Parshas Tazria-Metzora 5785 (Yiddish) - why is Moshiach called a Metzora?

00:00 In the first maamar the Rebbe delivered at the well-known farbrengen of Yud Shvat 5711, the farbrengen at which he accepted the leadership of our generation, the Rebbe delivered the well-known maamar “Basi Legani Achosi Kallah” (“I Have Come to My Garden, My Sister, My Bride”). The maamar discusses the creation of the world, “making a dwelling for Him, blessed be He, in the lower realms,” and our work as the seventh generation: our purpose is to bring the Shechinah down here below, to make a dwelling for Him in the lower realms, to turn darkness into light, to transform the darkness of exile and bring in the light of the Geulah. We do this by transforming folly of the opposing side into holy folly: taking folly, the spirit of folly, and the yetzer hara—for “a person does not commit a transgression unless a spirit of folly enters him”—and transforming them into holy folly. Then, in the maamar, the Rebbe began to discuss the nature of this work and told several stories illustrating what the work of holy folly means. The Rebbe said there are examples of this among our Rebbeim, our Nesi’im: several stories have been told from which we can understand, by way of example, how a Jew’s avodah should be when he acts in a way that goes beyond reason. That is, not the usual avodah of Torah and mitzvos, but specifically avodah in a way of folly. As the Gemara says in Kesubos, some of the Tannaim and Amoraim danced before a bride, even to the point that it took the form of folly. And about this,

01:34 Rabbi Zeira said, “His folly benefited him.” It was precisely his conduct in a way of folly, dancing with a cloth, that brought the greatest lights, the greatest revelations. This is what the maamar “Basi Legani” discusses. And the Rebbe said that we saw among our Rebbeim that, to give the chassidim and the Jewish people this approach to avodah, they provided another example. Their conduct took the form of folly, but in holiness, and the example the Rebbe gave was Ahavas Yisroel. We saw in the Ahavas Yisroel practiced by all the Rebbeim—the Alter Rebbe, the Mitteler Rebbe, the Tzemach Tzedek, the Rebbe Maharash, the Rebbe Rashab, and the Frierdiker Rebbe—that it was not simply Ahavas Yisroel, but Ahavas Yisroel expressed in a way of folly. And the Rebbe told a story about the Mitteler Rebbe. A young married man came to him and, in yechidus, spoke of what was troubling him. After all, one of the reasons chassidim enter yechidus is to seek help in correcting themselves. The young man spoke about a sin of his youth, about something undesirable he had done in that regard. And the Mitteler Rebbe was

02:59 very frail. His health was generally weak, and at that time his condition was even worse. The Mitteler Rebbe was physically frail and was often actually ill, as we know from several stories on the subject. At that time, the Mitteler Rebbe was extremely weak, and his body was terribly thin. So much so that when he raised his sleeve and showed the young man his arm, one could see how thin it was: the skin clung to the bones. In the words of the verse, “My skin clings to my bones.” In other words, the skin was pressed against the bones; there was hardly any flesh there. And the Mitteler Rebbe told him, “You see the state of my health; know that this comes from the sins of your youth.” That is, the Mitteler Rebbe wanted him to understand how deeply it affected him, how much he took the chassidim’s situation to heart—so much so that something undesirable had weakened the Mitteler Rebbe’s body and, may Heaven protect us, had broken him physically as well. As the Rebbe told this story, he wept, and said that we must contemplate it and think about it: Who

04:22 was the Mitteler Rebbe? And who was this Rebbe? The Mitteler Rebbe was a holy person, a completely righteous man. With all that is told about the Mitteler Rebbe and his greatness, he was a holy man, a man of wonders, a spiritual man, a G-dly man. And yet, standing before him was a lesser person, a lowly person, who had been involved in undesirable things for thirty years. Nevertheless, the bond, the Rebbe’s connection with the chossid, even when the chossid is at such a low level, is so deep, so rich, and so close that the undesirable things happening with that person affect the Rebbe to such an extent that he becomes, may Heaven protect us, literally ill. Here we see the power of the Rebbe’s Ahavas Yisroel. The Mitteler Rebbe did not say this to the chossid to lecture him or make him feel bad. His intention was to show the depth of their connection, how deeply the chossid’s situation affected him. And contemplating something like this inspires [unclear] to climb out of the mud and get up; it extends a hand, gives strength, and makes it possible to truly do teshuvah. And every aspect of that person matters to the Rebbe—thought, speech, and action.

