Kaisipang Hudyo sa Ezekiel 4:14: Akeidat Yitzchak

Torah legislation, in imposing restrictions, is designed to combat the manner in which the yetzer hara would otherwise gradually succeed to make our mind the tool of our body instead of the other way around. The Torah therefore provides five remedies against the five fronts on which the yetzer hara attacks us. 1) Divine Providence that assists even those who rarely need it, being almost perfect. (such as Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrkanus) 2) Parents and teachers for those on the level of a Rabbi Joshua ben Chananyah. (happy the woman who bore him) 3) Torah's injunctions and system of reward and punishment. The way of Rabbi Shimori ben Nataniel. (the G'd fearing person) 4) Telling us of the successful lives of those possessed of loving concern for G'ds creatures. (The way of Rabbi Yossi the pious one) 5) Illuminating our minds by its teachings, as illustrated by Rabbi Eleazar ben Arach. (the bubbling well) Proof that niddah of women and keree of the male are similar in nature, part of the general human condition as such, is found in the fact that the changeover from a state of impurity to a state of purity (based on Torah law) is immediate; there is no waiting period after the condition has passed. Zivah, an abnormal flow of blood from the same source, on the other hand, requires a seven day waiting period, suggesting that a severe impurity requires time for its subject to free himself from it completely. It is interesting that the Torah writes the laws of circumcision on the eighth day adjacent to the purification laws of niddah. The male too is purified through circumcision on the eight day. This is the purification from the impurities absorbed by the human species when the first pair of human beings ate from the tree of knowledge at the serpent's behest. If Israel had been purified by the revelation at Mount Sinai, as our sages tell us, (Yevamot 103) this suggests that the purification process had started already previously, and was only completed by that event. From the point of view of what they have in common, zav flux of the male, and zavah flux of the female, should have been written in the Torah side by side. However, the Torah wanted to point out the power of milah, circumcision, as a purifying factor. Rabbi Yochanan points out that impurity is not the result of death, but that death is the result of impurity. He means that a diseased body ( tum-ah ) causes all that it touches to become diseased, and whether death results depends on the intensity of the emanations from that diseased body. In ancient times, among the gentiles, women who menstruated were shunned and kept in quarantine for fear that they might contaminate. Rachel warned her father not to approach her too closely since she had been menstruating at the time. (Genesis 31,35) The lesson we learn from this legislation is that man's mental state has physical effects.

We observe in nature that decomposition becomes more offensive in direct ratio to the esteem the decomposing object was held in while it was still functioning. When vegetables rot, the resulting compost is foul smelling and distasteful. When man or beast dies, the stench accompanying decomposition is overwhelming. Conversely, keeping one's distance from rotting objects is praiseworthy precisely in the degree of the rottenness involved. Keeping one's distance from wicked people or sinners makes one pure, good. Opposing bestiality however, makes one saintly, holy. We can apply this concept also to matters of the spirit, to moral matters. When a saintly person abandons his way of life, the disgust we feel with such a person far exceeds the disappointment one feels when an ordinary person sins. Again, a saintly person who has once abandoned his former saintly lifestyle, will be far more likely to adopt a diametrically opposite lifestyle than an ordinary person. Immoral acts committed by people who used to be pillars of morality, are far worse than destructive acts committed by wild animals, which will not act worse as they get older. When plants wilt, resulting in minor putrification as they turn back into earth, the Torah does not decree any law of impurity concerning them. Animals, which lose their body as well as their animalistic soul at death, decay and rot, and become quite putrid. The Torah decreed a relatively light degree of impurity concerning contact with cadavers. Man, who is possessed of the power of speech, proof of a higher soul and intellect, undergoes a far greater depreciation from his former lofty status when he dies. Therefore, the Torah decrees impurity not only upon contact, but even when merely in an enclosed space with the corpse. Seven days mourning is observed for one's family or highly placed individuals. One is tempted to view this as proof that the destruction of a human intellect results in negative emanations spiritually, similar to the foul smelling emanations from a decaying body. In the language of our sages, such emanations are called ruach tum-ah, the spirit of impurity. When one accepts the principle that only Jewish corpses convey such impurity even without contact, by merely sharing the same confined space, then this would demonstrate that the loss of a Jewish life is an even more serious occurrence than the loss of life per se. (Yevamot 61) We are told there that the line adam ki yamut ba-ohel, an Adam that dies in a tent, refers to a Jew. The meaning of the line then is: "only someone called Adam, i.e. a Jew can confer impurity by merely being in the same tent with the living." (compare Ezekiel chapter thirty four as to who qualifies for the title "Adam.") In Yadayim 4,6, the Rabbis stipulate that the degree of impurity that attaches to something is in direct relation to its belovedness in the eyes of G'd. This principle was acknowledged even by the Saducees, heretics in many other aspects of Torah interpretation. It is quite true that the basic concept of tum-ah, impurity, escapes us. We can only surmise by studying the applications of the regulations concerning tum-ah. The one thing that is certain is, that this impurity is not rooted in the purely physical part of man or beast, but is connected to the life force which does not exist in botany, in "plant life." Since, in the case of man, death causes the loss not only of the life force, but also that of the intellect, the degree of tum-ah that results, is more severe. Since a Jew is on a higher plane, his death causes still more tum-ah, seeing that even greater values have been lost through his death. In fact, tum-ah starts already during one's lifetime. Since the manner of one's lifestyle may hasten death, every unworthy act or thought may hasten the onset of such impurity. This is why our sages in Berachot 18, describe the wicked as "dead" already during their lifetime, since after death, tum-ah never departs from their souls, each one according to the amount he has accumulated. The righteous, on the other hand, the one whose conduct during his lifetime had been praiseworthy, retains an unsullied soul, and such soul does not become contaminated with tum-ah upon his death. The verse in Leviticus 11, 43, "do not become contaminated by them, else you will be contaminated by them," means "don't become tarnished by them during your lifetime, so that you will not find yourself tarnished by them when you die." On the other hand, the righteous are called "the living ones" even after their physical deaths. Since they have avoided the spirit of impurity, they have essentially remained alive. This is what is meant in the Midrash referred to earlier, that it is not death that causes impurity, nor is it the red heifer that imparts impurity.

