In פרשת מצורע, we learn about נגעי בתים, about נגעים that were in homes. In פרשת תזריע, we learned about נגעים that were in human beings. We learned about נגעים in בגדים, in garments, and in פרשת מצורע, we learn about the נגעים that were found in homes. And as the פסוק says in the beginning of the פרשה that deals with נגעים of homes, כי תבואו אל ארץ כנען, etc., when you will come to ארץ כנען, ונתתי נגע צרעת בבית ארץ אחוזתכם, I will give, I will put a נגע צרעת in the house of the land of your inheritance. What we see here is that the Torah, when it speaks about נגעים that were found in the homes, the Torah says that Hashem said, \"I will put these נגעים into the homes.\" It's something that comes specifically min hashamayim. Hashem specifically made these נגעים. It doesn't say if a נגע will be found in your home. It says, \"I will put נגעים into your homes.\" What is the reason for it? Why did Hashem specifically make that certain homes should have נגעים? So we find two opposite explanations for this. In Midrash, in Vayikra Rabbah פרשה י״ז, ו׳, also brought down in Rashi on the פסוק, it says that בשורה היא להם שהנגעים באים עליהם. This was good news for the Bnei Yisrael that נגעים will come to their homes, לפי שהטמינו אמוריים מטמוניות של זהב בקירות בתיהם, since the אמוריים, the כנענים, the goyim, hid treasures of gold in the walls of their homes. And how will a Yid know to look in the walls to know whether there are treasures there or not? So Hashem said, \"I will bring a נגע to your house, and because of the נגע, you will have to be נותץ הבית, you will have to break the house, knock the house down, and then you will find the treasures.\" So here we see that the reason the נגעים came on the homes was a בשורה טובה, it was good news. It was for a good reason. It was for the benefit of the Bnei Yisrael that they should find the treasures. And this reason is also given in the Zohar, in פרשת תזריע דף נ׳ עמוד א׳. There it says that the reason there were nega'im in the homes is לאשכחא מטמונין דאטמירו בבתייהו, so they should find the hidden treasures that the goyim hid in their homes. On the other hand, in the same Zohar, it says a different reason why Hashem brought nega'im into the homes. That being that the Canaanim were עובדי עבודה זרה, they worshiped idols. So therefore, in their homes was שריא רוח מסאבא. In their homes dwelled a spirit of tumah, of impurity. And therefore Hashem said, \"ונתתי נגע צרעת בבית ארץ אחוזתכם, I'm going to make nega'im into your homes in order for the Yidden to break the homes, and by breaking the homes, they would get rid of this רוח מסאבא, of this רוח הטומאה, of this spirit of tumah.\" And the homes that the Yidden are going to build afterwards will be made, as the pasuk says, of אבנים אחרות, of other stones, and it will be made of עפר אחר, of other sand, other cement. So by building new homes with other stones and other עפר, the Yidden will be able to live b'kedushah, in holiness, ובדיורא קדישא, and in a holy dwelling place. And the reason for Hashem bringing the nega'im into the homes was because the homes were tamei, and Hashem wanted that the Yidden should live in pure homes and holy homes, not in homes which have a רוח מסאבא, a רוח הטומאה, a spirit of tumah. So it comes out that the reason for נגעי בתים, the reason for homes having nega'im, came for two opposite reasons. One is because there was so much good hidden in the homes, and Hashem wanted them to have all that good. On the other hand, it was because there was so much tumah in the homes. The homes were so low, and therefore Hashem put the nega'im into the homes so they should get rid of this tumah. And we have to understand that it's not like it seems at first glance, that these two reasons argue, that there is a machloket what the reason for the נגעי בתים was, whether it was because of the great lot of good that was found in the houses or it was because of the tumah that was in the houses. But it's not so. These two reasons do come together. In other words, there were two reasons for the nega'im in the homes, as we see it from the Zohar. That the Zohar says both reasons together. First the Zohar says the reason because of the treasures of gold that were in the homes, and then the Zohar says the reason was because to the tumah in the homes. So it can't be a machloket, because the Zohar doesn't say it בלשון of a machloket, doesn't say that there are two opinions. The Zohar says this one after another, which means that there were two reasons for the נגעים. Which means that when a house got a נגע, both things were true in that house. On one hand, this house had a lot of treasures, and on the other hand, this house was full of tumah. And therefore, Hashem wanted that this house should be destroyed to get rid of the רוח הטומאה. And it's interesting that it's self-understood that not all the houses had נגעי צרעת. It doesn't say anywhere that when the Yidden came into Eretz Yisrael, all the houses got a נגע and therefore they destroyed all the houses. If this would be true, it would say