Parshat Chukat

Purim, Jerusalem, 5765

I am back. So little time and so much to do, but unlike the white rabbit, (sorry folks) I will not go jumping down any wackey wells. This week's Torah portion (parsha, to you hebrew experts) deals with the biblical remedy for the problem of what is mistakenly called, "ritual impurity."

A note on rituals. A booring ritual ofen leaves me feeling "impure." But done in the right way around the right people, such "rituals" turn into an exilarating experience, what my old galus rabbi from Boston, Rav Pollack, used to call, "the choreography of memory," influenced, no doubt, from his good buddy Elie Wiesel. It may mean that when we do these ritual actions, like a dance, that activates something deep in our collective memories, what Jung I think called, "central energy."

You can find at www.schuelers.com information on the "Jungian models of the psyche" page, and I quote, "The central energy runs through all subsequent differentiations; it lives in them all and cuts across them to the individual psyche; it is the only factor that remains unchanged in every situation. There is a level of central energy that is the “deepest part of the collective unconscious that can never be made conscious.” It is the substratum or bedrock of the psyche."

I have a feeling that ritual has to do with an action that stimulates central energy. But perhaps it is more than that, ritual is a potential doorway to expanded consciousness and/or divine inspiration.

Anyway, mom (hi mom, could you please remember to send those clothes for the kids) said that the blog was, and I quote, "really interesting, but jeepers, I just don't have the background to understand what youre saying." So mom is reminding me that just because I understand something, (and of course, that is questionable) it doesn't mean that everyone else does. And the only other critique I got was from Michael Abraham, who said I was, "long winded." So to you MA, I say, better long winded upstairs than down. And furthermore, you say, "long winded," but others say, "lotta spirit." Sometimes weaker minds dont have the patience to work out all the details, present company excluded. So for you PHD's in kabbalah out there, this may bore you, so you can go and soak your heads for a while and then get back after I finnish explaning to the moms, kids, and most everyone else.

Ahem. ./.. Impurity from the dead. We all got it, there can be no denying. Shlomovitz dies, doctor, nurse, and maybe the hospital air conditioner repair man all come in contact with Shlomovitz's deceased flesh. Doctor goes home and kisses his wife and kids, and presto! They are all impure with "TOOMAT MEETTA" the impurity of the dead. Kid goes to school, plays tag. Taps teacher on the shoulder, bumps into custodian, (this is getting ridiculous) And soon enough the whole school is contaminated. The impurity is transfered by physical contact, but wait! Not only with people, but also certain objects that can absorb impurity are also either receiving Tumat Meeta or giving it to those who touch them. What does Tumat Mita feel like? I dont know. Go to a funeral and see how you feel. Maybe it is like that feeling of waking up after a deep sleep whereupon just about everyone in the world feels a need to wash. This is a hint. The talmud tells us that sleep is one sixtieth of death.

Remember, we are talking about a dead human being here, and as I recall, a dead jewish human being. A dead animal or gentile does not contaminate with tumat mita. The law of ritual purity are one of the most complex sections of the Talmud, and require careful study.

But we have spoken enought about the impurity, lets get to the purification. The bible provides us with an enigmatic precept called, "the sprinkling of the ashes of the red heifer." The ancient israelite priests (the proper term is Cohanim, so as not to be confused with the guys in the white collars at the vatican) Take a perfectly red heifer, burn it down to ash on the mount of olives, throw some hyssop and cedarwood in the fire, mix the whole megillah with some fresh spring water, et voila! La Vrai Chose, bien sur. Gourmet "efer para aduma." (ashes of red heifer). Then the Cohen would take some of this water and ash mixture and sprinkle it onto someone who had become impure through contact with the dead. The impure dude would become pure and the pure Cohen woud alas become impure, by virtue of his act of sprinkling the water on the impure dude. Then he would have to go through his own purification proccess of which I can't describe to you.

