Tazria-Metzora: A Plague on Your House

From Rabbi Dr. Erin Leib Smokler, "On Waiting and Not Understanding" at https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/414754?lang=bi
The Piaseczner Rebbe, Rabbi Kalonymus Kalman Shapira of the Warsaw Ghetto, raised a compelling question about the relationship between this complex destructive process and the gifts it revealed.
ונבין נא א״כ למה הסגיר מתחילה את הבית שבעת ימים, ורק אח״כ חלצו את האבנים, הא כיון שראה הנגע ידע שכאן מטמון… למה צותה התורה לטמא מקודם שבעת ימים? (אש קודש מצורע תש)
"Let us understand. [If the plague is purely beneficial,] why does the Torah command that a house first be locked up for seven days, and only afterwards, if the leprous spot persists, are the stones of the wall removed and replaced? Surely, once the leprous spot becomes visible, it should be obvious that treasure is buried there...Why does the Torah tell us that the house is tameh, ritually unclean for seven days?" (Esh Kodesh, ​Metzora 1940)
If it's so clear, as per Rashi, that what appears to be an affliction is actually a blessing in disguise, why such an elaborate and elongated procedure to arrive at its revelation? Why not just tear down the walls immediately and expose the riches hidden within?
The Rebbe answers: Because even when something is "l'tovah​" (for the best), even when it will reveal itself over time as an occasion for opening or healing, we must still pause to really honor the pain it inflicts. No matter how many explanations we might have to make the suffering "worth it"; no matter how many ways we have to retrospectively redeem or recontextualize misfortune, in the here-and-now it just hurts. Being displaced hurts. Having your home torn apart or torn down hurts. Being socially isolated hurts. So for seven days (or fourteen) we hold just that. We suspend speculation about the meaning of things and we sit shiva ​for the loss and the disorientation that comes from it. We mourn for the ways in which we've been uprooted. We breathe, cry, stay silent. And then, only then, might we be prepared to reveal the blessings that lay hidden deeply (sometimes very deeply) inside of such experiences.

from Rabbi Rachel Barenblat, "#blogExodus and Metzora: plagues, cleansing, and Pesach house-cleaning" at https://velveteenrabbi.blogs.com/blog/2014/04/metzora-cleansing-a-plague-from-ones-house.html
What did William Shakespeare mean when his character Mercutio cursed, "a plague on both your houses"? For Shakespeare, a house meant a household, a family. If we read the Torah portion through this lens, the stakes are higher.
Sometimes, Torah says, a house needs to be scraped clean and then plastered again. And sometimes, even that isn't enough -- it's a kind of mere whitewashing, and given opportunity, the problem will erupt again.
As we prepare to gather with our families and friends around the seder table, what are the places where our "house" needs to be scraped clean and then replastered? What's the old emotional stuff we want to scrub away? Are we willing to do the work of removing what's encrusted on the surface of our family relationships, and to expose what lies beneath?
In our broader community, what are the places where a plague has grown too deep -- where merely cutting out a few problematic pieces won't stem its spread, and we need to destroy the structure and build anew? Maybe it's the plague of racism, or the plague of militarism, or the plague of ignoring someone else's narrative or point of view. Are we willing to tear down what no longer serves us in order to build something different, something as-yet unknown?
At this season many of us are engaging in literal housecleaning. Maybe it's that impulse toward spring cleaning which arises when the temperatures start to hover well above freezing. Maybe it's the old pre-Pesach tradition of scouring every surface and getting ready to relinquish our hametz, our leaven, which the Hasidic tradition says can represent the puffery of ego.