All too often, events in our lives or the lives of those we love reminds us that we are not able to shape life at our will. The world proceeds without consulting our preferences or desires, and people come in and out of our lives based on their own complex needs, not our own. When the world doesn’t go according to our plans, our response is often one of sorrow or of frustration.
And that feeling of disappointment is by no means unreasonable. Planning, diligence, and sacrifice can often shape the future; can make a difference between future success and disappointment. That we can’t control everything is no reason not to continue to mold our future as best we can. But the recognition that the world doesn’t answer to us, that disappointment and opportunity often elude our abilities of prognostication or at control can produce a sense of helplessness and of confusion.
This week’s Torah portion speaks of one such bizarre outburst, when the Jews lived in our own land and a homeowner faced a case of an eruptive plague afflicting his own home. The Torah quotes God as saying, “When you enter the land of Canaan that I give you as a possession, and I give the plague of tzara’at to your home…”
Notice the peculiar choice of words God uses: The inheritance of the Land of Israel is a “gift” and so is an affliction of tzara’at in the walls of the house! Now, the laws of how to handle a house with tzara’at are quite severe: All the property within must be removed from the house, and the house must be diagnosed. Then a kohen tries to assure its ritual purity. If that proves impossible, the infected stones must be removed. And if the problem persists beyond that response, the entire house must be destroyed. Some “gift!”
The rabbis of antiquity noted God’s strange choice of words, and tried to account for the gift quality of this supernatural event: In Sifra, in Midrash Va-Yikra Rabbah, and later in Rashi, they noted: “This is a good tiding for Israel that plagues will come upon their homes, for the Amorites had hidden treasures of gold in the walls of their houses all the forty years that Israel was in the wilderness, and on account of the plague the Israelites broke down the houses and found the treasures.”
The implication of this Midrash is that every disaster is an opportunity waiting to be uncovered. Rather than weeping for an impure house, the Israelites should rejoice at the opportunity to discover treasures beneath its walls.
One need not take this literally to see great wisdom in such a view of life. Each of us faces difficulties, even tragedies that we would not choose and should use all of our powers to avoid. But we don’t get the opportunity to write our own script. The course of our lives is not in our hands alone.
What we do retain, however, is the capacity to choose our response. While illness is a tragedy, how we cope with our frailty and, even, our mortality can be a continuing process of growth even to the very end. While stresses in a relationship exact a heavy toll, they are nonetheless windows that can illumine aspects of the human heart and of our own inpiduality. Problems at work, or even loss of a job is a disaster for an inpidual and a family, but can still teach a family the depth of their commitments to each other and their ability to survive.
None of us invites disappointment, illness, or dispute. These are not prizes disguised as catastrophe, nor should we pretend that what is tragic is illusory. There is real pain, real suffering, and real disappointment, and no theology can wish it away.
But every tragedy reveals a new aspect of our own neshamot, and a new side to how we can care for others and receive their care in turn. Just as tearing down the house with tzara’at can reveal jewels that no one had suspected, the jarring and sometimes monstrous realities of life can also reveal hidden jewels in our character, our commitments, and our community.
Shabbat Shalom!