Pemikiran Yahudi Zakharia 13:2: Akeidat Yitzchak

The solution to our problem may be Kohelet 12,7, "dust must return to earth, to its original state, whereas the spirit will return to G'd who had supplied it." The ultimate destiny of man then lies in the complete separation of spirit an matter. Life in the olam haba, the world beyond death, therefore, does not include any part of the body. ( see chapter eighty on the waters of strife) When Solomon concludes the statement quoted above with the words "vanity of vanities says Kohelet, all is vanity,” he omits some of the "vanities" he had mentioned in the opening chapters.(see Kohelet 1, verse 2) The body's function during life on earth, is to assist the mind, the spirit. Since most people's minds are materialistically oriented, they experience a strong pull of their body on their spirits at the time of death. This results in part of their spirit, i.e. a residue of the soul being unable to realease itself from the body. This is why that part of the soul absorbs some of the impurity of the dead body. This is the meaning of the statement in Berachot 8, "the soul of the wicked is as difficult to extract as wool from amongst thorns." The reference is to the spirit of impurity mentioned in Zecharyah 13,2. Seeing that most of mankind belongs to the category mentioned, the Torah decrees tum-ah, a state of impurity for the dead body. This impurity does not originate in matter, but in the corruption wreaked on the body by the spirit. The body, instead of having become the vehicle to advance the spirituality of the soul, had reversed the process. These bodies did not fulfil Solomon's dictum of returning to the dust in their original state. The concept of a twelve month period during which the soul keeps up some sort of intermittent contact with the body, reflects this idea. In a very few cases, peoples' lives follow the opposite pattern, inasmuch as their bodies become subservient to their spirituality. At death, the body then finds it difficult to separate from the soul, and to be left behind. In such cases, traces of the body, so to speak, try to escape towards Heaven together with the soul. Elijah's clothing, including his body would be burned off in the fiery elements he had to traverse in his ascent towards Heaven. A still better way of separating the body from the soul, is the clean break between body and soul at the precise moment of death, something accomplished by the very, very few. In those cases no impurity adheres to the physical remains at all, i.e. the dust is not impure and cannot become impure in its original state. When the Talmud says about Rabbeynu ha-kadosh that on the day he died priesthood became annulled, this is what the author of that statement Rabbi Chiyah had in mind. A person of the calibre of Rabbeynu hakadosh, who could say of himself that he had never enjoyed a physical satisfaction from his body, would not be forbidden contact with a priest when he died. The priest would be allowed to remain under the same roof with such a person's remains, seeing no impurity had attached itself to them. Herein lies the key to understanding the Sifri concerning the mission of the angel of death, and Moses' reaction to it. G'd had said to the angel "bring Me the soul of Moses." When Moses heard the angel of death say "give me your soul," he thought that the angel of death was trying to demonstrate his power, i.e. the power of ra, evil, over Moses. This is why he sent him away angrily. The body is composed of a mixture of four basic materials, i.e. fire, water, earth (dust) and wind (air). When the body develops a weakness, it is a sign that the four raw materials no longer work in harmony. The cause is due to an imbalance of the spiritual and material pressures within man. Death, i.e. separation of body and soul, must be preceded by the dissolution of the fusion of the four basic ingredients of the body. Moses, who knew that such a process had not yet commenced within him, knew that death due to this imbalance of forces did not apply to him yet. The angel of death had misunderstood his mission, which was simply to bring about the dissolution of the bond that held these four basic material ingredients together. Once this had been done, a clean break of body and soul would occur. When the Midrash describes the angel as approaching gehinnom, the mountains and the hosts of angels, to find out Moses' whereabouts, this describes the angel's search to see if any of the four basic materials had shown signs of weakening in Moses, and could form the basis for his being able to perform his usual task. He found that this had not occurred, and came back to G'd, mission unaccomplished. When G'd sent him out a second time, without changing the instructions, this showed that it had been the angel who had misunderstood, not that the instructions had not been precise enough. The fact that G'd Himself