“It Seems to Me”: The Torah’s Subtle Lesson in Intellectual Humility

From every letter in the Torah, our sages derive mountains of meaning and countless lessons. In Parshat Metzora, the Torah describes a person who suspects that his home has become afflicted with tzara’at (a spiritual form of leprosy) and comes to the priest, saying: “It seems to me that there is something like a plague in the house” (Vayikra 14:35).

Notice the small but essential word — the letter “kaf” (כ), meaning “like a plague.” The person does not declare, “There is a plague in my house,” but rather, “Something like a plague appears to me.”

This detail is not accidental. The Mishnah in Nega’im explains that even if the homeowner is a Torah scholar and fully knowledgeable in the laws of tzara’at, he must still say only “something like a plague.”

The Torah is teaching us humility and honesty. The final ruling belongs solely to the kohen (priest), as only he can definitively declare something pure or impure.

Rabbi Yaakov Kamenetsky and the Lesson of “It Seems To Me”

Rabbi Yaakov Kamenetsky once illustrated this principle beautifully through a story that connected Parshat Metzora with the eve of Passover.

Before immigrating to America, Rabbi Kamenetsky served as the rabbi of the town of Tzitavian in Lithuania. As the month of Nisan approached, a Jewish man came to him holding a bottle of food coloring commonly added to wine to make it appear red and rich.

“Rabbi,” he asked, “is this coloring kosher for Passover? Might it contain chametz (leavened grain)?”

Rabbi Kamenetsky decided to investigate. He went to the local pharmacist and asked, “Do you know what ingredients are used to make this dye?”

The pharmacist, unaware of the halachic weight of the question, answered confidently: “Of course, Rabbi! It’s made from simple chemical pigments — nothing to worry about.”

The rabbi pressed further: “And are you absolutely sure there’s no grain alcohol or wheat-based ingredient involved in the process?”

The pharmacist replied dismissively, “Impossible! There’s no chance of that.”

Rabbi Kamenetsky, sensing the man’s overconfidence, decided not to rely on his word. He sent a telegram to a chemist in another city and received a reply confirming that indeed, the dye’s production involved alcohol derived from fermented grains — the same type used to make whiskey.

It became clear that the pharmacist had spoken out of misplaced certainty. He hadn’t meant to mislead, but he wanted to appear knowledgeable, and once he had stated his opinion, it was hard for him to “climb down from the tree” and admit uncertainty.

The Moral of the Story

Rabbi Kamenetsky would retell this story to illustrate the Torah’s wisdom in requiring a person to say “it seems to me” rather than speaking with false certainty.

The Torah’s language teaches intellectual humility. When you’re not completely sure, say, “It appears to be,” or “It seems likely.” That way, if you later discover new information, it’s easy to adjust your words and you can climb down gracefully from the tree of pride.

In the words of Rabbi Kamenetsky: “Say ‘something like a plague’ — and you won’t have to struggle later to admit you were wrong.”