Is Your Crusade Just Critique?
A thought for Parashas Tazria - Metzora and the times we live in.
This may sound like a rant, but hear me out.
The obsessive focus on division in the country really bothers me. It’s like the only reason there is a divide is because people keep insisting there is one. If you keep shouting that everyone's fighting, then yeah, you're creating the fight. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
This isn’t referring to any one person or platform in particular and without going into specifics, it’s seemingly everywhere. There are some people who just can’t stop proving their point, arguing, critiquing. Either you're traumatized by one system or by the other. Trauma is real and should be treated with professional help, but don’t drag an entire society down with your pain.
Yes, some people might be wrong, while others might be right. However the way it’s being handled is so obsessive, so public and it’s just… odd, and feels unhealthy.
Which brings me to this week’s Parsha which reflects and diagnoses this very dynamic. Tzaraas is a spiritual echo of the same societal sickness which teaches us what our words do. The metzora isn’t excommunicated because he gossiped; he’s removed because his presence created disunity. Perhaps, it wasn’t even malicious, but it misaligned with the ability of the community to hold itself together. The consequence is a pause, which creates a forced silence. It is a time to reset the soul and to reconsider what kind of voice we want to be in the world.
The Kli Yakar notes that the word "metzora" comes from "motzi ra"—one who brings out negativity. Tzaraas, therefore, is like a spiritual autoimmune response. It should not be regarded as a supernatural zap from the heavens. Rather it’s the body and soul revolting against misalignment. Like psychosomatic illness, which comes from the body responding to our emotions, tzaraas was a spiritual illness coming from a person’s own sensing of what he was doing wrong spiritually. Tzaraas is the conscience made visible.
If you step outside the parashah into the haftarah, both for Tazria and for Metzora, we learn the fascinating story of Elisha HaNavi, his assistant Gechazi and their relationship with their neighbors in Aram.
The Navi in Malachim II introduces us to Elisha HaNavi, the prime disciple of Eliyahu HaNavi. Elisha becomes the prophetic voice during the reign of Yehoshafat. Notably, as mentioned in a previous post, he used music as a tool to enter a prophetic state. One of his early prophecies was about the fall of Moav, which came true.
Later, in what is read as the Haftorah for Parashas Tazria, the Navi tells us about Naaman, the general of Aram, who suffered from tzara’as. Naaman heard of Elisha and consulted him for healing. Elisha instructed him to immerse in the Yarden River seven times—and miraculously, Naaman was healed.
When Naaman tried to thank Elisha with lavish gifts, Elisha refused. Instead, Naaman asked for permission to take soil from Eretz Yisrael, vowing to worship only Hashem from that day on.
It is interesting that Naaman, a non-Jew got Tzaaras. Why would Hashem make the effort to give tzaraas to this arrogant man? Tzara’as doesn’t depend on one's knowledge of Torah or being a member of the tribe, rather it depends on moral awareness. Even societies immersed in idolatry can have a spiritual recoil from arrogance or slander. Tzara’as was a spiritual message that something had gone wrong, and something needed to be realigned. Similarly, Chazal (Vayikra Rabbah 18) taught us that at Har Sinai there weren’t blemishes among the people. Only once we veered from that purity did metzora’im appear. It was a gift that is commonly misconstrued to be a punishment. In that sense, the presence of tzaraas was a sign that God had not abandoned us, as He still cared enough to call us back. Tzaraas, paradoxically, was an act of kindness. It is a miracle which is Hashem’s way of telling us that He is there watching over us and running the show. It offers a gentle nudge to remain on the right path. We just need to be cognizant of the messages.
We see that Naaman, despite his arrogance, had the potential to change. When he saw the miracle that was done for him when he bathed in the Yarden, he was able to accept that the miracle was from G-d. He rejected idolatry and became a ger.
The story with Naaman continues. Elisha’s servant, Geichazi, felt that the gifts should not be wasted so he followed Naaman, lied, and took the gifts Elisha had refused. For that, he and his descendants were cursed with tzaraas. Not for what he said, but for what his actions revealed - a sense of greedy, arrogant entitlement wrapped in piety.
The Navi recounts how the king of Aram attempted to make war against the ten tribes of Yisrael. However, Elisha consistently informed the Melech Yisrael of Aram's covert strategies, preventing successful attacks. Enraged by these repeated failures, the Aramean king sought to identify the source of the leaks and was informed that Elisha was responsible. Consequently, he dispatched a formidable commando unit to apprehend Elisha, who, with divine assistance, managed to escape capture.
Now, let's fast forward to the Haftorah for Parashas Metzora.
The Haftorah describes how Ben-Hadad, king of Aram, gathered his full army and laid siege over Shomron. A terrible famine followed, so severe that people were paying exorbitant prices for donkey heads and pigeon droppings to survive… A woman approached the king with a horrifying report: the hunger was so bad that she and another woman had cooked and eaten their children. Yeah, that’s pretty awful.
Upon hearing this, Ben-Hadad tore his clothes in grief and fury. He inexplicably decided to make Elisha the scapegoat of his fury vowing to decapitate Elisha. Meanwhile, Elisha was sitting calmly with the elders, and before the king’s messenger even arrived, Elisha said, “That guy is coming to kill me. When he shows up, shut the door and push him out.”
Elisha then prophesied that by this time tomorrow, food would be cheap and abundant. One of the king’s officers mocked him, saying sarcastically, “Even if God opened windows in the sky, could that really happen?” Elisha replied, “You’ll see it happen, but you won’t eat from it.”
