Sigh

A GUEST POST BY CHAIM G.

True Lies…
and the Lying Truth Speakers that Tell Them
(with apologies to Al Franken)

Before Parshas Tazria Metzorah becomes a distant memory I’d like to share a (hopefully) paradigm-shifting Torah with the Bear, his cubs and the greater J-Blogosphere:

What is the opposite of a Kohen? A Levi? A Yisrael?…perhaps a gentile? Wrong wrong and wrong again. It is a Metzorah= an impure person afflicted with a metaphysical illness manifesting itself in physical, leper-like, symptoms.

Here’s what the Rebbe Reb Henoch of Alexander teaches as quoted in Siach Sarfei Kodesh (page 92 in the new print):

“Why is it that the purification process of the Metzorah is dependant upon the Kohen? Tzora’as (the illness afflicting the Metzorah) is the Divine retribution for the sin of Lashon HaRa. Now the Lashon HaRa*/Rekhilus* speaker, as distinct from the Motzee Shem Ra*=slanderer), is telling the truth. Lashon HaRa is when ‘B’ tells ‘C’ negative things ‘A’ had said about ‘C’. By and large this happens because ‘B’ cannot bear ‘C’’s ignorance of the true injustice that ‘A’ had done to ‘C’ by speaking negatively about him and feels that he (‘B’) must enlighten ‘C’.

(After all the truth will set you free. Trans.)

Aharon HaKohen was the progenitor of all Kohanim. His modus operandi emanated from his defining characteristic Ahavas Habriyos = love of humanity, and was the inversion of that of the Lashon HaRa speaker. Playing the role of ‘B’ he would pursue peace and patch up broken friendships and marriages by telling ‘C’ kind things that ‘A’ had said about him/her when in fact these kind words were complete fabrications. In so doing he would reawaken the dormant love that had informed their relationship and make peace between them. The Torah directs the Metzorah desiring purification and healing to turn to the Kohen exclusively (not to the dermatologist-trans.). And so it teaches us that the retribution for the ‘truth’ teller is that he/she seek his/her healing through the peace-seeker who was compelled to tell lies to make peace.”

The provenance of this insight is significant. Its author was an illustrious member of the inner circle of disciples–the Khevraya Kadisha of the Kotzker Rebbe zy”a. The Kotzker was arguably Jewry’s fiercest and most passionate truth-seeker of the last several centuries. [SIC]

A Torah insight like this raises fundamental questions and challenges cherished preconceived notions. Are truth and historicity synonymous? Does truth merely consist of accurate reportage? Was Aharon HaKohen truly an inveterate serial liar? Or, perhaps, is the inherent unity–at-the-soul-root level between spouses and Jews a higher, deeper truth that requires sundering of the “true lies” that conceal it in order to be revealed? Even if this last consideration is wrong... is it false? Even if it is false… is truth, as we know it, overrated?

In closing I leave the readers with these riddles: Who am I referring to in the post’s title and who would you rather be, a Kohen or a Metzorah?
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* These are the three broad categories of gossip forbidden by the Torah. Reference the works of the Chofetz Chaim for a thorough exposition of the different categories.