05:47 In today’s parsha, Parshas Metzora, we find the laws of tzaraas: “When a person has on the skin of his flesh…” The Torah goes into all the laws of tzaraas in detail: an entire parsha, Tazria, followed by Parshas Metzora, with many details and many verses—all dealing with the laws of tzaraas and its impurity, and how tzaraas is healed. A whole body of Torah here deals with “When a person has on the skin of his flesh…” What is the whole matter of tzaraas really about? We find in the Gemara that tzaraas is connected with Moshiach. The Gemara in Sanhedrin asks, “What is his name?”—what is Moshiach’s name? The Gemara gives several names, as is well known: Menachem is his name, Shiloh is his name, Yinon is his name, Chaninah is his name—the initials spell Moshiach. And the Gemara says there that the students who learned in the yeshivos of those Tannaim and Amoraim each held that their own teacher was worthy of being Moshiach. The Arizal says that in every generation there is a soul that is the soul of Moshiach, and if the generation is worthy, he is King Moshiach. That is why the members of Rabbi Menachem’s generation said, “Menachem is his name”; “Shiloh is his name,” “Yinon is his name,” and “Chaninah is his name”—the initials spell Moshiach. The Gemara says something else. Continuing from this, the question “What is his name?” comes up again, and another answer is given:

07:23 “The leper of the house of Rebbi.” That is his name. Rashi says: a metzora, a person afflicted with tzaraas. In other words, Moshiach is called “the metzora of the house of Rebbi.” What does “the metzora of the house of Rebbi” mean? For this, the Gemara cites the verse in Yeshayahu: “Surely he has borne our sicknesses and carried our pains, yet we considered him afflicted, struck by G-d and tormented. But he was wounded because of our transgressions, crushed because of our sins.” This is the verse in Yeshayahu that describes Moshiach and says that Moshiach is afflicted, full of lesions and full of pain. By the way, when the Rebbe delivered the maamar “Basi Legani,” he also cited this verse in the course of the maamar. And you can hear the Rebbe weeping as he says it. [unclear] With him, one could plainly see “wounded because of our transgressions,” may Heaven protect us. In any case, what do we find here? The Gemara asks, “What is his name?”—Moshiach’s name—and brings “wounded,” “crushed,” “afflicted,” and calls him a metzora. The question is: Why did they call Moshiach a metzora? The Gemara does tell us that Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi wanted to know what was happening with Moshiach, and went to ask Eliyahu Hanavi. Eliyahu Hanavi sent him to the gate of Rome: There you will find him among all the people afflicted with tzaraas, and from the way he tends to his lesions, you will know that he is Moshiach. A beautiful passage in the Gemara, a beautiful story. We will soon see what we learn from this story. But what is he doing there? Why was Moshiach called a metzora? The Maharal of Prague says that the reason Moshiach is called…

09:10 a metzora is that a metzora is a person set apart. “He shall dwell alone; his place shall be outside the camp,” says the verse in the parsha. He sits alone, completely separated from the rest of the Jewish people, as part of the metzora’s path to teshuvah. Similarly, King Moshiach is an exalted person, entirely set apart, separate, beyond the natural order of creation. That is the point of this whole subject. Likewise, it also relates to the meaning of the Geulah in general; and the Gemara at the end of Sotah also compares the era of Moshiach to tzaraas, to emphasize that it is entirely set apart from the ordinary way of the world. That is the idea. But the question is: Why use a negative example to express something positive? What is the meaning of tzaraas here? What does it mean to say that Moshiach is a metzora? Well, based on what has been said, one explanation is that King Moshiach carries within him the suffering of the entire Jewish people. King Moshiach is the collective soul of the Jewish people. As is well known, the sefarim, including works of Chassidus, speak of Adam Harishon, Avraham Avinu, Yaakov, Moshe Rabbeinu, and others as collective souls, each encompassing the souls of all the Jewish people. Above them is King Moshiach, who is the collective yechidah of the Jewish people. And there is the well-known teaching of the Baal Shem Tov, as cited by the Me’or Einayim, who quotes Rabbi

