Episode Transcript
[00:00:15] Speaker A: I wonder if anyone had to face any impostors this week.
I know that, surprisingly, I had a moment that I just was caught completely unaware of facing an imposter in my own life when I. This week, having just given that teaching last week, and then realizing, oh, my gosh, I'm so caught up and concerned about what somebody thinks about me, I faced it. I hope maybe you did. I hope maybe you moved a little bit closer to your this that you drew near, that God called you near from last week. And I think we had a meaningful time last week. And then suddenly, suddenly we find ourselves moving from the dedication of the altar, the priests, this come near message, all of this amazing stuff to what certainly is one of the weirdest parts of the Torah, and even for Leviticus, that is this week's Torah portion, which is called Tazriya, and it's about something in particular called tzarat. Say it with me. Roll your r real good, tzarat.
Let me just give you. In case you didn't get a chance to read the Torah portion, I want to give you a little bit of context for what we're going to talk about today.
This is Leviticus 13. Hashem spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying, I will skim for context. When a person has on the skin of the body a swelling, a rash, or a discoloration, and it develops into a scaly affection on the skin of the body, it shall be reported to Aaron, the priest, or to one of his sons, the priest. The priest shall examine the affection on the skin of the body. If hair is in the affected patch has turned white, the affection appears to be deeper than the skin of the body. It is a leprous affection. When the priest sees it, he shall pronounce the person impure. But if it is a white discoloration on the skin of the body, which does not appear to be deeper than the skin, and the hair in it has not turned white, the priest shall isolate the affected person for seven days. But if the rash should spread on the skin after the person has been seen by the priest and pronounced pure, the Persians shall again report to the priest. If the priest sees that the rash is spread on the skin, the priest shall pronounce that person impure. It is leprosy.
Who's excited?
David Higginbotham is excited, and that comes as no surprise.
But the thing is, to make things even more challenging, if you've been around Torah study for any time, messianic jewish teaching. I didn't get a chance to watch Darren's five minute tour this week. He may have talked about it. It's actually not leprosy, even though most of your translations in that section. By saying it is leprosy, it's not leprosy as we know the term Hansen's disease. You familiar with this? How about mycobacterium lepri?
That's what causes Hansen's disease, which is actually leprosy. This slow growing bacterium primarily is going to affect skin, nerves, mucous membranes. It leads to symptoms like skin lesions and all kinds of weird numbness, muscle weakness, paralysis of the hands and feet. Did you know that the World Health Organization will give you free of charge medicine to treat your leprosy?
It might take six to twelve months, but it is curable.
Good news. Right, but that's not what we're talking about. This isn't actually leprosy. Tzarat, that's in Hebrew. But then we have to ask, and this is just by way of information, then why does the Bible call it leprosy? And how did that get in there if that's not what it is? Well, this is an amazing little.
What's the thing where you have a study of words that. The word escapes me right now?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Listen. Septuagint, okay? The septuagint was the first significant translation that dealt with the term related to tzarat. It was the septuagint, a translation of tzarat into Greek. Do you know what word they chose? Leprosy. Lepros in Greek, which actually does not mean leprosy, but generally speaks to a large catalog of skin conditions. Then in the fourth century, along came St. Jerome, who translated the Bible into what language? Latin. The Latin vulgate. And so what did St. Jerome do? He took tzarat, septuagint, lepros into Latin, Lepra.
Okay, which still doesn't actually mean specifically leprosy. It also means a general catalog of skin disorders. And then who do you think showed up? 1611?
King Jimmy.
King Jimmy and the boys came along and they translated Le Sarat to Lepros, to Lepra, to an english leprosy, which by 1611 leprosy pretty much meant leprosy.
Things were falling off of you, right?
That's how we got this word leprosy. And along is born biblical leprosy. That's what it's generally called. But how many people know enough about the Torah that when they see the word leprosy in their translations, they think, oh, that's not leprosy.
Every Jesus movie I've ever seen where he's healing the lepers. They're wrapped in white bandages. Like, everyone's terrified of them oozing and their fingers are falling off. That's not what's happening.
Okay? We got that clear?
Sarat is not a medical condition.
It sounds gross, that's for sure. White patches, growing white hairs. And, I mean, you have. You have certain components, hints that would make one think of a leper colony. You have isolation. You have pure or impure. We even have a quarantine that the Torah talks about. But listen to this. This is from Leviticus 13, verses twelve and 13. If the eruption spreads out over the skin so that it covers all the skin of the affected person from head to foot, wherever the priest can see. If the priest sees that the eruption has covered the whole body, he shall pronounce as pure the affected person.
That seems opposite, right? If you have a medical condition in which you're trying to contain contagion and it's all over the body, you wouldn't release the person into society and call them pure.