Rashi (and always start with Rashi, who was a true holy man, and all time great explainer, of whom Rav Shimson Ostrapoler ZTSL HAYAD once said, "for every drop of ink of Rashi's commentary, you have to count seven clean days." Meaning, you have to be so pure to understand the tremendous depths of Rashi) brings the midrash (Torah legend), "since the Adversary and the other nations try pick an argument with Israel, trying to disprove our law, saying, "what is this commandment, what meaning could it possible have?' Rhetorical question, as the nations have decided that these strange things Jews do like ashes of red heifer and tefillin are a lot of hooey. They are not on the level of knowing, and you know what folks, with such enigmantic commandments, neither are we. There are commandments that a man can readilly understand with his intellect, like not killing or steaking, even belief in God and prayer, but there are many enigmatic laws, called, "Chukim (pronouncd: choo-keem)," or statutes, that simply boggle the mind. So Rashi continues. and says, don't bother trying to explain to your gentile friends and debate partners the nature of Chukim, statutes like the sprinkling of the ashes of the red heifer to purify from contact with the dead. just dont bother getting into it, mostly because you probably dont understand it either. Just hold onto simple faith, the simple faith that God created the world. brought the jews out of egypt, Gave us the Torah, gave authority to the holy prophets and rabbis, and watches over us and protects us every second of every day. And with that pure faith, say to your Goyishe budds, "Ashes of the Red Heifer? I dont know what meaning it could possibly have, but I do know this. God is the Master of Heaven and earth, He is the King of Kings, the Creator of all, and He made a decree which we cannot doubt or question, and that decree is to 'Take a perfectly red Heifer ... and burn it ... and sprinkle the ashen water on the third and seventh days of the week of a man's purification,' and the rest, say what you will, but God said it, we believe it, and that settles it.

Yes, this Rashi was embellished, but believe me, that's what he meant.

Now we can move on...

From the Mei HaShiloach

"They shall unto you take a perfect red heifer ..."

(Bamidbar-Numbers, 19:2)

In the future the blessed G-d will reveal His glory to Israel without any separation whatsoever, meaning that with the final redemption, man will behold the revelation of G-d in all things, and G-d will not be concealed, as He is now, for the most part. The ashes of the Red Heifer have been lost for eighteen hundred years, with the possile exception of the Arizal finding them in sixteenth century Safed, Israel, as coroborated by the CHidda. So the whole exilic state of God being concealed is all caught up in the absence of having a way to be purified from death by the ashes of the Parah Aduma. So when the Rebbe says, "In the future," he also means in the future when, with the final redemption, the laws of purity and the ability to regain freedom from the debilitating power of death will return to the world. for now this (reality of) life exists in the depths of Israel, yet it is revealed in outer "garments." These garments are the Torah and mitsvot, for one may only enter into the depths of the will of G-d through the Torah and mitsvot (for more on this see the Tanya, Liqutei Amarim, Ch. 4). All commandments, like giving charity, loving your neighbor, learning Torah, putting on Tefilin and not cheating your fellow man (you can go and find the other 608) are Garments for life. This means that just as a person is percieved through the grament of his body, because of course, a person is more than skin and bone, so to is Godliness accessed through behavior, beliefs and rituals that God commanded us. Each time God asks us to do something, he is giving us a little doorway to His desire, and saying, do this, and you will know something of what I want. Though God fills the whole world with His glory, He is only accessed throught what we loosely call, "torah and mitzvot," which could actually include a trip to the museum, depending on how it is done and what your adgenda is. But simply put, Gods will is only found in Torah and mitzvot. This is "they shall take unto you a heifer," which stands for life, as is known, a young fresh living cow in its first year, mammash l'chaiim! and at the present moment we are commanded that this life be clothed in garments, that is, the Torah and mitsvot. "Perfect red," meaning explicit strengths, without any separation or defect, explicit strengths, or "holy Chutzpah" is the kind of strength a person feels when he knows that God is leading him and protecting him, or even more than this, when he knows that he has purified his behavior and thought to suche a level in the service of the Lord that his very actions are determined by God, and then whatever he does will be God's will. This is the feeling that Adam the first man had in the garden of Eden before the sin, when he knew that he was the handwork of the Deity and everything he did or felt was God's own desire. Before the final redemption, reaching this level of explicit Divinely ordained strength (tekifut, in Heb.) is only accessable through the performance of Mitzvot and the study of the Torah, because only then, in the act of serving God in the way of the Torah and the Code of Jewish law, can one be sure that he is doing the right thing. Provided he knows how to do a mitzvah propeperly, and this is a major condition. But after the final redemtion, we will see clearly how everything, even things outside of the aegis of Torah and Mitzvot, we do will be according to Divine directive. "with no blemish in it," means that no foolishness would be found in any action (for as the Isbitser later mentions, just as a mentally deficient Cohen, once called a "fool," is disqualified from service, so any action done in foolishness is deficient), Living in the exile carries with it a kind of inane "black comedy" (nothing to do with negroes) subtext. We have been jaded, hardened to the world, and revert to meaningless comedy as a way of laughing at everything. Futile actions often make for good comedy. But the absence of meaning in all of this black comedy of our lives is really rooted in feelings of despair and hoplessness. "The redemption" means a time when God sees fit, either based on our merit or not, to free us from blindness to the meaning of life. In other words, on that great day, we will all know what is really going on. With the messianic redemption, and for little moments even before, a great God consciousness will fill the world, as the prophet Isaiah said, "and the knowledge of God will fill the world as the waters cover the sea." "which never carried a yoke on it's back," this teaches that Israel (at the depths) never experienced helpless agonizing and effort, as it is said in Zechariah (4), "two olives" standing solid, on either side of his vision of the menorah, standing for the, "anointed ones standing by the Master of all," moshiach. Perhaps what the holy Isbitser is saying is that just as the two olives stand solidly and effortlessly so will it be clear with the redemption that all the toil and strife was as nothing, that we were always receiving G-d's providence and God was always caring for our welfare, something that we are myopic to in the exile when consciousness is greatly limited. All of this is now hidden in the Torah and mitsvot, yet in the future the blessed G-d will show it to us without any separating "garments." In the future with the total redemption, God will break down the barrier between God and man. As it is said in the Midrash and in the Gemara (Nidda 61b), "the mitsvot will be nullified in days to come (of the final redemption),” and the blessed G-d will show us that we never really suffered under the "yoke" of a power in this world since He, may He be blessed, controls them all, yet all is in a state of concealment. This is the meaning of, "that never had upon it a yoke." All doubt will be erased, all problems of theodicy be solved (meaning we wil know the reasons and get the answers to the question of why do bad things happen to good people, why do the righteous suffer, the problems that perplexed even Moses the Lawgiver.) We will completely re-evaluate our understanding of evil, for we will not only have the ability to know the absloute difference between Good and evil, but God wil eradicate evil, and "death will be swallowed up forever," and no more shall we die.

