Sichot Mussar Tazria Metzora

The Gemara relates: Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi said: Any person who does not have children is considered like a dead person. The source is as is stated in the words Rachel said to Jacob: “Give me children, or else I am dead” (Genesis 30:1). And it was taught in a baraita: Four are considered as if they were dead: A pauper, and a leper, and a blind person, and one who has no children. A pauper, as it is written: “For all the men are dead” (Exodus 4:19). As explained above, they were not actually dead but had descended into poverty, and yet they were considered dead. A leper, as it is written that Aaron said to Moses with regard to Miriam’s leprosy: “Let her not, I pray, be as one dead” (Numbers 12:12). And a blind person, as it is written: “He has made me to dwell in dark places, as those that have been long dead” (Lamentations 3:6). And one who has no children, as it is written: “Give me children, or else I am dead” (Genesis 30:1).

(12) Let her not be as one dead, who emerges from his mother’s womb with half his flesh eaten away.”

(39) Of what shall a living man complain? Each one of his own sins!

Rabbi Ḥiyya bar Abba teaches what occurred to each of them: Balaam, who advised Pharaoh to kill all sons born to the Jewish people, was punished by being killed in the war with Midian (see Numbers 31:8). Job, who was silent and neither advised nor protested, was punished by suffering, as detailed in the eponymous book in the Bible. Yitro, who ran away as a sign of protest, merited that some of his children’s children sat in the Sanhedrin in the Chamber of Hewn Stone, as it is stated: “And the families of scribes who dwelt at Jabez, Tirathites, Shimeathites, and Sucathites, these were the Kenites who descended from Hammath, the father of the house of Rechab” (I Chronicles 2:55). And it is written: “The children of the Kenite, Moses’ father-in-law” (Judges 1:16). This teaches that the Kenites, descendants of Yitro, the father-in-law of Moses, dwelt at Jabez [Yabetz], referring to the place where the Jewish people go for advice [eitza], i.e., the Chamber of Hewn Stone.

He shall be unclean as long as the disease is on him. Being unclean, he shall dwell apart; his dwelling shall be outside the camp.

The LORD said to Moses in Midian, “Go back to Egypt, for all the men who sought to kill you are dead.”

The following bright spots are clean:Those that one had before the Torah was given, Those that a non-Jew had when he converted; Or a child when it was born, Or those that were in a crease and were subsequently uncovered. If they were on the head or the beard, on a boil, a burn or a blister that is festering, and subsequently the head or the beard became bald, and the boil, burn or blister turned into a scar, they are clean. If they were on the head or the beard before they grew hair, and they then grew hair and subsequently became bald, or if they were on the body before the boil, burn or blister before they were festering and then these formed a scar or were healed: Rabbi Eliezer ben Jacob said that they are unclean since at the beginning and at the end they were unclean, But the sages say: they are clean.

Rava continues: If one blinded the eye of another, he gives him the value of his eye as compensation for damage; and as for loss of livelihood, the court views the injured party as though the one who caused the injury caused him to grind with a mill, as even a blind person can do this. If one deafened another, he gives him his entire value as compensation for damage, because one lacking the ability to hear is not fit for any form of employment.

King Solomon, peace be upon him, also said (Proverbs 15:30-31) "What brightens the eye gladdens the heart; good news puts fat on the bones. He whose ear heeds the reprimand of life lodges among the wise." And every wise-hearted person should know that it is not likely that King Solomon, peace be upon him, composed idle words like these [in the middle of] words of reproof and fear of God for nothing - since Scripture has already testified about him (I Kings 5:11), "He was the wisest of all men." Rather this is the understanding of the thing: "What brightens the eye gladdens the heart" - the eye is a very esteemed organ, for they will see all the events that gladden the heart with it. But more esteemed than it is the ear, for they will hear good news, that puts fat on the bones, through it. For [the ear] has no feeling and it will not be fattened from the light of the eyes,

(18) ואהבת לרעך כמוך YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR FELLOW MAN AS YOURSELF —Rabbi Akiva said: “This is a fundamental principle of the Torah” (Sifra, Kedoshim, Chapter 4 12; Talmud Yerushalmi Nedarim 9:3).