Parashat Metzora - Fourth Aliyah

In this aliyah appears one of the most unique and intriguing passages in the Torah: plagues on houses. A supernatural phenomenon in which tzara’at affects not only a person or a garment, but the very walls of the house.

Content of the Aliyah

The homeowner’s declaration (verses 34-35): When a person notices an unusual stain on the walls, greenish or reddish, he does not declare that it is a plague. Rather, he says with humility: “K’nega nir’ah li babayit” (It seems to me like a plague in the house). From here our Sages learned (Berakhot 4a): “A person should always train his tongue to say: I do not know.”

Examination and action (verses 36-41): The priest commands to empty the house’s contents to prevent impurity. If the plague spreads, the stones are removed, the plaster scraped, and new stones and earth are brought.

Worsening or healing (verses 43-48): If after the renovation the plague returns, the house becomes impure and must be completely torn down. If not, the priest purifies the house.

Purification ceremony for the house (verses 49-53): Exactly as with the metzora: two birds, cedar wood, hyssop, and crimson thread. One is slaughtered, and the other is dipped in its blood and sprinkled seven times on the house. The live bird is released, a symbol of purification and new life.

A Wonderful Insight

Rashi (Leviticus 14:34) brings from the Midrash: “It is good tidings for them that plagues come upon them, because the Amorites hid treasures of gold in the walls of their houses during all forty years that Israel was in the wilderness. Through the plague the house is torn down, and they find them.”

What is the meaning? Sometimes what appears to be a calamity, destruction, a collapsing wall, a house that must be demolished, is actually the path to discovering hidden treasures. Sometimes one must dismantle in order to reveal, to break in order to build something new, clean, and rectified.

A Personal Message

Even in the home, which is the place of stability, routine, our “comfort zone,” tzara’at can enter. And sometimes this is a signal from Hashem: “Check the foundations. Perhaps something deep within the bricks themselves requires correction.”