From the Sin of Adam ha-Rishon to the Mystery of Nega'im
It is written (Bereshit 3:21): וַיַּעַשׂ יְיָ אֱלֹקִים לְאָדָם וּלְאִשְׁתּוֹ כׇּתְנוֹת עוֹר וַיַּלְבִּשֵׁם (And Hashem G‑d made for man and for his wife garments of skin [ohr with an ע] and He clothed them). On that pasuk, the Midrash says (Bereshit Rabbah 20:21): בְּתוֹרָתוֹ שֶׁל רַבִּי מֵאִיר מָצְאוּ כָּתוּב כָּתְנוֹת אוֹר (In the Torah of R' Meir, they found written 'garments of light' [ohr with an א]).
True, R' Meir was an expert sofer (Eruvin 13a), and true, he was also the most brilliant Sage of his generation (Eruvin 13b); yet even so, how could he have written the word אוֹר in place of עוֹר? A sofer must be exact, bound to the mesorah. As the Rambam codifies, among the twenty disqualifications of a Sefer Torah are these two deviations (Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Tefillin u'Mezuzah v'Sefer Torah 10:1): שֶׁחִסֵּר אֲפִלּוּ אוֹת אֶחָת שֶׁהוֹסִיף אֲפִלּוּ אוֹת אֶחָת (the omission of even one letter, [and] the addition of even one letter).
We can raise another bewildering problem. Bereshit 3:21 describes what happened after the sin of Adam and Chavah. It explains that as a result of the fall their original כׇּתְנוֹת אוֹר were replaced with כׇּתְנוֹת עוֹר. So how could R' Meir write in that very pasuk, that they still – apparently – retained their כׇּתְנוֹת אוֹר?
The Yefeh To'ar clarifies our Midrash: פי' כי בספר חדושיו על התורה כתב כתנות אור (The explanation is that in the book of his chiddushim on the Torah, he wroteכׇּתְנוֹת עוֹר). In other words, R' Meir didn't write כָּתְנוֹת אוֹר in a Sefer Torah at all. He wrote כׇּתְנוֹת אוֹר in his own book of chiddushim on the Torah. But what was his actual chiddush?
The Matnot Kehunah brings down an explanation in the name of the Rambam: שר"מ היה חושב בכתנות אור שהיה לאדם תחלה ועתה נהפכו לעור ולחומר ובחשבו ר"מ כזה כתב אור (That R' Meir would contemplate the כָּתְנוֹת אוֹר that Adam had at first, and that now they had been transformed into עוֹר – to physicality. And by R' Meir contemplating this, he wrote אוֹר). R' Meir understood that as a result of the fall, Adam and Chavah's luminous bodies, i.e. the כָּתְנוֹת אוֹר, were replaced with כׇּתְנוֹת עוֹר, but even as he wrote the word עוֹר in Bereshit 3:21, he had kavanah not only for the current state of things, but also for the original state. The chiddush that R' Meir was alluding to in his own notes was that beyond the appearance of the current state of affairs, a deeper reality continues to exist. The כָּתְנוֹת אוֹר didn't disappear. They were, in a sense, buried.
However, this leads us to a question on Pirkei d'R' Eliezer14, which seems to suggest, at least on the surface, that the כָּתְנוֹת אוֹר were completely removed: מָה הָיָה לְבוּשׁוֹ שֶׁל אָדָם הָרִאשׁוֹן? עוֹר צִפֹּרֶן וַעֲנַן כָּבוֹד הַמְכַסֶּה עָלָיו. וְכֵיוָן שֶׁאָכַל מִפֵּרוֹת הָאִילָן, נִפְשַׁט עוֹרוֹ וְצִפֹּרֶן מֵעָלָיו וְנִסְתַּלְּקָה עֲנַן כָּבוֹד מֵעָלָיו, וְרָאָה עַצְמוֹ עָרוֹם, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: ״וַיֹּאמֶר מִי הִגִּיד לְךָ כִּי עֵירֹם אָתָּה?״ (What was the clothing of Adam ha-Rishon? Ohr tzipporen [a smooth, translucent, fingernail-like covering] and a cloud of glory that enveloped him. And when he ate from the fruit of the tree, his ohr and tzipporen were taken off him, and the cloud of glory departed from him, and he saw himself naked, as it is said [Bereshit 3:11]: 'And He said, Who told you that you are naked?'). The Radal writes on this ohr tzipporen: דהוי אדם מלובש בכתנות צפרנים דהוי נהרין כענני כבוד דמ' שהצפורן עצמו היה מאיר, ואפשר מלת צפורן מורכבת מב' מלות צפוי אורן (That Adam was clothed in 'fingernail-like garments', which shone like clouds of glory, implying that the tzipporen itself was luminous, and it is possible that the word tzipporen is composed of two words: tzippui oran [a coating of their light]). In other words, the Radal sees that the ohr tzipporen itself was intrinsically luminous and shone like a cloud of glory, not that there were two separate coverings. So when the fingernail-like covering was stripped away, automatically the light of the cloud of glory was no longer present.