Or what about this?
When an eruptive affection occurs in a cloth of wool or linen fabric, in the warp or in the woof of the linen or the wool or the skin, that actually means leather, not like this skin. Some kind of garment or bag or something. If that shows up.
Can clothes get sick?
Can clothes develop medical conditions?
Or how about this?
This is from next week's parsha. It's called Metzorah. Metzorah is the name for one who has contracted Sarat on the skin. Metzorah. That's next week's Torah portion. Who's excited?
This is 14. Hashem spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying, when you enter the land of Canaan that I give you as a possession and I inflict an eruptive plague upon a house in the land that you possess. Shall come and tell the priest, something like a plague has appeared on my house.
Can houses get sick developing medical conditions like Hanson's disease?
Oh, sweetie, the doorknob fell off. We need to get some antibiotic.
It then goes on to say, the priest shall order the house cleared before the priest enters to examine the plague so that nothing in the house may become impure, meaning you take everything out the house. But if it were already in a house that has Surat, you're taking it out. That's opposite. So have I made this point? Surat is not a medical condition. Let me read you something, actually, which will give a nice summary as I'm doing it. Who treats Seurat, do you know?
Well, nobody treats it. Where do they go? They go to the wilderness wellness clinic.
Mount Sinai family care?
No, the priest. They go to the priest. The priest identifies the condition.
There's no doctor or treating going on.
Doctor Eisner. I'm having a hard time seeing up close these days. Is there anything that can be done that's not part of the teaching?
All this to say this is a spiritual condition, not. Not a medical one, as the sages teach.
With these glasses, do I look more sagely?
As the sages teach, tzarat is not a bodily disease, but the physical manifestation of a spiritual malaise.
A punishment designed to show the malefactor that he must mend his ways. The primary cause of tzarat is the sin of slander. The sages say this. They also teach that the affliction is punishment for the sins of bloodshed, false oaths, sexual immorality, pride, robbery, selfishness. The pattern that emerges is that a divine retribution for the offender's failure to feel the needs and share the hurt of others. God rebukes this antisocial behavior by isolating him from society so that he can accept, experience the pain he has imposed on others and heal himself through antibiotics.
Repentance through repentance. Which is interesting. Notice. Notice there's no sacrifice. Okay, you do bring a sacrifice. We'll talk about that next week. But the first part of the process is not bringing a bull and saying, God, take away this bad condition. What is it? Repentance.
Okay, that's just a little side note for the sacrificial system. There are. Listen, with that pool of things to talk about, just Lashan Hara. I could go a thousand directions talking about Lashan Hara, but I just recently gave you a teaching about silence and Lashan Hara. So let's go a different way. What do you think? I wanna point out something about the things that are affected by tzarat. We just talked about them. People close houses, right? And that's the way they're presented in the Torah. In chapters 1312 or 13, we have this presentation. But listen, we're going to start with a bit of insight. Deep wisdom from another jewish sage of a different ilk.
Here is the word of wisdom.
Compound interest is the 8th wonder of the world.
He who understands it, earns it. He who does not, pays it.
You know who said it?
Albert Einstein.
Well, supposedly it doesn't matter. It's a quote and it's attributed to Albert Einstein. But listen, it emphasizes the powerful effect of what I want to talk to you about today. Compounding. Yes. Financial education. We learn about compound interest. You need to save. You need to invest. It works for you. But guess what? This also happens in our spiritual lives or life in general. But, you know, I'm a spiritual guy, so I'm going to apply it to the Bible. Now, here's what you might be thinking. How in the world is he going to tie leprosy, Albert Einstein and things growing on people's walls and their houses.
I'm going to do it. Stick with me. Trust me. You ready?
The Torah, as I said, presents this particular order.
Person is described in our portion. What happens when they get it? The clothes and then actually the house. But what you note in practice, actually it went the other way. Okay. Even though the Torah presents it this way, what happened was tzarat first. Now, there are exceptions. Miriam Moses actually had a white hand at one point. There are exceptions, but generally, Surat appears in the home first, then to the close, and then to the person. Okay?
Now, what I'm, what I want you to see about that is there is a progression. If the person does not get the message, if they don't, if they are, they don't recognize that they're spiritually debased. For whatever reason, they refuse to recognize this. They refuse to repent. Then Surat ultimately makes its way to their body.
But you understand that God mercifully starts the process disconnected from you in your own home.
Okay, that's the way it shows up.
But I want you to notice something interesting, and it's in next week's portion, but it says this.
