Torah April 14, 2026

Finding The Good In Whatever Hashem Brings

By R’ Mordechai Young

Yosef went to the doctor and heard there was good news. Then he asked to hear the bad news. But the doctor told him there was not bad news, only good. Yosef was stumped, but the doctor explained that he could just enjoy the good news and not worry about the bad.

This week is a double parashah: Tazria-Metzora. Both parashas actually speak about tzara’as. The midrash teaches how tzara’as came to a person for certain sins, making it a spiritual sickness. The tzara’as came to remind the individual to do teshuvah. Seeing it was a warning that something was wrong. The midrashteaches how Hashem in his mercy first brought it upon a person’s house. If he got the message and did teshuvah, all was well. If not, it would reappear on his clothing. If he got the message and improved, then the tzara’aswould go away. If not, it would reappear on the person’s body. So, you see the progression from farther away (house) until it was so close that it was on the person’s body.

But the Torah does not teach it in that order. First, it mentions on the body, then on the clothes, and finally on the house, going from the highest punishment to the lowest. Why doesn’t the Torah teach it like the midrash, which is how it happened? The Sforno addresses this question, explaining that the Torah goes from the highest punishment (the body) to the lowest (the house) because going from the lowest punishment to the highest would be like inflicting a curse on people, that things would get worse. It’s interesting, though, because didn’t it get worse in actuality? (As we stated, it started on the house and ended up on the body, so how does it help to not have it progress?) It could be that it was written from highest form of punishment to lowest so the tzara’aswould have a better chance of being stopped at the onset, so it wouldn’t progressively get worse. Seeing the tzara’as on the house, the person would do the full teshuvah at the beginning.

I was thinking of another answer. Perhaps the Torah didn’t write the order like it happened as a way to make it more of a test. Since the tzara’as came, like the Ramban says, in a miraculous form, it appeared to take away the person’s free will. The person sinned and the tzara’as came, showing that Hashem is upset with him. Now that the Torah writes it in a different order, a person can convince himself that their actions aren’t directly connected to the tzara’as.

In Parashas Metzora (14:34), Hashem says he will place a tzara’as affliction upon a house in the land of your possession. Rashi wonders why it adds the word venasati (I will place/give). It could have stated when there will be tzara’as. Why say it will be placed? Rashi answers that it was like “I will give,” referring to a good tiding given to the people. That when the tzara’as appears, they would open the walls of the house and find a treasure hidden there. Daas Zekeinim asks the same question as Rashi: Why did the Torah write venasati? (I will give.) They answer that when Hashem first placed the tzara’as on the house, He gave a good thing since the non-Jews got punished right away. The Yidden first suffered tzara’as on their house, then their clothes, and finally on their body, so it was a good thing for us. The Eitz Yosef explains the Midrash Rabbah on this pasuk(14:34) by saying that it was good for the Yidden in that the tzara’as enabled us to do teshuvah. Why didn’t Rashi explain it like this, but instead mentioned the good was the treasure found in the walls? The explanation is a “good” which is physical as opposed to a “good” which is spiritual led to us to do teshuvah. Also, according to Rashi, it is problematic to have a good thing coming from a sin. The Talmud asks many times in similar fashion. If so, you find a case of a sinner gaining. Here would be a case where tzara’as came because the person had sinned. For example, if he spoke lashon ha’ra, or was stingy with his belongings and didn’t lend them like the Gemara Yuma 11b teaches on our pasuk, now they had to take out their stuff so it wouldn’t get tamei and all the neighbors would see they didn’t lend their items the whole time. I was thinking that perhaps Rashi was giving an example that everyone could appreciate, about finding a treasure. Also, Hashem said that when we go to Eretz Yisrael, there will be good for us, so the treasures helped fulfill that. I saw a great explanation in the sefer by Rabbi Nachshoni on the weekly parashah, pages 754-755, which says that when the Yidden came to Eretz Yisrael, the tzara’as came as a blessing; there was no sin. Hence, the treasure didn’t come connected to sin, so the Torah can discuss this as something good. Later, the tzara’as came in connection to bad deeds. He brought a beautiful proof from the sefer Chinuch. It states there at first when they conquered the land, Hashem brought tzara’as on a number of houses of the good. So, the tzara’as was like yissurim shel ahavah, afflictions brought out of love of Hashem not because of any sin. This proof is based in the word in the beginning (batechila), when they first got to Eretz Yisrael it will be for good. This can answer the questions above. Rashi picked this case because it was based on Hashem’s love for us and not because of some sin because there was no sin upon entering the land that led to tzara’as. We see Hashem’s kindness in “so-called” bad, spreading out the punishments and bringing treasure in the guise of something appearing bad. This reminds us to always find the good in whatever Hashem brings.