Tazriah-Metzora Excerpts

תזריע-מצורע

Shabbat Shalom 

Tzara'at is a skin disease that comes because of bad behavior. A white skin disease which would've had the look of forms of leprosy. 

Tax season is here. Many people are sick today, due to the season. They've been fighting off taxes...Not catching the flu or paying taxes is the real goal...How can we scam the IRS as a community? We are non-profit. Exactly. But The Feigenblum family is not a tax exempt organization. They just don't pay their dues....Correct. They also don't pay day school tuition or taxes...That is right two. They go to the JCC for free...

Get the Tzara'at for doing bad things. Not just LAshon hara, speaking bad about other people (Arachin 15b). Artscroll says you get it from bloodshed, oathing falsely, pride, robbery, sexual immorality, selfishness (Arachin 16a). Everybody in this congregation should have Tzara'at. Which is why you are all so pale.

Do you get Tzara'at from not paying taxes? No. But from talking about taxes, you can. Might be Lashon Hara. Can't tell the IRS that Mark doesn't pay his taxes. We will keep the Feigenblum story in the shul.

....No. Balding is not considered Tzara'at (13:41-43)...Good question. It's a disease. Yes. One we most stop in this congregation. Lights are reflected. Shining the thing like it's a bowling ball...

It needs to form a white mark there. It is easier to see it when you are bald. That is why we can't tell if the ladies have Tzara'at. They are jibberjabering over there all the time...You deserve it Fran...Also frontal balding also not a disease. It is pathetic. It's embarrassing...That is a sunburn on Bernie's head...

If the red dot is placed on the forehead it is not Tzara'at. It has to form there. Not painted on. 

And you all mess up the counting stuff. Nobody was able to count the Omer for the congregation with a blessing last night. Already, 14 nights into it, and we're goners...

Messed up counting taxes. It's like the taxes for the shul secretary, who has us down as a profit organization...Just report that these people don't pay dues. They will see were are in debt, Mandy....At least she comes to shul. She is not Jewish and she comes. Better than....

(14:40-41) If the Tzara'at spreads in the house, the Cohen tells them to take the stones and send them outside the city, to a contaminated place. And then they scrape the house and take the mortar with them, to outside the city. Which is why you all built with wood. You don't want to lose your home to your Lashon Hara. 'Look at Frank so poor...Now we have no home.'

You don't just destroy a house. There are steps.

You first take out the contaminated stuff, and then you see if the whole is contaminated, afterwards. Only then, if it is contaminated as a whole, do you throw out the whole house, destroy it (14:45). Should the Markowitz's have thrown out grandpa Mordy?...Yes, there was still contamination in the house. But less of it. They got rid of the biggest issue in the home.

The bigger question is if the shul should get rid of the Simchonim family. See if we can make the shul holy again by getting rid of that contamination. Maybe get rid of the men’s back section over there.

Anybody going into the house during the days it is quarantined is not holy, Tamei until the evening. You stay away from the contamination, even if you are not sure it is fully contaminated. Possible contamination is contamination, which is why I stay away from the members at Kiddush.

(15) A male discharge contaminates him. It also contaminates anything that it touches or that touches something that it has touched. Just like Tzara'at, contamination spreads. Just like the stench coming from the…get new socks then. Badness, like the inability to run a good BBQ, spreads around the shul. The Feigenblums don’t pay for anything, and then we have a congregation that doesn’t pay its dues.

(15:14-15) The Cohen takes birds from him and it is one for a sin offering, and one is an elevation offering. And the Cohen 'atones for him before H' from his discharge.

You need the Chata'at, sin offering and the elevation offering. Atonement is more than just the sin. More than just feeling bad for what you did. It has to have the next level of praising H,’ turning your good into bad. Showering. Cleaning the shul, and then paying your dues. Getting rid of grandpa Morday and then saying thank you to H.’ You atone and then take that next step into the future.

(14:31) More than feeling bad about Lashon Hara and bringing the sin offering, which you are only doing to be able to get back into Kiddush, there is the elevation offering here too. There is an elevation towards the future. A committing to not doing it again. A commitment to not sitting in the Mrs. Farkowitz section.

Let's make an elevation offering this year, and pay our dues...I am the rabbi. I don't have to....And let us pay our dues, so that the shul can pay it's debt to the IRS for being reported as a for profit.

May everybody have a Refuah Sheleyma from tax season.

May we all merit to get rid of the contamination of the congregants in this congregation. And may we have more congregants like Mandy. Sits there silently. Speaking no Lashon Hara...No. Don’t get to know here. Then she’ll start speaking Lashon Hara too.
May we merit a day of much holier congregants. With no contamination...We need more reasons for quarantine...