When you enter the. This is about Surat in the house. Okay, just stay with me for a minute here. When you enter the land of Canaan that I give you as a possession and I inflict an eruptive plague on the house and the land you possess, the owner of the house shall come to and tell the priest, saying, something like, a plague has appeared on my house. Remember, this is the first appearing of the tzerat. What is the person supposed to do?
Acknowledge it. Go speak to the priest, say, something's wrong, and I've identified it. When the owner comes and quote, tells the priest, when he admits, when he brings the issue forward to solve it, the priest gives him advice and says, this is what you need to do. This is what's going on. You're spiritually corrupted. You need to make some changes.
And at that point, the owner should be influenced to repent. In other words, this leprosy, which has been completely misunderstood, as your toes and fingers falling off is actually a repair.
It's a call to repentance from God. To understand something is way off inside of me, and it's inside of you.
His mercy starts on your house, not your body. And that's incredible before it progresses, before it gets bad. But what if he or she doesn't address it?
What if they ignore it? What if it just stupid red or green growth on the wall? So what? What happens?
Compounding, it moves to your garments.
Remember? Spiritual compounding. According to Einstein, he who doesn't understand it pays it.
If you're unwilling to acknowledge, if you're unwilling to understand compounding, it's coming to your clothing. And if you persist in your bad behavior, compounding, it's coming to your skin.
It moves to your skin and quarantine, ultimately leading to shame, ultimately having your dirty laundry aired before the entire community. Because when someone has tzarat and they're publicly out there, they are now humiliated. Because everyone knows something is wrong with this person. They're selfish. They're Lashan harangue.
But it was preventable.
It was preventable first and foremost. The most basic prevention would have been to not do the thing in the first place, right? But you did the thing.
But you could at any time stop the negative. Compounding. It takes honesty, it takes humility, it takes discipline, sacrifice to stop the progression. And if not, compounding will take over. And this truth has been understood since the Mishnah pirke avot. It's in the Mishnah. In tractate Avot, chapter four. Benazai says this run to perform a minor mitzvah and flee from a transgression.
For one mitzvah leads to another mitzvah, and one transgression leads to another transgression. For the reward of a mitzvah is a mitzvah, and the reward of a transgression. Transgression is a transgression. Do you get it? It's very clear. It's compounding.
Spiritual compounding.
Each action, good or bad, sets off a chain reaction, leading to more of the same. And just as compound interest accumulates wealth for you, so do our actions accumulate spiritual and moral consequences for the good or for the bad.
So let me introduce the spirit. The concept of spiritual compounding by way of one of my favorite things in the world, a book called Atomic Habits.
Who's read it?
Came out ten years ago, roughly, I think I've read it twice. There's almost no day that goes by that I don't think about something from atomic habits. James Clear, the book.
It is the book of the story of compounding effect in our lives. What he says, basically, if you haven't read it, the premises little atomic changes 1% changes daily can result in incredible reward in your life over the long term.
Atomic micro the size of atom 1% improvements. He shows in the book how this leads to more productive, satisfied, balanced life. I want to show you a graph from the book, and I want to relate it to Tzarat Pirkevot and our spiritual health. You ready? Look at it.
It's kind of small, but the positive line, obviously, you might guess which one that one is.
The positive line green. 1% better every day. 365 days leads to a 38 times positive effect in your life. You know what that's called?
Compounding.
For one mitzvah leads to another mitzvah. The reward of a mitzvah is another mitzvah. But it's most important that you would notice the negative effects of compounding.
You zero yourself out, 1% worse over 365 days you are out. You're at zero. You are done negative compounding. Now, it's hard to quantify what is 1%. I mean. But listen, I want to ask you this question.
How many times have you seen something like this happen in your life?
Let me point it very clearly to you. You slip, you slide. They say in the church, backslidden. Right? He's backslidden. Okay. You slip, you slide, you descend, and ultimately you bottom out. You lose your discipline, your effort slacks, and you can apply it to whatever area you want. If you want to do it for real life, put it in your diet, put it in your exercise, put it in your commitment to your work, to a project, your commitment to your family, spending time with your wife, and certainly in your relationship with God, living a life of spiritual discipline, serving, giving, loving, whatever it is, the less you invest in it, the easier it is to let it go, to justify it. Worse yet, to ignore it, to just ignore your compound negative impacts. One transgression leads to another transgression. The reward of a transgression is not a reward. It's another transgression, and it's down the slope.
So these negative effects of spiritual compounding, you know what they leave you with? Metaphorical tzarat.
You have this isolated living far below your potential. You're convicted, you're guilty, you're embarrassed, and you're a far, far away from the this that we talked about last week, because you're far away from your potential. You've gone the wrong way.
And that is exactly what happened to our metzorah, our person afflicted with Surat. From house to garment to skin. It gets on you. It gets in you, the negative.
