While the taste of the Afikomen still lingers and the songs and words of Torah still resonate, I decided to take advantage of the moment and the memories to give vent to the thoughts which came to my mind when considering the “Four Sons”. It occurred to me that there is a fifth son, who is far far different from his other siblings.
Part 1) A Tale of Two Cities – Worlds Apart
Part 2) A Poem for Pesach
Many of our people here and in the galut, as well as the political elite in many countries, are asking what the outcome will be regarding the Israel-Arab conflict as both sides have locked horns in a stalemate with no political solution in sight.
Each side evokes his God to intervene, as we wait for HaShem to repeat His miracles of the past for us at this very time.
Our parsha deals with the laws of tzara’at (a whitish blemish on the skin wherein the hairs have turned white and renders the individual to be a potential metzora). When a Kohen examines the sufferer and declares him to be so, the metzora must leave a walled city and live as a recluse until the signs disappear.
However, if the blemish expands to cover the sufferer’s entire body, he is tahor (pure and opposite of tamei or impure) and may return to his former life free of any halachic constraints.
Even within the world of unexplained mitzvot, this situation is conspicuously strange. The limited sign of tuma (impurity) renders one tamei, but the maximum sign renders him to be tahor?
Our rabbis have taught that when the Mashiach will appear, he will stand on the roof of the Beit Hamikdash and announce to the nation, “Humble ones! The time for your salvation has arrived. And if you do not believe, look at the light which has shined upon you… upon you alone, and not upon the other nations of the world.”
The Gemara (Megila 7a) tells of Esther’s request that the miraculous salvation of the Jewish people and the events leading up to it be included in the TaNaCh (Bible) as its 24th book, to be an everlasting remembrance of HaShem’s intervention for the Jewish nation in our miraculous victory over the forces of Amalek.
The rabbis rejected her request, basing their rejection on a verse in Mishlay (Proverbs 24:20)
