Q&A: On Leprosy of Garments and Houses
On Leprosy of Garments and Houses
Question
Hello Rabbi,
I wanted to ask you about the plague of leprosy in garments and houses.
Maimonides writes about this:
“This change spoken of in garments and houses, which the Torah calls leprosy by a shared term, is not part of the ordinary way of the world; rather, it was a sign and a wonder among Israel in order to warn them against malicious speech.”
And he also writes in his Commentary on the Mishnah, tractate Negaim, chapter 12, mishnah 5:
“And he then said: if this is so for the property of a wicked person, then all the more so regarding the principle I have stated — that the appearance of the leprosy mentioned in the Torah, which they said is a punishment for malicious speech, causes him to be separated from people and distanced because of the harm of his tongue. It begins with his house; if he repents, good, and if not, it comes upon the leather goods — as it says, ‘in any article of leather.’ If he repents, good, and if not, it comes upon his garment; and if he still does not repent, it comes upon his body and the skin of his flesh. And this is by way of moral instruction and rebuke. Do you not see that these are unnatural matters and in no way natural diseases? For garments and houses are inanimate matter, and leprosy does not occur in them except by the Torah’s use of the term by analogy, as we have mentioned. And likewise with human afflictions: you see that it counts scalp afflictions as leprosy, though that is the illness called fox-sickness, and it declares the leper pure when he has turned completely white, though that is the very height of leprosy, the greatest and strongest form of it. Rather, these are Torah matters, as we have explained, and for this reason he is called wicked.”
I wanted to ask what your opinion is about this whole matter. In the past, was there really a plague of leprosy in garments and houses? Was this really a case of intervention from Heaven in order to warn those who sin through malicious speech? Or perhaps these were afflictions that come about by natural means? And if so, how can these processes be explained physically? Also, why did these afflictions stop? Or do they still exist, and we simply are not capable of identifying them?
Best regards,
Answer
I don’t know how to answer. From the Torah it appears that this is a deviation from the ordinary way of the world, because otherwise it would be impossible to draw conclusions from the appearance of such an affliction.
And therefore I would say that this is further support for my approach that the Holy One, blessed be He, has ceased intervening in the world, and that is why these afflictions, which are not part of the ordinary way of the world, have ceased.
It is interesting to note that Maimonides too assumes that if the affliction is part of the ordinary way of the world, one cannot draw any conclusion from it. And this is not in accordance with those who maintain that natural events too are directed from above, and that conclusions can even be drawn from them (the Holocaust, the establishment of the State of Israel, exile, and the like).
Discussion on Answer
Clearly this is not about certainty. Still, lessons can be learned from the appearance of leprosy, even if only in terms of probability and not certainty. After all, if there is an obligation to instill the belief that there is a cause behind events, that itself is a sign that there really is a conception of reality here according to which events are brought about from above.
At first I thought maybe it would be better to explain this whole story as natural afflictions that arise as a result of some fungus or bacteria in damp buildings and clothes. But then I saw several proofs in the Torah that actually strengthen the view that this is intervention by the Holy One, blessed be He; for example, in the verse in Leviticus 14:34:
“When you come into the land of Canaan, which I give you for a possession, and I put a plague of leprosy in a house of the land of your possession.”
The section on house afflictions could have been written in a way similar to the afflictions of people and garments:
“A person, if there shall be in the skin of his flesh a swelling or a scab”
“And the garment, if there be in it a plague of leprosy”
It could also have said, “And the house, if there be in it a plague of leprosy.”
But the wording appears specifically as “and I put a plague,” and not only that, it also states when the Holy One, blessed be He, will put the plague — when they come into the land of their possession. If the plague were natural, why should it matter where they are?
And from the fact that house afflictions were given from above, one can learn the same regarding the other afflictions (people and garments), that they too were given from above, since Maimonides writes that they are linked to one another:
Maimonides, Laws of the Defilement of Leprosy, chapter 13:
“Even though all the measurements are a law given to Moses at Sinai, it says: ‘for every plague of leprosy, and for a scalp affliction, and for the leprosy of a garment and of a house’ — it links the afflictions of people to those of garments and houses; and it equates the leper with the dead, as it is said, ‘Let her not be as one dead.’ Just as a corpse is by an olive-bulk, so too these are by an olive-bulk.”
In addition, one can infer from the expression “when you come” in a way similar to the Sabbatical year, which requires “the coming of all of you” (that is, the coming of the majority of Israel), since regarding the Sabbatical year Scripture also uses similar language (Leviticus 25:2):
“Speak to the children of Israel and say to them: When you come into the land which I give you, then the land shall keep a Sabbath to the Lord.”
This explains why the afflictions of leprosy ceased after the destruction of the Temple, and perhaps after “the coming of all of you” happens again and the Sabbatical year returns to being Torah-level, these leprous afflictions will also begin appearing again (and perhaps that will be the sign that “the coming of all of you,” or the coming of the majority of you, has indeed taken place). In other words, one could think of another possible conception of the Holy One’s involvement in the world: that it depends on “the coming of all of you” / the majority of you, and in the future, if there is “the coming of all of you,” perhaps His involvement will once again appear in a more noticeable way.
Nice. As for “the coming of all of you,” according to the demographers we are already really right at the threshold. That will have implications for the Sabbatical year, for example. Will afflictions of garments and houses also return? We’ll wait and see.
In Sefer HaChinukh it is written that there is no certainty that the sin of malicious speech caused this illness; rather, the commandment is to attribute it to sin in order to instill the belief in providence — that there is a cause behind the events of a person’s life…