Dedicated by Dovid Lowinger (Wesley Hills, NY)
לע״נ אליהו בן בצלאל דוד הלוי ז״ל · לע״נ לאה ריבה בת אליהו הלוי ז״ל
Dedicated by Dovi & Tzippy Rakower (Wesley Hills, NY)
l’illui nishmas Yisroel Yosef ben Klomis Kalman z”l
Parshas Tazria-Metzora 5786
This week, my rebbi, Reb Akiva Grossnass, shared what may be one of the most powerful Pesach thoughts, specifically for after Pesach. Not for the Haggadah, not for the Seder, not even for Acharon Shel Pesach. For now. For post-Pesach life.
We say אין מפטירין אחר הפסח. After the Korban Pesach, after the afikoman, we don’t eat anything else, so the taam, the taste of the matzah, remains in our mouths.
But what exactly is the taste of matzah?
Matzah is made from the very same ingredients as bread—flour and water, just without the inflation. About bread, the pasuk says כי לא על הלחם לבדו יחיה האדם כי אם על כל מוצא פי ה׳. A person does not live on bread alone, but on the word of Hashem.
Matzah strips it all down. It reminds us that sustenance is not the “bread,” not the external, but the רצון ה׳ behind it all.
After Pesach, as we move back into the year, we want that taste to remain. The taste of bitachon. The clarity of Yetzias Mitzrayim. Not to drown in the Yam Suf like the Mitzriyim, but to carry that emunah forward, letting it sustain us all the way until next year’s Seder.
And with that, bitachon becomes our lifeline. Easier said than done, and to get there takes a lifetime. Which is why we must keep working at it.
Often in these parshiyos, the focus is on lashon hara, since that’s what the Torah is primarily discussing. So it may feel a bit anticlimactic to shift the focus.
But with this foundation, how can we not continue? How can we not build on the bitachon we’ve just experienced and try to carry it into the rest of our lives?
A HIDDEN LESSON IN A SINGLE HAIR
Right at the beginning of Tazria, where the Torah begins discussing the inyan of tumah and taharah, which is connected strongly to lashon hara, since tzaraas comes as a result of it.
אדם כי־יהיה בעור־בשרו שאת או־ספחת או בהרת והיה בעור־בשרו לנגע צרעת והובא אל־אהרן הכהן או אל־אחד מבניו הכהנים.
When a person has on their skin a swelling, a rash, or a discoloration, and it develops into a scaly affection on their skin, it shall be reported to Aaron Hakohen or to one of his sons.
In this lies a hidden gem, one for life. Something we all struggle to admit, myself included. I can write about it, speak about it clearly, but to actually live it, to breathe it consistently, I’m not there. And that’s what life is about.
The Medrash takes the discussion of a שער, a single hair, and opens a doorway into something much deeper, the very essence of our lives. Bitachon. Not the kind you’re thinking about.
The real kind.
The kind that is lived. Practiced. Relied on. Not only in the highs, but carried through the lows. Not only in moments of clarity and light, but even in the darker, uncertain, and uneasy times.
THE GAP BETWEEN WORDS AND ACTION
The Medrash Rabbah טו:ג relates:
מעשה באדם אחד שהיה יושב ודורש ואמר אין לך כל נימא ונימא שלא ברא לה הקדוש ברוך הוא גומא בפני עצמה כדי שלא תהא אחת מהן נהנית מחברתה, אמרה לו אשתו ועכשיו אתה מבקש לצאת לתור פרנסתך, תיב ובריך קאים לך. שמע לה ויתיב ליה וקם ליה בריה.
There was an incident involving a certain man who was sitting and expounding, and he said: ‘You do not have any hair for which the Holy One blessed be He did not create its own follicle, so that one would not derive benefit from that of another.’ His wife said to him: ‘Now you want to go out and seek your sustenance? Stay and your Creator will sustain you.’ He heeded her and stayed, and his Creator sustained him.
