This Shabbat we read the double portion of Tazria and Metzora which discuss the different kinds of impurity resulting from Tzaraat, a Biblical skin disease seen by our sages as a physical manifestation of spiritual malady.  The Torah commands that  if Tzaraat affects a house, the house must first be shut up for seven days and then the bricks which were infected must be removed.  Rashi comments that Tzaraat on a house was actually a blessing in disguise because the Canaanites used to hide gold under the bricks of their homes and when the bricks were removed due to the Tzaraat the gold would be found by its current owner.

Rabbi Klonomous Kalmen Shapira was the Rabbi of the Warsaw Ghetto.  With love and inspiration he cared for and guided those in the Ghetto though the Holocaust, eventually to be murdered by the Natzis along with his commnity in 1943.   Rabbi Shapira asked, if God wants to show the homeowner where the gold is, why require the shutting up of the house for seven days first?   Just command the removal of the bricks.  He concludes that it comes to teach us that  even when our homes are shut up and our communal homes such as a our shuls and schools are closed to us (as they were to him), and due to this we feel God has distanced us, nevertheless, we can learn from this parsha and the Tzaraat process, that in the end, under the bricks of our torment, we can later uncover spiritual treasure.

Our pain and difficulty of course is incomparable to his in the Ghetto.  Yet, as we live through this unprecedented (for us) time, with our houses shut up and our communal buildings closed, we must, as he instructed, look for gold under the bricks.

Some of us are more stressed than ever, with full time child care, our cleaners on furlow, new job responsibilities and relatives ill or in need.  Yet, the other side of that coin might also be time – time with our loved ones, time alone – perhaps we have no commute, fewer meetings, feewer expectations, less oversight.  Time somehow is different now.

I think back to two years ago when I spoke on the phone with the person who was at the time the oldest member of Kesher Israel, Herman Wouk.    I asked to come visit him, and though he was 102 years old he said to me, “I’m very busy.”    Indeed he meant it, as he was writing until the very end.  What lesson can we learn during this surreal episode in our lives, in which we may have some more flexible time, about time’s value, and its elusive nature?

Who we are is not the product of big life decisions, but the outcome of myriad small ones, of the habits we create which define how we use our time.  Eventually we will all emerge from this cocoon.  But, who will we be when we do?  Will we be angrier or more patient?  Wiser or more numb?   Lazier or more energetic?   Courageous or more fearful?  Who we will be at the end, is the product of the decisions we make now.  How we use the space, the time, the relationships, -everything that we have in this very strange Tzaraat Habayit, “leprosy of the house”- will make the decision.