Metzora 5771

Gold in the Walls:

The pasuk in this week's parsha (13:34) says "When you come to the land of Canaan that I gave to you as a possesion, and I gave a mark of tzaraat in the house, the land of your possession." Rashi comments on this pasuk "It was a good thing that the tzaraat would come upon them because the Emoraim hid treasures of gold in the walls of their homes during the forty years while the Jews traveled in the midbar." (Vayikra Rabbah 17:6)

Let's get this straight, a person would speak lashon hara, because of his sin the walls of his house would be afflicted with tzaraat, and when they knock down the walls they get rewarded for it? So people are getting rewarded for speaking lashon hara?! Also, this was all planned out way before the Jews even got into Eretz Yisrael, why?!

Well the first thing we must discuss is how Hashem punishes man in this world. Hashem does not really want to punish us for something that we did, for this reason He gives us some trouble so that we will realize on our own that we have sinned and that we must repent. There is a chazal that says that tzaraat on the house was just the first part of the affliction. If the person failed to do teshuva only then would the tzaraat begin to appear on his clothing. If the person continued to sin then finally the person will get tzaraat on his/ her body and that is the true punishment for the sin of lashon hara. So in actually one's house getting tzaraat was not really a punishment but rather a love tap from Hashem to get us to go in the right direction.

Another point to discuss, that section of the house would only be torn down if after a week the tzaraat actually grew, if it did not grow it was deemed tahor. So it seems that the person continued to not learn his lesson, causing the tzaraat to get bigger.

Later, if the tzaraat still remained then and only then would it cause the people in the house to become tamai. Until this point the people are still tahor. So if it so happened that after the breaking of the walls to remove the tzaraat was enough to cause the person to do teshuva the person would be rewarded. Because it is better to do teshuva for a sin then to be punished for the sin.

But wait, that means that at this point the people already have the gold from the walls. So what does it mean for those people who continued to sin and therefore still had tzaraat when the Kohen came back? It meant that they had no plan to do teshuva and the gold will be bad for them. But those who had done the teshuva now had many treasures, a reward for having done teshuva. So the gold was not a reward for speaking lashon hara, rather it was a reward for having done teshuva.

Now on to the last question, this had all been planned before any of the people who lived in their homes were even alive. This is to teach us that Hashem would prefer to never have to punish anyone. He would rather have everyone always do the right thing, and if someone messes up that they do teshuva on their own. He enjoys this so much that he will give people the ability to do teshuva even before he has even performed the sin in the first place. Hashem creates the cure before the disease. This is why Hashem created the Torah before the yetzer hara.

It is important to remember in life that Hashem is always waiting for our teshuva and that it is never too late. Also, we must remember that no matter how much we have fallen Hashem still wants us back.

Have a Good Shabbat!