I'd like to repeat a nekudah of a sichah from the Rebbe on פרשת תזריע מצורע, and this will be a nekudah that is famous, but it's always kedai to hear it again. We learn in the Torah in פרשת תזריע מצורע concerning a צרעת, concerning a person who became a מצורע, got leprosy, and the דין is that even after he gets the נגע, the only way it becomes tamei is if a kohen comes and sees it, and says that it is tamei. Now, it's even possible that the kohen doesn't know the halachot, so you bring along a talmid chacham who knows the halachot, and the talmid chacham looks at it and says, \"Yeah, this is tamei.\" Even then it doesn't become tamei. The kohen has to say it's tamei. And the same thing when the נגע is over, you have to have the kohen come and say that it is tahor. And the question is, why do we need the kohen to say it? If anyway, it's not he doesn't necessarily know the halachot, so you have to rely on the chacham anyway, on the one that's a talmid chacham knows the halachot, so why can't he be the one to say tamei? Why do you need davka the kohen to say tamei? And why is this davka only by the טומאה of a נגע that the kohen has to say tamei? Other טומאות, if the circumstances are that this is tamei, then he's tamei, regardless of anybody who says anything. When here, the halachah is it's not tamei till the kohen says tamei. And the question is, why is it noge'a to the kohen? Now, we said that even later when it's over, the kohen has to say tahor, but that's not a question why. Since the kohen is the one to say tamei, so obviously the one to say tahor has to be a kohen too. So the real question is, why do we need specifically a kohen to say tamei? So the Rebbe explains it like this: the tumah of a

נגע, of a metzora, the tumah of tzaraat is very, very terrible. It shows how low it is. We see from the the halacha that if he is a metzora, if he is tamei, the pasuk says, \"בדד ישב מחוץ למחנה מושבו,\" that he should sit all alone, he has to be isolated all alone. And the Chazal even tell us that שלא יהיו שאר טמאים יושבים עמו, even other people who are tamei can't sit with him. Even other people who are tamei with נגע can't sit with him. He has to be isolated, and he has to go out of the Jewish camps, out of anywhere where the Jews live. So this shows that this person is so low that he's basically thrown out of Klal Yisrael. Symbolically, and also physically. But it shows how low this person is, he's thrown out of Klal Yisrael. So the Torah tells us, who is the one that is able to come up with such a verdict and say it? Only a kohen. Why? A kohen is known to represent chesed. The pasuk says, \"תמיך ואוריך לאיש חסידך,\" which means the אורים ותומים, which was one of the בגדי כהונה, the garments of the kohen gadol, it says belongs to a איש חסידך, the man of chesed, because Aharon was a man of chesed, and all the kohanim are represent are referred to as people of chesed. And we see taka when they do Birkat Kohanim, when they duchenen, they make a beracha before, and what is the lashon of the berachah? That Hashem commanded us לברך את עמו ישראל באהבה. Hashem commanded us, number one, to bless the Yidden, which shows it's chesed, and to bless them with ahavah, with love. So a kohen represents love to Klal Yisrael, the inyan of chesed. Only a person who's full of chesed, the middah of chesed, is able to decide that a person is tamei in such a tumah that he's thrown out of Klal Yisrael. Cuz if not that, you never know. Even could be a big talmid chacham, but you never know why he decided that the person is tamei. Could be there were other reasons involved, could be his nature is he's not such a kind person, and memeila he's fast to judge a person to say, \"Ah, this person belongs out of Klal Yisrael. Let's throw him out.\" You have to have a person which otherwise is chesed. And if you have a person who's chesed, he's the one to decide, we are sure that it will not come from bad middot, that some people might have bad middot, because he doesn't have bad middot. He will definitely investigate and look into it, trying to make it that it shouldn't be tamei. And if he decides that this person is tamei, then we know for sure that this person is tamei, and there was no choice. But if it wouldn't be a kohen ish hachesed, another person, even if he is a talmid chacham, we are not sure that when he said this person is tamei that it came from pure halachah, but maybe it came from his bad middot. So therefore, you have to have a kohen who's ish hachesed to decide. Now, obviously he can't decide out of just middat hachesed that this person is tahor, everything has to be based on Torah. Therefore, he must hear from the talmid chacham who פסקנ׳ט על פי תורה that this is a geder of that this person is tamei, but still, he will, because he's baal hachesed, he will investigate to make sure that there is no choice but to make this person tamei. And that And that's why the din is that only a kohen could make a person tamei with the טומאה of צרעת, and automatically, to make him טהור, you need a kohen also. And the Rebbe says, the lesson that you take from this is very simple.

Sometimes you see a person that did something wrong, and it looks like this person is pretty low, and it deserves to throw this person out, to throw him out of Klal Yisrael, throw him out of shul, etc., etc. So the Torah says that even if he's a great chacham, and he knows the whole Torah, and according to him, it seems like this person has to be judged to be thrown out, you can't do that. Before that, you have to look into it, see where this decision comes from. Does it come purely from the truth, or does it come because maybe there's something else involved? And that's the lesson we take from the fact that you have to have a כהן, איש החסד, that we too, we have to evoke within us the chesed part before we do anything. Now, sometimes it might happen that you come to a decision there is no choice, sometimes it is like that. But till you come to that decision, you have to make sure that it comes from chesed. So you have to first evoke the kohen that's in every person, the chesed that's in every person, then you're able to come up with a decision to see whether the person deserves this punishment or not.