The Tazria case deals with the case of the leper.
In the following lines we will look at one of the chapters in the book of Kings (2 Kings, chapters 6-7) that deals with the case of four lepers, and we will learn from it a strong and important moral for our lives.
At that time there was a war between Jehoram ben Ahab – the king of Israel, and Laban Hadad – the king of Aram. The Aram camp set ambushes for the Israeli soldiers, but the king of Aram learned that miraculously the Israeli soldiers managed not to fall into those ambushes. In fact, the one who passed on the information about the ambushes was Elisha the prophet.
The king of Aram suspected that there was a spy in his camp who was conveying information to the king of Israel: “And the heart of the king of Aram was troubled by this thing, and he called his servants and said to them, “Now tell me who sent us to the king of Israel.”
One of the servants of the king of Aram revealed to the king that Elisha the prophet is the one who reveals everything to the king of Israel. As a result, the king of Aram was enraged, he decided to take revenge on Elisha, and he learned that Elisha was staying in Samaria at the time.
The king of Aram established a heavy siege on Samaria, in order to break the people of Israel and the prophet Elisha, and following the siege, a severe famine prevailed in Samaria.
The hunger got worse and worse, until one day a woman approached the king of Israel and told him that she had agreed with her friend that they would eat her own son today and the next day they would eat her friend’s son. Indeed, on the first day they shared their son, but the next day when she came to eat her friend’s son, she made him disappear: “And she said: This woman said to me, give me your son and we will eat today and we will eat my son tomorrow. And we cooked my son and we ate him, and he said to her the next day, give your son and we will eat him, and hide her son.”
The king was horrified and he decided to take revenge on Elisha the prophet, when according to his understanding Elisha is the one to blame for the siege, also because he does not save the people with his prayers. In the end, the king comes to his senses and realizes that it will not be useful to kill Elisha, then Elisha the prophet announces that he was told in a prophecy that tomorrow the famine will end and there will be plenty and cheap food.
At that time there were four lepers outside the city gates. These lepers were sent from the camp, according to the law of the Torah that the lepers must be sent outside the city gates. These lepers, who were also starving, decided that since they were going to starve to death sooner or later, it might be better for them to go to the Aram camp, where they might take pity on them and give them food.
Indeed, the four lepers turned to go to Camp Aram, and they were surprised to find the entire camp deserted, full of money, clothes and food. The Aram army fled and the siege no longer exists.
The reason for that experience is a huge miracle, that the Holy One, blessed be He, made great noises for Aram: “And the name made the Aram camp hear the sound of a horse, the sound of a great army, and a man said to his brother, Behold, the king of Israel has given us a king For the Hittites and the kings of Egypt will come against us And they left their tents, their horses, and their donkeys, the camp as it was, and they fled to their souls.”
After the four lepers discover the abandoned camps, they eat and drink, and take the loot left in the camps and bury it. After a while, the lepers decide that this is a day at Shura, and it is not proper to wait with her until morning, so they immediately decide to return to the city gate and announce the escape of the Aram camp: Sea and we waited until the morning light and we find iniquity.”
The king of Israel feared at first that it was another ambush, but in the end it became clear to him that God had indeed performed a miracle and the Aram camp escaped. The entire people went to Camp Aram to take food and grain, and due to the large quantities of food and grain in Camp Aram, the price of wheat and barley decreased, as Elisha’s prophecy.
Before the lepers found out that Camp Aram had escaped, they were faced with a dilemma and had three options: one option is to march back to the city that put them under quarantine in the first place, and try to enter despite being lepers (spirit control). But what’s the point? There was no food inside the city. A second option was to march forward to where the Aram camp was camped. There was a lot of food there, but of course they put themselves at risk because they also belong to the enemy and they are also lepers. third. They could continue to sit outside the city walls, and starve to death.
We will notice that they reached a very important understanding – sitting idly and doing nothing is not a solution! what yes They chose to move towards the enemy, and then, as mentioned, something unusual happened. The Aram army imagined that they heard the noise of heavy war weapons, and they simply ran away.
Like all Bible stories, this story also contains many insights and lessons. We will focus on some of them.
What is morality?
Sometimes we feel like those “lepers” – isolated, outcasts and stuck in life. We find ourselves “between a rock and a hard place”. All options look bleak. The worst thing to do in such a situation is to stay in the same place. Just as the lepers came to the unequivocal conclusion that they do not stay in the same place, so we too must move! Change must be made! To do something! With the necessary caution, we must advance even though we think we are putting ourselves in the enemy’s camp. This very step can change our reality and we may discover an unexpected result that can change our entire situation.
Sometimes a person feels stuck in their business, in their relationship, in their personal psychological state, or in any other crippling situation in life. The worst thing he can do is stay in one place and allow himself to “starve”. He should be encouraged to do something new and different in his life, and shock his system.
When we change our familiar patterns, we open up new pathways in our brains, and this can create opportunities that were previously unimaginable.
We will refine it further.
Many times we are afraid to make changes because there is an enemy standing in front of us. The enemy can be friends or family members who do not agree with the changes we are going through, it can even be inner voices within us, false imaginations and fears. We fear a reaction from the “enemy”. Are we afraid of what others will say about me? Will they accept me or reject me? Let’s go back to the lepers and it seems that they also feared that an entire army was waiting to attack them, but in fact – when they advanced to the enemy’s camp it turned out that it did not exist at all.
When a person does the right and proper thing, especially when it comes to the worship of God, he should not worry about “what others will react”, he should step forward and maybe he will find that on the other side there is no objection at all.
