Seeing the Extraordinary: Tazria-Metzora 5786

This devar Torah by Rabbi Kenigsberg was first posted in the Hanassi Highlights, Thursday 16 April 2026.  You can also read it in Hebrew, thanks to ChatGPT, here.

Parashat Tazria–Metzora confronts us with one of the Torah’s most unusual phenomena: tzara’at. Often (mis)translated as “leprosy,” it was far more than a medical condition. It affected not only the body, but even clothing and homes.

There were those who sought to explain it in purely natural terms. Some suggested that discoloration in houses was simply the result of damp or mould. However, the dominant voice of our mesorah—including such giants as the Ramban and the Rambam—insists that tzara’at was not a natural illness at all, but a Divine sign: a spiritual phenomenon requiring the intervention not of a doctor, but of a Kohen.

What is remarkable is not only the phenomenon itself, but the disagreement about how to understand it.

The striking point is this: even something as extraordinary as tzara’at could be explained away. Throughout the generations, there were those who reduced it to a natural occurrence. When a person’s vision is limited, even the most remarkable events can appear mundane. Even what is meant to awaken us can be dismissed as ordinary. The question is not only what is happening before our eyes—but whether we are prepared to see it for what it is.

The Gemara (Arachin 16a) teaches that tzara’at comes as a consequence of various moral failings, most notably lashon hara. Among them appears a less obvious trait: tzarut ayin—narrowness of eye. Beyond stinginess, it reflects a constricted way of seeing the world: a failure to recognize significance, to appreciate what lies before us.

That insight is deeply relevant to the days in which we find ourselves.

We stand once again in the shadow of uncertainty. Ongoing conflict has brought disruption, tension, and a fragile reality that may yet shift again.

And yet, at the same time, we approach Yom Ha’atzmaut—the anniversary of the restoration of Jewish sovereignty in our land after nearly two thousand years, something that within living memory seemed impossible.

The danger is not that we see the challenges—it is that we see only the challenges.

To live with tzarut ayin is to look at the events of Jewish history unfolding before our eyes and interpret them as merely political, merely military, merely coincidental. To see with openness is to recognize something larger at play: the ingathering of exiles, the rebuilding of a homeland, the resilience of a people under fire.

We are living through a chapter of Jewish history that previous generations could scarcely imagine. Like tzara’at, it can be viewed in different ways. One can explain it away. Or one can recognize it for what it may be: an extraordinary unfolding of Divine providence.

In a week that moves from remembrance to celebration—from Yom HaShoah to Yom HaZikaron and Yom Ha’atzmaut—the challenge is not only to feel, but to see.

To resist tzarut ayin.
To widen our vision.
And to recognize the fulfillment of Divine promise unfolding before our very eyes.

Shabbat Shalom!