Daily Chidush: Clean the Tzarat before PeSach

0:10Elohim yikarim, how are you? I hope you had an amazing Shabbat. I wanted to start off the week with a nice chiddush connecting last week's parashah to this week's, as well as to the holiday. So in last week's Parashat Metzora, we learn about the disease of tzara'at. Tzara'at is both a spiritual and a physical disease. We mostly don't know much about it in our day because it rarely exists. It still exists. There's actually a place in Jerusalem...

1:15Now, why do we mention Lashon Hara? Lashon Hara is something we can learn about throughout the entire year. Why is it connected to right now? Because, as we all know, Pesach is coming up. We're only days away from the holy, amazing holiday of Pesach. And Hashem is telling us that one of the major obligations of Pesach is to remove all chametz from our homes. All of the chametz must be removed from the places we stay, whether it's in our car, in our home, in our office, or wherever you're going to be. During the holiday, everything must be free of chametz. But the time has come for us to actually look at it differently. What about the chametz that's inside us? I'm not talking about the physical chametz, but the spiritual chametz— all the different sins that we make regularly, where we've almost become accustomed to them, where they've become part of our nature. During the holiday, one must be absent of all chametz. But the time has come for us to actually look at it in a slightly different way. What about the chametz that's inside us? And I'm not talking about the physical chametz, but actually the spiritual chametz. All the different sins that we commit on a regular basis, where we've almost become accustomed to them, where they've become part of our nature. where, you know, listen, if someone occasionally sins and sometimes gets upset about something, causing them to lose their mind and get angry, of course, it's a great sin. The Ramban says that when a person gets angry, all types of Gehinnom control him. So, obviously, anger is a sin. It's a very bad sin. But if you do it rarely, and it's once in a blue moon, okay, it's never going to be approved, but you're not the worst person on earth. However, if your temper...

2:38has gotten to the point where it's acceptable by you and everyone around you to see you get so upset, so worked up about certain things in life, or really anything in life, then obviously there's a major problem. And this is where the tzara'at situation comes in, where Hashem is telling us, "Listen, you have a problem. You have to remove this disease from you." ask for the Kohen to come. The Kohen would come, see it, and if he identified it as Tzara'at, they would have to destroy it. They would have to remove everything out of the house and destroy it. So the question is, why does Hashem first affect the house? Why doesn't He just send us a sign, like a little zap in our brain every time we said lashon hara? Why doesn't He send us some type of message different from our house? ask for the Kohen to come; the Kohen would come, see it, and if he identified it as Tzaraat, they would have to destroy it. They would have to remove everything out of the house and destroy it. So the question is, why does Hashem first affect the house? Why doesn't He just send us, like, a sign, like a little zap in our brain every time we said Lashon Hara? Why doesn't He send us some type of message different than our house?

3:55Because, unfortunately, in today's world, nothing's really changed from 3,300 years ago, and we haven't learned that much unless we've literally connected ourselves to Hashem's instructions. Hashem is telling us that unless it hits your house, you're not going to care about it. If it hits something else, you're always going to say, "Oh, it's bad luck." If a bad business deal didn't go through, you'll say, "Ah, the customer is bad." If a contract didn't go through, you'll think, "Ah, it's just a bad economy." If there's an issue with the wife, she might just be in a bad mood. Perhaps it's that time of the month. These are some of the crazy things that the Satan puts in our brains to convince us that it's something else, and it's not Hashem Himself giving us a message. But when there are problems at home, when there's discord at home, we start reflecting. We begin to look at things. What did I do wrong? What's going on? Why am I working so hard at work? but yet, life's not happy, the kids are failing at school, no one wants to go to synagogue, no one wants to pray, no one wants to do anything, no one gives me any respect, and the guy that's working his heart out every single day feels like he's become a slave. And I had this conversation with somebody just the other day, and I asked him the question, what's the difference between the slaves of today and the slaves of Mitzrayim? We're about to

5:20hear the story once again in Pesach and we need to know the answer. So she said, no, it's the same thing. They're both slaves. Slaves meaning people that are just dedicating their life to work is okay, but when it gets to a point where it becomes their life like it used to be for me, then it's obviously not okay. You become a slave. What's the difference between today's slaves and the previous generation's slaves? In Egypt, they knew they were slaves. Today, we think we're winners. Today, we think we're just being ambitious. So that's something that we always have to take into account. Back to the issue of tzara'at, Hashem is telling us that when you have problems at home, when you have shalom bayit issues, when your kids are not doing well at work, at school, when the parnasah that you're getting, that finally arrives, by the time it arrives at your home, there's not much left. you're having all of these issues, that means you have a problem with Me. That means I'm sending you a message to pay attention. Because if you don't change it, then the next stage advances. And this is one of the things that we have to reflect on every single day. But the reality of it is that this is an opportune time to do it right before Pesach. Because when we're cleaning out the chametz from the house that's not allowed during Pesach,