But now we have a sharper question. Were the original garments of Adam and Chavah, the כָּתְנוֹת אוֹר, removed as the Pirkei d'R' Eliezer suggests or just buried as R' Meir's chiddush suggests?
The Perush Maharzu resolves the contradiction by bringing together the Midrash and Pirkei d'R' Eliezer: שפסוק זה [בראשית ג':כ"א] מקומו למעלה אצל פסוק "וַיִּהְיוּ שְׁנֵיהֶם עֲרוּמִּים" שהיה קודם החטא. ואז היו כתנות אור (This pasuk [Bereshit 3:21], its place belongs next to the pasuk [בראשית ב':כ"ה] 'And both of them were naked', which was before the sin, for then they had כָּתְנוֹת אוֹר). This seems very strange. It sounds like he's suggesting that Bereshit 3:21 is in the wrong place, and that it really belongs next to Bereshit 2:25. However, when he says the pasuk belongs earlier, he does not mean the pasuk is in the wrong place. He means that the phrase כׇּתְנוֹת עוֹר in Bereshit 3:21 is describing a process that began earlier, not something created out of nothing after the sin. Before the sin, Adam had כָּתְנוֹת אוֹר (a luminous, refined covering), and as a result of the sin, that covering got stripped away along with the cloud of glory, leaving behind עוֹר, coarse physical skin. The Maharzu understands Bereshit 3:21 as describing the resulting state of man after this transformation.
Now R' Meir's chiddush makes more sense. The Torah writes עוֹר because it speaks from the point of view of the post-sin reality we inhabit; but R' Meir is mentally anchored in the original state. When he writes אוֹר, he is not changing a pasuk. He is reading it from its root, not just its outcome. The Maharzu is saying that even though the Torah describes man after the fall, the deeper truth begins before the fall – and R' Meir is reading the pasuk from that earlier reality.
Where Pirkei d'R' Eliezer describes the original clothing and its removal, and the Torah describes the new clothing given afterward, the Maharzu connects them into one continuous process. And R' Meir writes אוֹר for he is referring to the original pre-sin garment whereas the Torah writes עוֹר reflecting the post-sin replacement. In a sense, R' Meir looks at a human being and says, "Yes, you are clothed in עוֹר – material, opaque, coarse – but that's not the whole truth. Beneath it all, the אוֹר is still there." And because he is thinking from that level – not remembering back, but thinking in the current – he wrote אוֹר.
Now what does this have to do with Parashat Tazria? The laws of nega'im open with these words (Vayikra 13:2): אָדָם כִּי־יִהְיֶה בְעוֹר־בְּשָׂרוֹ שְׂאֵת אוֹ־סַפַּחַת אוֹ בַהֶרֶת וְהָיָה בְעוֹר־בְּשָׂרוֹ לְנֶגַע צָרָעַת וְהוּבָא אֶל־אַהֲרֹן הַכֹּהֵן אוֹ אֶל־אַחַד מִבָּנָיו הַכֹּהֲנִים (When a man [adam] shall have in the skin of his flesh, a s'eit, or a sapachat, or a baheret, and it shall be in the skin of his flesh a lesion [nega] of tzara'at, and he will be brought to Aharon ha-Kohen or to one of his sons, the Kohanim). The Agra d'Kallah asks two pointed questions: למה אמר בכאן אד"ם ולא אי"ש. וגם למה אמר בעו"ר בשר"ו, ולא יספיק לומר ב"ו (Why does it say here adam and not ish? And also, why does it say 'in the skin of his flesh' when it would have sufficed to say 'in him'?)
He starts to unpack his explanation: והנראה דהנה כל הנגעים הם מסטרא דקליפה מזוהמת הנחש שנתהווה על ידי חטא אדם וחוה (And it appears that all nega'im are from the side of the klipah, from the pollution [zohamah] of the Serpent, which came into being through the sin of Adam and Chavah). Let's make sure we don't pass over that too quickly, because it's foundational – nega'im are the direct result of the zohamah that the Primordial Serpent 'injected' into Adam and Chavah when they listened to his advice. Continuing on: וידוע (ב"ר פ"כ י"ב) דבתורתו של ר' מאיר היה כתוב כתנות או"ר, דקודם החטא היה לאדם באמת כתנות או"ר שהיה גופו ספיריי, ועקיבו מכהה גלגל חמה, ולא היה גופו מעותד לחלאים ונגעים, כי היה כחד מן קמאי. רק אחר שנתפתה לעצת הנחש והטיל הנחש זוהמא (שבת קמ"ו ע"א), אז נתהווה מכתנו"ת או"ר כתנות עו"ר ובשר ממש חומריי (And it is known [Bereshit Rabbah 20:12] that in the Torah of R' Meir, it was written כָּתְנוֹת אוֹר, that before the sin Adam truly had כָּתְנוֹת אוֹר, that his body was sapphire-like, and his heel dimmed [i.e. outshined] the sphere of the sun, and his body wasn't destined for illness or nega'im, because he was like one of the Primordial [i.e. Angelic] Beings. Only after he was enticed by the advice of the Serpent, and the serpent cast impurity into him (Shabbat 146a), then כָּתְנוֹת אוֹר became כׇּתְנוֹת עוֹר – literal flesh, physical in nature).