From the haRav haGaon haKadosh haMefursam Choter Geza Tarshishim

the Beit Yaakov

ZTsuKLLH"H,
may his merit protect us.

Beit Yaakov, Parshat Chukat

“And G-d spoke to Moshe saying, This is the statute of the Torah, which G-d commanded, saying, speak unto the children of Israel, that they bring a perfectly red heifer, without blemish, which never carried a yoke on its back.” (Numbers, 19:1-2)
This can be understood through the verse (Isaiah, 26:4), “Trust in Hashem forever, for Y-aH Hashem is everlasting strength.” From this energy, the power of trust (bitachon) can enter into man, since the world was created with Y”aH, the first two letters of G-d’s name Y”HVH (Midrash Tanchuma, Chayei Sarah, 63). This hints that this world is only the beginning, and nothing is yet finished. And therefore, “there is no one possessing perfect righteousness in the land,” (Eccelesiastes, 7:20) concerning all matters. Thus fear overpowers in the world, even with the tsaddik (the righteous), for the very difficulty of perfecting anything in this world creates fear. And indeed, trusting in G-d (bitachon) has also increased in strength in this world. This is because evil is not entirely evil from one side to the other.
The, “Parah Adumah,” the red heifer, teaches of this. In this passage, the Holy One, blessed be He, teaches Israel the order of, “Tahara,” purity, and how far it reaches. The principle element of life is choice. The level below this is the world of plants, as explained in Parshat Korach. Therefore, when one touches the dead (and must be purified), it means that he feels that his own choices have no effect in the world, and this expresses itself in the action of coming into contact with the dead. The advice the Torah gives for this is to take the Parah (the heifer), which, as a cow, represents stubborn action done without choice. This is because the knowledge that the blessed G-d is the One who gives all life has been concealed from him. This is as it is written in the holy Zohar (Chukat, 180b), “this Parah which comes to purify, to purify the impure, has received from the left side. And who is on the left side (in Ezekiel’s vision of G-d’s chariot)? ‘The face of the Ox to the left.’ ”