6:44Even more important, we need to clean out the mess that's inside us. In this week's parasha, we start Parashat Acharei Mot with the story, or rather the end of the story, of what happened to the two sons of Aharon HaKohen. The two sons of Aharon HaKohen died in last week's parasha. And the parasha starts, Vayedaber Adonai el Moshe, Acharei Mot Shnei Bnei Aharon. Hashem spoke to Moshe after the death of Aharon's two sons. The question is, why did they die? The Gemara says that Nadav and Avihu, these two sons, were more righteous than Moshe and Aharon. More righteous. So how could they die? Moshe and Aharon obviously are the greatest people that ever lived. How could these two that are considered higher die? The answer is arrogance. Nadav and Avihu got to a point where they said, listen, look at us. Our forefather is Aharon HaKohen, the most important Kohen in history. When Mashiach comes, Aharon HaKohen is going to be the Kohen too. Aharon HaKohen is the first Kohen. Aharon HaKohen has something where Hashem changed his DNA forever. Not only him but all of his descendants, as we talked about in our Torah and science classes. And on Tuesdays, we showed it from Rabbi Zamir Cohen's book.

8:08scientific proofs that Kohanim, the people that are true Kohanim—not just anyone that's called Kohen, because there are many of them that are not even Jewish—but true Kohanim, which sometimes can even have a last name like Singer, like Rabbi Tovia Singer, for example. He's a 154th generation Kohen, a very righteous Rabbi, and the key here is that the Kohanim actually have a different DNA than all of humankind. So Aharon HaKohen is Even more so, Aharon HaKohen, wow. So they're saying, oh, our father is Aharon HaKohen. Our uncle is Moshe Rabbeinu. It can't get better than that. Our uncle is Moshe Rabbeinu. Our aunt is Miriam, the prophetess, one of the greatest prophets that ever lived. A river of water is following us for 40 years in the desert just because of her. Moshe Rabbeinu received the Torah. Aharon HaKohen, he has the Choshen. He's speaking to Hashem directly.

9:08I mean, how could it be? And nobody cares better than us. How could we find anyone that's a good fit for us? This is where the problem lies. The fact that Moshe, Aharon, and Miriam were all righteous people, were all amazing people, and these two had the benefit of having them related to them is great. It's fantastic. But when they took it to their heads and made it an issue where they said there's no woman in the world that would be enough for us to marry... made it an issue where they said, there's no woman in the world that would be enough for us to marry, because they themselves were righteous, they themselves were talmidei chachamim. That's when they took something good and turned it into something disgusting. That's when they took something that Hashem gave them as a gift and turned it into poison. This is one of the five reasons why when they went into the Kodesh HaKodashim, when they were not permitted, Hashem killed them instantly. A normal righteous person... that commits a sin, Hashem doesn't destroy them immediately; He gives them chances. Even someone who is less righteous, He provides opportunities for repentance. However, these two individuals did something utterly detestable to Hashem, utterly disgusting to Him. Displaying pride is not something Hashem appreciates in any form. This is one of the most crucial lessons we must understand because when we began this discussion, we mentioned that anger is detrimental. Lashon hara is damaging.

10:34But why am I mentioning arrogance? Because arrogance is the reason for both. Arrogance and pride are the reasons and the foundation for all major sins because someone who has arrogance can commit all sins. Why is somebody speaking Lashon Hara? Because they think they are better than someone else. That's why. Why is somebody angry? Because they believe they are entitled to something and that the world owes them something. Well, the reminder here in this shiur is that Hashem doesn't work for you. You are here to work for Him. You are here to serve Him. So to have any pride when Hashem specifically told you this is something that's considered to'avat Hashem, disgusting to Hashem, obviously reminds us that during this Pesach, when we're about to entertain all of the family and we're about to get together with everybody else, we have a few days to work on our pride and get prepared to not show up as a show and tell, but instead, I'm just telling the people of how we've improved and how we're going to continue working on ourselves in the next year to improve even better with getting closer to Hashem. Chazakim U'B'rukhim. Work on our pride and prepare not to show up as a "show and tell." Instead, we should be telling people how we've improved and how we're going to continue working on ourselves over the next year to improve even further, getting closer to Hashem. Chazakim U'Berukhim.

11:46We'll have an amazing week, Be'ezrat Hashem, this week. And if there's any specific issue you want me to talk about this week, we will. I'm going to try to also mention certain things about Pesach this week and the Chiddush. And Be'ezrat Hashem, we'll also have some shiurim. Kol tuv.