Then the Navi switches tracks. We’re told about four lepers sitting at the entrance to the city. According to the meforshim, this was Geichazi and his sons. They said to each other, “Why are we sitting here waiting to die?” If they went into the city, they’d die of famine. If they went to Aram, they might be killed—but it was a chance.
So they went to the Aramean camp—and to their shock, it was completely deserted. God had caused the Arameans to hear phantom sounds of horses and chariots, and they thought Yisrael had hired foreign armies to attack them. Panicked, they fled, leaving everything behind—food, supplies, clothing.
Geichazi and his sons grabbed food, and as per their family minhag looted a tent or two, and hid the valuables. Then paranoia kicked in—they worried they’d be punished for keeping the news to themselves. So they reported the situation to the gatekeepers, who told the palace. It wasn’t full teshuvah. It was a moment of clarity.
The king suspected a trap, so sent out scouts. When the news was confirmed, the people flooded out, looted the camp, and food prices crashed overnight. Just as Elisha predicted.
As for the officer who mocked Elisha? He was trampled to death at the gate during the stampede. He saw the miracle, but never got to taste it.
That’s the haftarah. And it's haunting. It feels like something that we see in our own lives all the time.
Everyone in this story is either ignoring Hashem’s message or reshaping it to fit their own assumptions. Geichazi had seen open miracles, he stood in the presence of a navi, had firsthand knowledge of what tzaraas means, however he never really faced himself. He didn’t take responsibility or change course. The king of Aram believed in Hashem enough to be angry when things were difficult, but not enough to genuinely hope for redemption and an end to the famine. When the miracle finally arrived, he didn’t see it as a fulfillment of prophecy, rather feared it was a trap. And the officer? He mocked the very possibility of a miracle. He saw the yeshuah with his own eyes, yet couldn’t surrender to it. As for the people themselves, they celebrated the abundance, but didn’t internalize the message. They saw Hashem’s hand, but not His heart. The famine ended—but the inner famine, the spiritual distance, remained. The miracle was real, yet the change it invited never truly took root, the Jewish People of the Ten Tribes never turned back to G-d. In the end, after years of not listening, they reached the level where G-d had to send them into permanent (at least,until the arrival of Mashiach) exile in the lands of the east.
Which brings us back to us.
We see it again and again: Hashem sends messages—through miracles, through affliction, through unexpected messengers—and we find ways not to listen. Sometimes we reinterpret. Sometimes we blame others. Sometimes we simply drown it out with noise. The failure to listen is the deeper tragedy of the haftarah. It's the warning embedded in Parashas Metzora: when Hashem speaks, in whatever form He chooses, yet it is up to us, will we have the humility to hear it?
Often, what looks like ideological intensity is really personal pain looking for a microphone. People who were hurt, dismissed, or humiliated may wrap that pain in righteous critique. There are times that critique is important. They seem to hope that if enough people agree, the injury will feel justified. Pain that isn’t processed becomes obsessive, it becomes the only thing a person can talk about and it stops being a pursuit of truth and becomes a performance of pain.
Unprocessed hurt becomes contagious.
The outcome is that we start treating people like permanent metzoraim. We define them by their worst traits. We exile them from our communities and from our compassion. We become fluent in spotting lashon hara in others, while blind to it in ourselves.
I heard that Rav Aharon Soloveitchik once suggested that the haftarah we read around Yom Ha’atzmaut—the story of the four lepers: Geichazi and his sons—teaches that sometimes, salvation comes from the margins. That those who’ve been pushed aside can become the unexpected messengers of geulah.
Although it is indeed a powerful idea, and the haftarah reading might seem relevant to a contemporary agenda, we cannot simply choose it for that reason. We have been reading the haftora for millenia, whereas Yom Ha'atzmaut is a relatively recent observance. Every similarity does not equate to prophecy.
The paradox of the metzora is that if a metzora is completely covered in white—he is tahor. Rav Yonason Eybeschutz writes that when a person or a society hits rock bottom, when every part is afflicted, sometimes that’s when the healing can begin. Just like in Mitzrayim, when we were at the 49th level of tumah, that’s when Hashem pulled us out. Because when we have nothing left to defend, we finally become open to change. Hashem chose the metzoraim to bring the news of salvation, not despite their affliction, but because of it.
We need to remember though that not every voice of critique is a voice of geulah. Sometimes it’s just a megaphone for someone’s inner chaos. There’s a fine difference between being a voice for change and becoming the loudest echo in your own chamber.
Parashas Metzora calls us to notice what we say, as well as how we carry our pain. Do we weaponize it? Or do we transform it?
Because in the end, redemption doesn’t come from being right. Geula comes from being ready.
Comment from someone offline:
This was a great read and I'm going to quote some of it in my class on Shabbos. giving class about shalom. and it totally ties in. One of the things that I hope to say is that the Metzora has to go to Aaron HaKohen. and why, like why is the Kohen the person for him to go to? The reason is because Aaron was ohev shalom v'rodef shalom. So being in contact somebody who who purposefully was going around destroying shalom and destroying achdus, goes to the person who loves shalom more than anyone else to get a dose of the reality and the and the purposefully creating unity and purposefully going out and making efforts to make more shalom in the world. That's that's that's the antidote, so to speak, and hopefully that will also show him.
Definitely not referring to Slifkin in particular lol