But that's not the end of the story because Hashem had mercy and gave us His Torah: והנה הש"י נתן לנו או"ר התורה, ובעבור האדם ח"ו על אור התורה, אז מתראה הזוהמא בעו"ר. וז"ש אד"ם [כי התחלת ענין הזוהמא היתה מאדם הראשון], כי יהיה בעו"ר בשרו [דייקא, מה שאין כן אלו היה כתנות או"ר] תורה מחייהו להתהלך במשרים, והבן (And behold, Hashem, may He be blessed, gave us the אוֹר of the Torah, and when the adam sins, chas v'shalom, against the אוֹר of the Torah, then the zohamah becomes visible through the עוֹר, and this is the meaning of 'an adam [for the beginning of the matter of the zohamah was from Adam ha-Rishon] when he shall have in the עוֹר of his flesh [specifically, that which would not be if he still had כָּתְנוֹת אוֹר]'. Torah gives him life to walk upright. Understand well).
If you understand well, you will see that the Agra d'Kallah is literally explaining R' Meir's chiddush. When the Midrash says 'they found written כָּתְנוֹת אוֹר,' the Agra d'Kallah is reading that as a real description of an accessible layer of Torah, not merely a poetic drashah. So even though the text of Bereshit is fixed, the Torah itself is not exhausted by the p'shat, the surface reading. R' Meir's Torah – not his Sefer Torah, but his Torah, his teaching –is that he was able to read the pasuk from within that inner layer, where the original luminosity is still present beneath the concealment. From the time of the sin of Adam and Chavah, zohamah has been a part of the human condition, but it's not normally visible. Why not? Because the אוֹר of Torah inside the person is holding it in check and keeping the inner distortion from emerging into the עוֹר. When a person lives aligned with the אוֹר of Torah, the zohamah remains subdued, but when that alignment breaks, that underlying distortion – rooted in the zohamah of the Serpent – pushes outward and becomes visible in the עוֹר, the very place where עוֹר replaced, or perhaps better, hid the inner אוֹר. In this way, Vayikra 13:2 is very precise: the nega appears not randomly, but exactly where the fall from light into concealment took place.
What about us? We live, by default, in the world of עוֹר, a state of existence where the outer can hide the inner, where the zohamah can remain unseen. The Torah is called אוֹר because it is the force that realigns a person internally, restoring clarity and uprightness. R' Meir's chiddush is not theoretical. It's practical: train yourself to look for and live from the inner אוֹר even while you inhabit the עוֹר.
Practically, that means two things. First, don't trust appearances, especially your own. The entire sugya of nega'im teaches that what looks bright can actually signal distortion. A person has to develop the habit of inner checking, not relying on surface impressions, whether in middot, reactions, or decisions. Second, stay anchored in Torah as a structuring force, not just as knowledge. In the Agra d'Kallah's terms, Torah is what keeps inner disorder from surfacing. When a person loosens that alignment, whether through inconsistency, rationalization, or distraction, the inner confusion doesn't disappear; it surfaces and breaks through into behavior, speech, or emotional instability. Therefore, the avodah is not mystical. It's discipline.
This is exactly what R' Nachman taught (Likutei Moharan 1): כִּי אִישׁ הַיִּשְׂרְאֵלִי צָרִיךְ תָּמִיד לְהִסְתַּכֵּל בְּהַשֵּׂכֶל שֶׁל כָּל דָּבָר, וּלְקַשֵּׁר עַצְמוֹ אֶל הַחָכְמָה וְהַשֵּׂכֶל שֶׁיֵּשׁ בְּכָל דָּבָר כְּדֵי שֶׁיָּאִיר לוֹ הַשֵּׂכֶל שֶׁיֵּשׁ בְּכָל דָּבָר לְהִתְקָרֵב לְהַשֵּׁם יִתְבָּרַךְ עַל־יְדֵי אוֹתוֹ הַדָּבָר, כִּי הַשֵּׂכֶל הוּא אוֹר גָּדוֹל, וּמֵאִיר לוֹ בְּכָל דְּרָכָיו (For a Jew must always look into the Supernal Intelligence [seichel] that is in everything, and to tie himself to the chochmah and the seichel that is in everything so that the seichel that is in everything will illuminate him, to bring him close to Hashem, may He be blessed, through that thing, for the seichel is a great אוֹר, and it illuminates him in all his ways). And of course, oneself is included in that everything.