someplace, such a great chidush would be written, that all the houses of Eretz Yisrael were destroyed. The way it seems the simple peshat, that only some of the houses had נגעים. And it makes sense to say that only the minority of the homes, only few of the homes had נגעים. But the question is, if the reasons for the נגעים was because of the רוח הטומאה that were in the homes, then why weren't all the homes destroyed? Why didn't Hashem make that every single house should have a נגע? Because after all, the Canaanites lived in all the homes. All the houses of Eretz Yisrael originally belonged to the Canaanites, and since all the Canaanites were עובדי עבודה זרה, so the רוח הטומאה that they brought into the homes likh'orah came to all the homes. So why didn't Hashem make that all the homes should be destroyed? So the reason must be very simple, because there are different levels in רוח הטומאה. Not every home had the same level of רוח הטומאה, which means not every Canaanite that lived in the home brought the same amount of tumah into the homes. And therefore, certain homes, just by the Yid entering into that home, that itself got rid of the רוח הטומאה. A Yid is kedushah. When kedushah comes into the place where tumah is, so it pushes out the tumah. So therefore, many homes, the tumah went away just by the fact that the Yid moved into the home. Maybe in some homes the tumah went away when the Yid put the mezuzah up. The mezuzah is a mitzvah, so it makes the whole house holy, so mimela that pushed out the רוח הטומאה. There are only some homes that the טומאה was so strong, and the גוי brought so much טומאה into the home, that even after the Yid moved in and after he put the mezuzah up, and did other things of קדושה, it wasn't enough to get rid of the רוח הטומאה that was there. And those homes, the only way to get rid of the רוח הטומאה was by destroying the whole house. And therefore, only in some homes Hashem made a נגע, because only some homes had such a great level of טומאה that the only way you could get rid of it is by destroying, and therefore only those homes got the נגעים and were destroyed.

Now, based on what we said before, that these two reasons are not opposites, but they come together, which means that whenever a house was destroyed because of a נגע, there were two reasons for that destruction. There were two reasons for that נגע. One reason was because the טומאה was very great there. Another reason was because that house had treasure. So it's interesting that which house had the treasure? Only those houses that had a lot of טומאה. Those houses that didn't have so much טומאה, they didn't have to be destroyed. Since they didn't have to be destroyed, that shows that the treasures weren't there, because if there would have been treasures there, it also would have been destroyed. And since we said before that these are two reasons that go together, they're not opposites, so it comes out that which house had the treasure? The house that had the worst טומאה. Only those houses that had such a great טומאה that you couldn't get rid of it without destroying it, only those houses were the houses that had the treasures. So lichorah it comes out here two extremes. That only those houses that had the worst טומאה, which was the lowest level, those were the houses that had the greatest good, those were the houses that had the treasures. What is the explanation for this?

The explanation is that this fits to the general concept of נגעים. In the general concept of נגעים, we find these two extremes. On one hand, the whole concept of a נגע is a very, very low level, because when a person had a נגע, the טומאה was so strict that he wasn't even allowed to stay in the מחנה ישראל. The מצורע had to go out of all three מחנות, as the פסוק says, בדד ישב מחוץ למחנה מושבו, that the מצורע has to live all alone, outside of the מחנה has to be his dwelling place. And that means שלא יהיו טמאים אחרים יושבים עמו, that not only can't he live with people who are טהור, he can't even live with people who are טמא. Because the person who has this טומאה of נגע צרעת is so low, lower than any other טמא. And as it says in ספר יצירה, פרק ב משנה ד, אין ברעה למטה מנגע, that in evil there is nothing worse than נגע. נגע is the lowest, is the worst. So we see that נגע represents the lowest מדרגה possible. On the other hand, what is the purpose of נגעים? The purpose of the נגע was to bring the person to such a level higher than any other level possible. Like the Rambam writes להלכה in Yad Hachazakah, in the end of הלכות טומאת צרעת, that the נגעים were not מנהגו של עולם, the נגעים were not a natural thing. The נגעים were אות ופלא היה בישראל, it was a wondrous thing amongst the יידן, כדי להזהירם מלשון הרע, in order to warn them from lashon hara. Hashem made a special change in the nature of the world, in the nature of the creation, in order to bring a Yid to do teshuva on the aveira of lashon hara. When a Yid would do teshuva as a result of the נגע, this would make the Yid reach a very, very high level, higher than the level of a