is why he asked specifically for it to be like Nega’im and Ohalos. In 5702, during World War II—in ’42—the Frierdiker Rebbe founded a worldwide Tehillim society, so that Tehillim would be recited regularly throughout the world, in every shul. And where was the central society? In Jerusalem, at King David’s tomb. Rabbi Eliezerov, who lived in Jerusalem and Hebron, was in charge of it. From 5702 until 5709, there was a minyan that recited the entire book of Tehillim every single day. In 5709, during the War of Independence, it became dangerous to reach King David’s tomb, so that practice stopped. But he had founded a worldwide Tehillim society so that Tehillim would be recited throughout the world, in every shul and every Jewish community. And in Hayom Yom, the Rebbe quotes: If we knew the value of

03:39 Speaker 2 chapters of Tehillim, what they accomplish, we would recite them and never stop reciting chapters of Tehillim. That is how much they accomplish. Yes, and that was King David’s request: that it be like Nega’im and Ohalos. May it be Hashem’s will that He accept the prayers of everyone reciting chapters of Tehillim, and may deliverance come soon, with Hashem’s help.

03:59 Speaker 3 Amen.