Everything in the Torah – in the world – is part of a duality. The Torah does not tell us that anything is inherently good or evil in itself; it always comes down to how we choose to use that thing. Thus alcohol, for example, is not forbidden, but is instead commanded to be used for sanctity and not profanity.
The Torah even has a word for “the flip side” or “opposite.” That word is hafach, and it is used in the text to describe transformations from one thing to its alter ego or opposite.
Which might explain a vexing question: I have written before on how the spiritual ailment of tzaraas connects to Lavan the person – everything that Lavan did to destroy and control people and relationships are things that can cause us to be afflicted by tzaraas.
But, the text tells us, if a person becomes completely white, lavan, then that person is considered totally fine!
Why?
I’d like to suggest that the text tells us both of Lavan the bad guy, but also of positive elements of the very same word. And the root letters for lavan are found first earlier in the text, meaning something quite different and far more productive than Lavan’s corrosive and undermining actions. Here is the first:
וַיֹּאמְר֞וּ אִ֣ישׁ אֶל־רֵעֵ֗הוּ הָ֚בָה נִלְבְּנָ֣ה לְבֵנִ֔ים וְנִשְׂרְפָ֖ה לִשְׂרֵפָ֑ה וַתְּהִ֨י לָהֶ֤ם הַלְּבֵנָה֙ לְאָ֔בֶן וְהַ֣חֵמָ֔ר הָיָ֥ה לָהֶ֖ם לַחֹֽמֶר׃
And they said to one another, Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar.
Consider this meaning! Bricks are neither good nor bad – they can be used for either. In their essence, however, bricks represent man’s ability to build and to grow upward (when G-d ends the Tower of Babel because the goals of the builders were not good, He does not destroy the creation; He just confuses the builders). So a flip side of tearing people down is the ability to build things up.
And here is the second use of the word in the Torah
וַיִּפֹּ֧ל אַבְרָהָ֛ם עַל־פָּנָ֖יו וַיִּצְחָ֑ק וַיֹּ֣אמֶר בְּלִבּ֗וֹ הַלְּבֶ֤ן מֵאָֽה־שָׁנָה֙ יִוָּלֵ֔ד וְאִ֨ם־שָׂרָ֔ה הֲבַת־תִּשְׁעִ֥ים שָׁנָ֖ה תֵּלֵֽד׃
Then Avraham fell upon his face, and laughed, and said in his heart, Shall a child be born to him that is a hundred years old? and shall Sara, that is ninety years old, give birth?
Lavan here refers to birth, to new physical and spiritual life, to connecting the generations, to supernaturally gifting an old man a son. It is, in a spiritual and emotional way, another contrast for Lavan the person.
But how do we know that “all white” means we get to use the mirror-image meaning for lavan? Because the text, in that verse, uses the word hafach – telling us to look to the opposite meaning of the word!
וְרָאָ֣ה הַכֹּהֵ֗ן וְהִנֵּ֨ה כִסְּתָ֤ה הַצָּרַ֙עַת֙ אֶת־כׇּל־בְּשָׂר֔וֹ וְטִהַ֖ר אֶת־הַנָּ֑גַע כֻּלּ֛וֹ הָפַ֥ךְ לָבָ֖ן טָה֥וֹר הֽוּא׃
then the priest shall consider: and, behold, if the żara῾at have covered all his flesh, he shall pronounce him clean that has the plague: it is all transformed white: he is clean.
Explained! [Thanks to EliyahuMasinter…]