we do not get to choose the afflictions that come our way, but we get to choose how we respond to them
I want to share with you a very beautiful teaching by Rabbi Yaakov Haber, the director of TorahLab that comes from this Shabbat’s Torah portion.
Tazria-Metzora focuses on a skin disease, seemingly somewhat similar to leprosy. Tzara’at, however, was understood by the Torah to be a physical manifestion of a spiritual malady. No such condition exists today, but our tradition has derived many beautiful lessons from the Torah’s discussion of this topic.
Rabbi Haber points to Sefer Ha-Yetzirah, a very early Kabbalistic text that may date from the time of the Mishnah in the second century. Sefer Ha-Yetzirah is very concerned with examining the spiritual dimensions of Hebrew letters, which it sees as the building blocks of the universe. This view also leads Sefer Ha-Yetzirah to examine the spiritual significance of the spelling of various Hebrew words. It is from this concept that we get the Kabbalistic method of interpretation of words based on their numeric value which is called Gematria.
Rabbi Haber notes that the word for a skin affliction in our portion is nega. Spelled nun – gimmel – ayin. If a person has a nega they must show it to a cohen who then will put that person in quarantine or isolation, in Hebrew: bidud. They must stay in isolation until the nega disappears, after which they are to wait a period of time and undergo ritual purification before re-entering the community. This process, described by the Torah, sounds eerily familiar to all of us living in the time of Covid-19.
Sefer Ha-Yetzirah states that if you rearrange the letters in nega: nun – gimmel – ayin – you get oneg: ayin – nun – gimmel.
There is a specific kind of nega mentioned in the Torah, the one which seems to be the most severe and likely was greatly feared, which is called netek: nun – tav – kuf. Sefer Ha-Yetzirah points out that if you rearrange these letters you get teken. Teken is another grammatical form of the word tikkun, which means: repair.
The meaning, teaches the Sefer Ha-Yetzirah, is that when we are facing an affliction, like the netek, we should use the experience of isolation and our concern over our condition to spur us to look inward and examine our own souls. Not that the affliction is a punishment. That was only true of leprosy. But by contemplating our own suffering, worries, and isolation we can become more sensitive to the suffering, worries and isolation of others and so be moved to show concern, love and kindness and to help and support others going through the same thing. Additionally, our time in isolation is a gift, despite the hardship, in that it allows us to focus on the things that should be most important and ask ourselves how we can change in order to focus our life on those true priorities.
If we do that, if when we have a netek we engage in tikkun – that is, we respond to hardship, isolation, worry and fear by trying to heal ourselves spiritually and improve our character and our souls – then, says the Sefer Ha-Yetzirah, we can turn our nega – plague into oneg – joy.
The Sefer Ha-yetzirah is teaching us that we do not get to choose the afflictions that come our way, but we get to choose how we respond to them. The secret of a rich, meaningful life filled with joy is to learn to use our most difficult moments to grow as a person.
This Shabbat is also Rosh Chodesh Iyyar, the new month of Iyyar. The rebirth of the moon was seen by our sages as representing the continuous renewal of the Jewish people and our ability to renew ourselves. May we find healing and renewal – true tikkun – on this new month – that brings us joy.
Shabbat Shalom and Chodesh Tov!