R’ Chatzkel Levenstein (אור יחזקאל ח״ו) draws a powerful lesson from this Midrash.
The Kohen stood in awe of how Hashem sustains every creation. Even a single strand of hair is given its own precise source of nourishment, never drawing from another. Each creation is sustained exactly where it is, for as long as Hashem wills. Filled with wonder, the Kohen sat and expounded on this idea.
Yet at that very moment, he himself was preparing to leave his homeland in search of a livelihood elsewhere.
It’s astonishing. He marveled at how there isn’t even an extra hair on a person’s body, how each one has a purpose and is accounted for, and yet he was on his way out of town to find parnassah. How can the two coexist?
And if we ask the question on the Kohen in the Midrash, wouldn’t we have the very same question on ourselves?
We can all identify with this Kohen.
We can all relate to the well-known story brought in the Chovos Halevavos as well:
A young ascetic left his hometown and traveled far in search of a livelihood. When he arrived, he encountered one of the local idol worshippers and rebuked him, saying, “How can you be so blind as to worship idols?”
The man responded, “And what do you worship?”
The ascetic answered, “I serve the Creator, the Almighty, the Sustainer of all, the One who provides for everything. There is none like Him.”
The idolater replied, “If that’s what you truly believe, your actions don’t reflect it.”
“How so?” the ascetic asked.
The man said, “If the One you describe truly provides for all, He could have sustained you in your own city just as easily as here. Why, then, did you need to travel so far in search of a livelihood?”
The ascetic had no answer. He returned home, took the message to heart, and from that point on remained in his city, strengthening his bitachon and never leaving again.
So what is it? Where did the Kohen, the ascetic, go wrong? And more importantly, where are we going wrong?
FROM LIP SERVICE TO LIVING EMUNAH
How often do we experience this in our own lives, especially in tefillah? Our words are filled with expressions of deep trust in Hashem and recognition of His limitless power. We say them sincerely, sometimes even with real emotion.
But the moment we finish davening, if not even before, our minds shift. The worries return. The calculations begin. How will everything work out? How will we make a parnassah? Find a shidduch? Cover our needs?
We speak bitachon, but we don’t always live it. We believe with our lips, but execute with our minds and our hearts.
What is it? How does that gap exist?
Rav Chatzkel explains that the Kohen and the young ascetic were not hypocrites. And we, who often find ourselves in that same space, that same gap between our lips and our hearts, are not being false either. It’s not a charade. It’s a struggle to internalize the very truths we constantly articulate. We need to bridge that gap.
It took someone else to point out the contradiction, something so obvious, yet something he himself couldn’t see. He recognized Hashem’s hand in everything, yet overlooked it when it came to his own parnassah.
As Chazal say, “The ears do not hear what the mouth speaks.”
We say we believe. We sing Hashem’s praises. We declare His almightiness. And then, when it comes time to live it, we panic, we calculate, we run.
People travel far and wide searching for inspiration, guidance, and clarity. Yet often, the message they are looking for is already coming from their own lips.
All that’s missing is the willingness to listen. To truly believe. In ourselves, and in our Creator.
Rav Chatzkel explains that a person can daven, can speak about trust, and still go an entire lifetime with it remaining just murmured words, lip service, without ever truly believing.
We say פותח את ידך ומשביע לכל חי רצון, and yet still wonder who the provider is.
Like the Kohen who understood that not a single follicle exists without purpose, yet needed to be reminded, once he was already on his way out, that Hashem can provide for him right where he is.
There is believing, and then there is really believing.
Our avodah is to reach that second level.
To speak, to daven, to praise Hashem, and then to pause. To reflect. To think about what we just said. To process the meaning of our own words. To contemplate Hashem’s greatness and His constant kindness.
And through that, we can begin to truly believe.
To live with it.
To carry the taste of matzah, כי אם על כל מוצא פי ה׳, to live on His word, for real, not just as something we say, but something we rely on, that sustains us, and that we live with, all year round. •
