Pure Covenant
Words of Wisdom with Rabbi Efrat Zarren-Zohar
This Dvar Torah was edited from one written by Rabbi Pinchas Winston, an Aish HaTorah alumni, the author of over 50 books on Torah philosophy, and his site Thirtysix.org.
You know how sometimes during a conversation you start to zoom out because the topic fails to grab your attention?
That’s kind of what this week’s parshios, Tazria and Metzora, do.
They begin a lengthy discussion about laws of spiritual impurity before going on to cover the incredibly exciting topic of tzara’as (skin disease), the metzora (the one suffering it), and their laws of purification.
Can’t wait, huh?
But, before we go there, the Torah reminds us about the need to perform a Bris on an eight-day old male which, quite frankly, seems out of place.
True, the parsha starts off talking about birth, but there are other more relevant places for the mitzvah of Bris, which is why commentators try to learn something from it.
Personally, I think the juxtaposition has to do with our opening statement.
Torah history does not lack drama, and some mitzvos are not only relevant to everyone, they are exciting to do.
For that reason, it might be easier to forget what makes the Jewish People unique in the world and qualifies them to be a “nation of kohanim (priests).”
For example, keeping shabbos can be very self-serving. The rest, the good food, the good company… what’s not to like?
Some people love to give tzedakah because it makes them feel generous and good about themselves.
Others enjoy putting on tefillin, grateful that it is a mitzvah. Even going to the mikveh is a cleansing experience.
But all mitzvos do one thing: they spiritually refine the person doing them.
The better the person performs a mitzvah, the more it can refine them.
This refinement is not only crucial for self-development, but it is essential for having and improving a relationship with God, and that’s what life is all about. It’s the only reason why God took us out of Egypt in the first place.
That is easier to recall when having to deal with laws that you’d rather avoid, laws that do not seem to have much personal benefit.
No other society has laws prohibiting the speaking of loshon hara (evil speech). You only get sued if it is libel.
Certainly, no other religion has such dramatical spiritual and physical consequences for speaking it, and a complicated procedure for getting out of them.
There is only one kind of Bris Milah, but we made three brisos— covenants— with God.
Bris Milah in general says that a Jew must be holy and only act in holy ways, even when doing that which is permissible (Ramban, Kedoshim).
But there is also Bris HaLashon — Covenant of the Tongue, and Bris HaEinayim — Covenant of the Eyes.
The first is our commitment to try to only engage in holy speech and the second is our commitment to try to use our eyes in holy ways, the operating words here being “to try.”
Because ever since Adam HaRishon (Adam in the Garden of Eden) ate from the Eitz HaDa’as Tov v’Ra (the tree of good and evil), everything in Creation, including man, became a combination of good and evil.
The “devil” doesn’t make us do it, but he has a corroborator inside of us that pushes us in the wrong direction in life.
As the Gemora (part of the Talmud) says: the yetzer hara (the evil or selfish inclination inside us) wants to kill us each day in one way or another, and our spiritual defilement is one of its trophies.
Bris reminds us of this, and of our commitment to fight back.
It reiterates our desire to be holy and remain that way, according to God’s definition.
Because, at the end of the day, “holy” is just a word that can be prefixed to yetzer hara-directed activities, like “holy war,” for example.
But kedushah is a concept with only one definition, as God will soon tell us, “Be holy, because I am holy” (Vayikra / Leviticus 19:2).