person who didn't have a נגע. Because we know that במקום שבעלי תשובה עומדים צדיקים גמורים אינם עומדים, that the level where a baal teshuva is, a צדיק גמור isn't. As the Gemara says in ברכות דף לד עמוד ב, and the Rambam paskens in הלכות תשובה פרק ז הלכה ד. So it comes out that the inyan of נגע brought a person to a very high מדרגה, higher to than the מדרגה he would have been if he would not have had this נגע. Because if he wouldn't have the נגע, which means he wouldn't do the aveira of lashon hara, then he would be like a tzaddik. But now that he had the inyan of נגע, so now he will do teshuva, he will reach the מדרגה of baal teshuva, which is even greater than a tzaddik. So the נגעים would bring the people to a higher מדרגה than if they would not have had the נגעים. And באמת, this is מרומז in the lashon in Sefer Yetzirah that we mentioned before. We mentioned before that in Sefer Yetzirah it says, אין למטה מנגע, that in evil there is nothing lower than a נגע. But the beginning of that statement in Sefer Yetzirah is like this: אין בטובה למעלה מעונג, ואין ברעה למטה מנגע. In good, there is nothing greater than עונג, which is pleasure. In evil, there is nothing worse than a נגע. And the mefarshim on Sefer Yetzirah explain that the word עונג and the word נגע are made up of the same letters: עונג is ע נ ג, נגע is נ ג ע. And what the Sefer Yetzirah is trying to tell us, not just which is the best thing and which is the worst thing, but he's trying to tell us that they both have the same letters. That means that when you change from נגע, you will reach the highest מדרגה. Not only if you change from נגע, you get rid of the נגע, then you just get rid of the evil and you're back to the same place you were before, but being that you changed the נגע, the same letters will transform into becoming עונג, which is the highest מדרגה. So we see from there that the concept of a נגע is really to take the person from the lowest מדרגה and make the person reach the highest מדרגה. And this is really expressed in the two reasons that were by נגעים of houses. That on one hand, this was the worst, because this represented the greatest רוח הטומאה that's possible, and that's why only these homes were destroyed. It's such a רוח הטומאה that you couldn't get rid of any other way but through destruction. And at the same time, we say that the same house, when it was destroyed, gave the person the greatest treasures. So this shows this idea that the inyan of a נגע is to take the person who is in the lowest מדרגה and elevate a person to a highest מדרגה, higher even than the מדרגה he would have if he would not have had this נגע. And this is why the Torah says, ונתתי נגע צרעת בבית ארץ אחזתכם. Hashem says, I will put the נגע into your homes, because by the inyan of נגעי בתים you could see clearly the whole purpose of נגעים בכלל, that this comes milma'alah, this comes from above, from Hashem, in order to make a person reach a very high מדרגה. So in essence, this is really the meaning of all נגעים, as we said before. But not in all נגעים you were able to see it בגילוי, in a revealed fashion. By נגעי בתים you could see it in a revealed way, how the lowest madregah, which was the reason why you had to destroy your house because it had the רוח הטומאה, the lowest madregah, as a result of that lowest madregah, you would get the highest madregah even בגשמיות. You would get the greatest treasures, as we said before, that these homes that had the greatest רוח הטומאה, they were the homes that had the treasures. We know what the Chazal say, that the inyan of the נגע in a house is similar to the destruction of the בית המקדש. The בית המקדש was our home and it was destroyed, which is similar to when a house has a נגע and it is destroyed. So from here we see that just like by נגעי בתים, we said that even though it was destroyed that shows on a low madregah, nevertheless the result of that destruction was that a Yid got a lot of treasure, the same thing is concerning the בית המקדש. That we have to remember that even though the בית המקדש was destroyed because of a low מדרגה, ומפני חטאינו גלינו מארצנו, because of our sins we were chased out of Eretz Yisrael and we caused the חורבן בית המקדש, but we have to remember the result of the חורבן בית המקדש will be the greatest treasures. That when Hashem will rebuild the third בית המקדש, it will be much greater than the first and the second בתי מקדש, which means that by destroying the בית המקדש, we reach higher madregot than if the בית המקדש would never have been destroyed. Just like the person that found the treasures in the houses, and even though it was destroyed because of טומאה, nevertheless the result was that he got more than if he would not have destroyed the house, the same thing here, even though when Hashem destroyed the בית המקדש it was a result of evil that we had, which is similar to a נגע, nevertheless this will bring us to even a higher madregah than we were the time of the first and second בית המקדש. We will have the בית המקדש השלישי that Hashem will bring במהרה בימינו ממש.