And it happens to us if we let it. But here's the great news.
When you recognize it, when you see it on your metaphorical walls, what you do next makes all the difference in the world.
There's a rule in atomic habits that I think about so often after a mistake or failure, which, by the way, are nearly inevitable. I don't know anyone who doesn't make mistakes or failures, but there's a rule.
I thought about it this week, reading about biblical leprosy. It's quite a simple but powerful statement. Three words. You ready? Never miss twice.
Never miss twice.
He's talking about slipping up in a habit, skipping a workout, indulging in junk food when you got some diet. But the concept applies spiritually. That's what I'm applying. The most important thing you can do is to make sure that you don't persist in the same mistake. When you're aware enough to see the surat stop and change, don't repeat the cycle. Don't compound the negative spiritual interest.
Never miss twice.
Deal with it. Confront it. Don't let it compound. Turn transgression around.
It is grounded. The whole rule is grounded in the fact that perfection isn't the goal. Consistency is the thing. Consistency, not perfection.
It leads to spiritual growth, positive compounding. By making sure that one mistake doesn't turn into a streak, you maintain your upward trajectory. It's a practical approach to be aware. Okay, I read this fantastic quote in a Musar book I was reading recently. Rabbi Nelson Finkel, 19th century Musar teacher, don't be better, be higher.
I love that it's going on my wall somewhere.
Don't be better, be higher.
And you say, what's the difference? Well, there is a difference. The goal of self improvement, which is a big part of what the Torah is actually about, is not just to improve your life or become a better person.
And you say, well, of course it is. I always want to be a better person. No, the point is to become spiritually elevated.
That's a part of being better. But there's no endpoint to spiritual elevation.
Be higher, not better. And notice this compounding effect as well when we're looking at this.
The higher you climb, the higher you elevate on this spiritual elevation curve, the less of an effect that a fall is going to have. Do you understand?
If you are at two and you have a fall, where are you zero. You're starting over.
If you've ascended the levels and you're at for, I don't know, 100 and you fall, where do you fall?
Just a little bit.
Just a little bit. You don't have to collapse all the way down to zero when you've invested and spiritually compounded the goodness in your life.
And furthermore, when you're up here, it looks way, way far down there. Who wants to go back to that?
No one. There's a personal motivation in this spiritual compounding. Be holy, for I am holy is a potential ever ascending spiritual journey. Be aware of negative compounding. Embrace the positive effect. Albert. Thank you, Albert.
He or she who understands this earns it.
You see now, this is the last Passover message.
Passover is next week.
The Passover message is next week. So this is your pre pre Passover message.
The never miss twice rule, spiritual discipline. Okay. The Torah provides this path for these metzura for purification and restoration after their misstep, you see God's mercy and patience. We prevent this negative compounding in our lives and our families by responding to the initial signs of moral failure.
Now, Passover is coming. It's the season of redemption. But you also remember that it is the season of ascent.
It's the season of going higher.
According to jewish tradition, while in Egypt, the Israelites, you remember this, descended, they fell basically to zero. Actually, it was the 49th level of impurity, which is virtually impossible to recover from. That's where their spiritual debasement in Egypt had taken them. 49th level.
However, their exodus marked the beginning of a spiritual journey that was taking them toward the Torah. That journey, you'll know, is referenced as mirrored in what we do from Passover to Shavuot, which is what spherat ha omer. What do we do with the Omer? We count it. How do we count it up? We don't count down. We count up because we're ascending to something special. Each day represents this, the daily Omer count. This is positive spiritual compounding. Beautiful parallel, Ben. As I run to perform a minor mitzvah, flee from transgression. For one mitzvah leads to another mitzvah, and the transgression leads to another transgression. For the reward of a mitzvah is a, and the reward of a transgression is a failure.
Who wants to be a failure?
Who wants to stack failure upon failure?
Of course you don't.
We haven't even had Passover yet, and this guy's up here counting the Omer.
No, I'm just getting you ready for all of it? See, Pesach in the messianic community is a very special time. You have not just the exodus from Egypt, but we have our redemption from our mistakes. It's a time to see the potential allegorical tzarat all over your walls or your skin, God forbid.
And to thank God for the gift of Yeshua, of forgiveness, of purification, of second chances. We're recommitting to the 38 times spiritual compounding graph and never missing twice.
Better not better.
Higher.
[00:32:47] Speaker B: Shabbat Shalom please visit our website, shalommakin.org, to learn more about us. Join our live services, access other teachings, sign up for our newsletter, join our private network that will connect you with our greater community from around the world, or contribute to the work of Shalom. Macon, thank you for watching and we look forward to connecting with you.
