Category Archives: Parshiot
Lashon hara – Kamza & Bar Kamza – ms-hs
The Story of Kamza and Bar Kamza
Yom Kippur 5772 October 7/8, 2011
Rabbi Ronne Friedman, Temple Israel, Boston
One of the most monumental catastrophes of Jewish history was the destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans in the latter half of the first Christian century. Just as the prophets of ancient Israel had attempted to interpret the reasons for the destruction of the first Temple 650 years earlier, the rabbis of the Talmud struggled to provide a theological rationale for the second devastation, one that would preserve group identity in an era of loss and exile.
A Talmudic story that purports to explain the reason that the Temple was destroyed tells us of a certain unidentified man who “had a friend named Kamza and an enemy by the name of Bar Kamza. This man threw a party and said to his servant, go and bring Kamza back to the party. The servant, however, went and brought Bar Kamza. When the host found Bar Kamza there at his party, he said, “Look, you gossip about me; what are you doing here? Get out.” Bar Kamza replied: “Since I am here, let me stay, and I will pay you for whatever I eat and drink.” The host said, “I won’t.” Bar Kamza then said, “Let me give you half the cost of the party.” “No,” said the host. “Then let me pay for the whole party.” The host still refused, and he took Bar Kamza by the arm and put him out.
Bar Kamza said to himself, “Since the Rabbis were sitting there and did not stop him, this shows that they agreed with him. I will go and inform against them, to the Government. He went and said to the Emperor of Rome, the Jews are rebelling against you….” As a result of this, the Temple was destroyed.
—————————–
1 Note from this incident, the Talmud concludes, how serious a thing it is to put a person to shame, for God took up the cause of Bar Kamza, and as a result God destroyed His own House and burnt His own Temple (and we ourselves have been exiled from the land.)
2 The rabbis seize upon this most painful historical event in their experience, the destruction of the Temple, and identify it as a divine consequence of the humiliation of an enemy.
Download Booklets
Complete Booklets on Vayikra 13:1-6
Primary School
Download Word version here: Vayikra 13_1-6 -ps
Download pdf version here: Vayikra 13_1-6 -ps
Middle School and High School
Download Word version here: Vayikra 13:1-6-ms-hs
Download pdf version here: Vayikra 13:1-6 – ms-hs
Tzara’at as spiritual disease-ms&hs
Commentary
| By Rabbi Jonathan Cohen (Rabbi of Michkan Torah, Greenbelt, MD) |
| Mishkan Torah is a member of both the Reconstructionist and Conservative movements |
| adapted from: http://www.mishkantorah.org/rabbi-jonathan-cohen/tazria-metzora |
The sages taught that tzara’at was not a bodily disease, but a physical manifestation of a spiritual disease. They believed that it was a punishment for saying bad or untrue things about others. They said that the Hebrew word Metzora is a contraction of the two words motzi and rah which means “one who spreads slander.” The “treatment” or punishment for the person afflicted with tzara’at was to be placed in isolation away from the community for a period of time. During this time he or she had time to reflect on the damage done by their words.
Once the condition had been cured, the metzorah then offered a sacrifice including two birds: one to slaughter and one to set free.
Q: Why do you think one bird was slaughtered and one set free?
Exercise: Lashon hara in Tanach
Look up these examples of lashon hara – what were the consequences? Was there a punishment?
- Bereshit 3: 1-20 The serpant uses ‘lashon hara’ with Eve
- Bereshit 18: 12-15 Sarah uses ‘lashon hara’ with Abraham
- Bereshit 37:2 Joseph uses ‘lashon hara’ with his brothers
- Devarim 14: 36-37 Spies use ‘lashon hara’ with the people
Tzara’at as a spiritual disease- ps
Commentary
| By Rabbi Jonathan Cohen (Rabbi of Michkan Torah, Greenbelt, MD) |
| Mishkan Torah is a member of both the Reconstructionist and Conservative movements |
| adapted from: http://www.mishkantorah.org/rabbi-jonathan-cohen/tazria-metzora |
The sages taught that tzara’at was not a physical disease, but a spiritual one. They believed that it was a punishment for saying bad or untrue things about others. They said that the Hebrew word for the person afflicted with tzara’at means “one who spreads slander.” The “treatment” or punishment for this was being placed in ‘time out’. During this time of isolation, the person had time to reflect on the damage done by his or her words.
Once the condition had been cured, the metzorah then offered a sacrifice including two birds: one to slaughter and one to set free.
Q: Why do you think one bird was slaughtered and one set free?
What damage does Lashon Hara do?
Discussion Plan: Deciding whether something is a punishment
How do we decide if something we experience is a punishment?
- Your parents ground you
- Your parents ask you to look after your younger siblings
- You receive homework from your teacher
- Your mother says you can’t go out until you clean your room
- You are teased at school
- You get sick just as the holidays start and can’t spend time with your friends
- You forgot your friend’s birthday and the next day you find out that they forgot to invite you to their party.
Exercise: Punishment, Illness, Markings-ms
Which do you consider could result from punishment, which are illnesses, which are markings (blemishes)? Which require isolation?
| Punishment | Illness | Marking | (eg., mole, scar) | requires isolation | |
| Pinocchio’s nose growing longer | |||||
| Rashes | |||||
| Pimples | |||||
| Bruises | |||||
| Leukemia* | |||||
| Chicken pox* | |||||
| Flu | |||||
| Anorexia* | |||||
| Mole or freckle | |||||
| Broken leg | |||||
| Bee sting | |||||
| Allergies | |||||
| Aids | |||||
| Sterility | |||||
| Tongue piercing | |||||
| Leprosy (skin disease) | |||||
| Ear piercing | |||||
| Tattoos | |||||
| Cuts | |||||
| Burn | |||||
| Depression | |||||
* Leukemia is a form of cancer
* Chicken pox is a very contagious. One of the symptoms is a red itchy rash
* Anorexia is an eating disorder where the person is obsessed with the fear of gaining weight and gets thinner and thinner.
Leading Idea: Tzara’at and its implications
Leading Idea: Tzara’at and its implications
Some helpful conceptual distinctions raised by the exercises and secondary sources that are worth keeping in mind when exploring this theme are:
Isolation
- to protect others from you (contagious diseases),
- to protect you from them (Leukemia, whereyou might fall sick from being in touch with others),
- to enable you to get better (spending time ‘away’ in a psychiatric hospital where you can then get the care and help you need, or spending on a spiritual retreat).
You can also look at the difference between different kinds of isolation:
- loneliness and solitude (in solitude I can keep myself company and be happy about it, when I am lonely i can’t even keep myself company)
- Being alone by choice or being alone by circumstance, or being alone by force.
This can lead nicely into the text on lashon hara as a spiritual disease, and to also to think about the kind of isolation Miriam ‘s isolation was.
Punishment
- Punishment other people inflict on you
- Punishment that you inflict on yourself through self- neglect (not looking after yourself)
- Punishment you inflict upon yourself as a result of a psychological condition (feeling guilty, anorexia, depression).
- Punishment that is deserved v’s punishment that is undeserved
- Punishment that ‘matches’ the crime (is relevant to what was done) v’s punishment that simply inflicts pain/punitive measure