buried Moses, emphasises the separation of body and soul had been complete, instantaneous, that there had been no tum-ah at all. How else could G'd have involved Himself in Moses' burial, since He would then come into contact with impurity? This was an act of unprecedented love shown for any human being. Our sages see in the fact that the site of Moses' burial has never ben revealed, a retribution for Moses not having displayed sufficient fervor in the matter of Zimri cohabiting with the Midianite woman Kosbi. This had resulted in the need for Pinchas to take the law into his own hands. The message of the Midrash then is, that those who looked for Moses' burial place on the mountain, had ascribed super human qualities to him. They had to be reminded by seeing him buried in the valley, that even a Moses had human failings. Those, on the other hand, who had searched for his grave in the valley, only to see it on the mountain, had to be reminded that Moses did in fact tower high above other human beings. The fact that the site of the grave remains undisclosed, teaches that a true assessment of the complex personality of Moses is even beyond our sages. The term lakach hashem, G'd took, an expression we find when the wife of the prophet Ezekiel died, as well as when Enoch and Elijah left this earth, denotes that the earthly lives of these people were utterly fulfilled. When our sages say that Elijah did not die, the meaning is that he completed the earthly part of his life only. There remained other parts of his life to be fulfilled in a domain that does not know death. (Moed Katan 26) Our sages have made a general rule that "the righteous are called alive when they have died." In the case of Elijah, this is carried a bit further. Elijah did not even appear to die, hence there was no need for us to be told that appearances notwithstanding, he was not dead. Elijah, having wished himself an experience similar to that of Moses, was commanded to ascend to Heaven in the vicinity of the site where Moses had been buried, (see chapter 35)

Our sages illustrate the function of the red heifer by means of a parable. The child of a slave woman had dirtied the king's palace. The king decrees that the mother has to atone for the child, since the accident occurred due to faulty upbringing of the child by its mother. This had lead to its misdemeanour. The sin of the golden calf is to be atoned for by the mother cow, the red heifer. She endeavours to rehabilitate her young. Whoever helps the mother cow in her labours, helps bring about the rehabilitation of the young. At the same time, whoever assists in the preparation of the ash of the red heifer, also helps to bear the guilt that the red heifer is trying to remove from earth. Once the source of evil has been dealt with, its emanations can dissipate. Concerning our opening premise that in order to be the cause of certain phenomena, the relevant ingredients must be present in the cause itself, the question that can be raised is that many blind parents sire children with perfect vision. However, we must distinguish between such causes as are really only channels, conduits for the achievement of certain results, and others that are ultimate causes. If one is only involved in converting raw materials, the qualities of the end product need not be present in the refiner of such raw materials. Since G'd has already created all raw materials, no one can be more than a refiner, a converter. We do not expect the anvil to possess the qualities of the needle, i.e. one of its end products. The reason this is so, is that the anvil does not impart a new quality to the needle. All of this is true when the creative activity is merely of a preparatory nature. When the creative activity however, involves the final phase of manufacture or craftsmanship, such as the final shape and finish of a porcelain vase, the artist surely possesses the qualities he wishes his masterpiece to reflect. Therefore, as we have said, a honeycake cannot be produced by a baker who does not himself embody some of the honey's sweetness. The Creator surely embodies all the qualities we observe in the sun, the moon, the planets etc. Were this not the case, how could He have fashioned them? On the other hand, natural phenomena, plants, animals etc. are merely the results of the functions of celestial bodies. Similarly, the parents' function when begetting children is like that of the sun in promoting the growth of plants. In the larger scheme of the cosmos, men and women are the tools that fashion human offspring, though they can hardly produce a specific personality. That, i.e. the specific mix of genes, is contributed by G'd. It was He, after all, who had said "let Us make man in Our image." It is true to say that G'd is the original father. (Deut. 32,6) "He is your father, He has acquired you, He has made you, He has established you firmly."