Rabbi Yehuda bar Rabbi Simon interpreted the verse regarding Torah scholars. One verse says: “Black like ravens” and one verse says: “His appearance is like Lebanon, choice like cedar” (Song of Songs 5:15), and it is written: “Their appearance is like torches, they dash like lightning” (Nahum 2:5). Rather, these are Torah personalities, who appear ugly and black in this world, but in the future, “their appearance is like torches.”
Rabbi Shmuel bar Yitzḥak interpreted the verse regarding the portions of the Torah. Even though they appear as though they are too ugly and black to recite them in public, e.g., the halakhot of discharges, leprosy, a menstruating woman, and a woman who has given birth, the Holy One blessed be He said: ‘They are pleasant to Me,’ as it is stated: “The offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasant to the Lord…” (Malachi 3:4).
Know that it is so, as the portion regarding the male who experiences a discharge and the female who experiences a discharge were not stated as one; rather, this one by itself, and that one by itself. “Any man, when he has a discharge from his flesh” (Leviticus 15:2). “And a woman, if her bloody discharge will flow…” (Leviticus 15:25).