10:47 Nachum of Chernobyl said in the name of the Baal Shem Tov: Every Jew has a spark of Moshiach, which is the innermost yechidah of every Jew. By revealing and refining the Moshiach within us, we bring about the coming of Moshiach for all. In other words, King Moshiach represents the entire Jewish people and carries all Jewish souls within his own soul. And when we say “wounded and crushed,” we mean, in other words, the refinement and rectification of Jewish souls throughout the generations following the sin of the Tree of Knowledge, when good and evil became mixed together. The Arizal says that Adam included the souls of all the Jewish people. “And He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life”—all Jewish souls were included in Adam’s soul. Through the sin of the Tree of Knowledge, a flaw was created: good and evil became mixed together, with evil entering even into good; Jewish souls became caught up in that mixture of good and evil. This is the battle, the battle of refinement, that has continued from then until the coming of Moshiach Tzidkeinu. And King Moshiach, who represents the collective refinement of the Jewish people—this is the meaning of the affliction of tzaraas: “Wounded because of our transgressions, crushed because of our sins.” He bears the pain of exile, the pain of the Jewish people, and the pain of the refinement of Jewish souls. On this basis, we can also understand, in light of the Alter Rebbe’s teaching on today’s parsha, what the Alter Rebbe says about “This shall be the law of the person afflicted with tzaraas on the day of his purification, and he shall be brought to the kohen.” He says—

12:18 The Alter Rebbe says that the affliction of tzaraas was only on the skin, meaning the outer part of the body. It did not affect the inner parts, or even the flesh; only the skin of the flesh turned white. This is entirely external. What does that show? The Alter Rebbe says that all these matters still need to be refined; all the matters concerning the souls are already complete. At the end of the time of exile, only the very last refinements remain for us to accomplish in the footsteps of Moshiach, as the Gemara says in Sanhedrin. We are truly at the very end. That is why only the final sparks to be refined remain in the skin of the flesh. And King Moshiach takes all these matters upon himself as well, because he wants to help. He bears the pain of the Jewish people, the pain of the Shechinah, the pain of the entire Jewish people. This brings about the rectification: Moshiach will come at the end of the time of exile, while we still have the last refinements to accomplish, the last sparks to refine, and then Moshiach Tzidkeinu will come. This is what the Gemara means by “the afflicted one of Rebbi’s house.” Moshiach is “the afflicted one of Rebbi’s house”—meaning what we said about tzaraas, about completing the final refinements—sorry—and this

13:48 brings the Geulah through King Moshiach. And as the Rebbe discusses, as it says, “The government will turn to heresy,” and “it has turned entirely white.” This is the sign of tzaraas: the world has reached the end of its refinement, evil has become completely separated from good, and the generation has become entirely meritorious, so we will certainly merit it. And now we will indeed see the revelation of King Moshiach with our physical eyes. May we merit, as the Rebbe always spoke about and urged, to recognize that since our generation now stands at this point in time, when we have already entered the revelation of the days of Moshiach, we must nourish ourselves through studying the inner dimension of Torah, the Torah of Moshiach, and actively engage in it—especially the subjects of Geulah and Moshiach, whether in the Prophets, the Midrashim, or the teachings of Chassidus. These teachings reveal how to enter this era, this time, this light of the days of Moshiach, until we merit to see with our own eyes the revelation of “The glory of Hashem will be revealed, and all flesh together will see that the mouth of Hashem has spoken.” Amen, may it be His will.