Metsor’a (מצורע – person with tzara’at), Leviticus 14:1 – 15:33
The tzara’at (צרעת “leprosy“) could affect an individual (his flesh, his clothes, his house). The Sages of the Talmud mentioned 7 faults causing the appearance of the tsara’at: backbiting, murder, immorality, useless oaths, arrogance, theft and avarice.
This evil is therefore the index, the sign of a moral degeneration. All dictators should be treated like metsor’im (“leper”) and suffer total international isolation.
Rabbi Jacob Zvi Sacks (Sir Jonathan Sacks1) writes in
The Home We Build Together p. 79:
Pride means valuing others because you value yourself. Arrogance means devaluing others so that you can think highly of yourself. National arrogance is unforgivable. National pride is essential.
Shabbat HaGadol (הגדול = the great), Haftarah in Malachi 3:4-24
Name given to the Shabbat preceding Passover
ה וקרבתי אליכם, למשפט, והייתי עד ממהר במכשפים ובמנאפים, ובנשבעים לשקר; ובעשקי שכר-שכיר אלמנה ויתום ומטי-גר, ולֹא יראוני–אמר, יי צבאות
5 And I will approach you to do justice; I will be an eager witness against magicians, against adulterers, against perjuries; against those who wrong the laborer in his wages, the widow and the orphan, against foreign oppressors, who do not care about me, says the Eternal of Justice.
From 1940, the Nazis tried to destroy the synagogue in the city of Belz in Ukraine, first by fire, then by dynamite, finally they conscripted Jews to dismantle it stone by stone. This dismantling will continue until 1950, under the Stalinist regime. Today, 3 thick walls and some stones remain.
The Beit Hamidrash HaGadol Belz (בעלזא בית המדרש הגדול) in Jerusalem, inaugurated in 2000 after 15 years of work, is an enlarged replica of the building constructed in the city of Belz. The main prayer hall can accommodate up to 8,000 worshippers. The building includes many study rooms, reception rooms, libraries. It is currently the largest synagogue in the world. The carved wooden Holy Ark is 12 meters high and weighs 18 tons. Its size allows it to store more than 100 Torah scrolls. The nine chandeliers, 6 meters high by 3.5 meters wide, are each made of more than 200,000 pieces of Bohemian crystal.
1 Chief Rabbi Jonathan Henry Sacks (1948-2020), was also a university professor, politician, theologian and British lord.