Symbolically, the red heifer legislation can be understood in the following manner. The cow herself,- though reminiscent of the golden calf's mother, and thus indirectly responsible for her offspring,- is pure, much as the soul is pure at entry into the human body. The colour red represents the soul after having joined the body and becoming besieged by all the attractions of physical life here on earth. Sin is possible on three levels, parallel to the three life forces that are extant in man. Man possesses the life force of the plants, i.e. he responds to everything physical. He possesses the life force of animals, i.e. he is sensitive to all that goes on around him be it painful or pleasurable. Thirdly, he possesses intellect, being able to sin with it by preferring to pattern his life on heretical concepts. The requirement that the red heifer must not have worn a yoke in order for it to be capable of becoming an instrument of atonement, suggests that it represents the type of man who has rejected any and all limitations from a higher source concerning the manner in which he can conduct his life down here. The fact that only a minute amount of the blood of the red heifer is actually presented on the altar, indicates that the physical pleasures man is permitted to indulge in are minimal, so that he will be free to fulfil the will of the Lord. Removal of the red heifer from all three encampments of the Israelites, both from the most sacred as well as from the relatively least holy, indicates that man must remain free, or free himself from the demands made upon him by the three life forces that we have mentioned earlier. All the remainder of the red heifer is to be burned. The reason that burning of skin, flesh and blood is each mentioned separately, seems to symbolise the three life forces again. Each of these forces is more concealed from view than the next. Skin represents the exterior life force. Flesh is the middle life force; blood is the innermost life force. The use of both cedar wood, representing the tallest of the plants, and hyssop, representing the most lowly plant, is a reminder that we must observe the golden mean. By throwing the aforementioned into the fire, we are to demonstrate that we abandon the path of extremism. The priest washing his clothes, then his body, then re-entering the encampment, constitutes three stages of atonement. Washing one's body is symbolic of purifying the sense of touch. Washing one's clothing symbolises purification of the animalistic life force. Return to the encampment is symbolic of rehabilitating the mind, which through having been outside the encampment had been apart from the shechinah, G'ds Presence. At that point in the process, the rehabilitated are fit again to associate not only with the deputy leader Eleazar, but with the leaders themselves, i.e. Moses and Aaron. Had the whole procedure of the burning of the red heifer and the subsequent sprinkling of its ash contained in springwater, been performed on Moses and Aaron themselves, it might have subdued their anger at the Jewish people sufficiently to have prevented their having later on become guilty of hitting the rock instead of speaking to it. (Numbers 19,7-12) Perhaps this is the reason that this law is recorded at this point in the fortieth year of the wandering of the Israelites. The fact is that the law itself was promulgated already in the second year of their trek through the desert. The part of the purification legislation that requires eventide for completion of the process, may symbolise that the time of day when the body cools off is most suitable for reassertion of spiritual forces within us. Also, at such times, emotional responses are more likely to be tempered by one's intellect. Interestingly, the person who administers the sprinkling, required all three stages of the purification outlined. The person who burned the red heifer, however, needed only two stages. He did not have to leave the camp. Perhaps this is because his entire function had been to destroy the red heifer, the symbol of earthiness. The remains of the red heifer are handled only by ish tahor, someone already purified. The person handling the ashes needs only to wash his clothing, not even his body. Since the sins of man can stem from any of the three life forces, the ash of the red heifer was stored in three different places, as a reminder. (compare Mishnah Parah, chapter three) One part was kept within the precincts of the temple, one part on Mount Olives, and the third part was divided up amongst all the twenty four groupings of the priests, the mishmarot. The Torah describes three instances of a person becoming impure, hinting at the three parts of man that can incur impurity. The annual reading of this portion occurs chronologically after the celebration of the redemption of the Jewish people in the days of Mordechai, shortly before Passover, when we celebrate the redemption from Egypt, and before the month of Nissan which, according to tradition, will herald the coming of the Messiah. It is interesting that our sages,-when the four special readings in advance of the Passover holiday were arranged,- did not place the reading of parshat hachodesh, i.e. the reading of the portion announcing the coming of the month of Nissan, and the Passover legislation, before that of parshat parah. One would have expected them to do so, since, chronologically speaking, the tabernacle was put up on the first of Nissan, and the red heifer was burned only on the second day of that month. This may reflect their view that the concept of purity is so paramount in Jewish philosophy, that it can push historical, chronological considerations into the background. For that reason, though we lack the ash of the red heifer today, and are therefore unable to purify ourselves ritually from contact with a dead body, we still immerse ourselves in a ritual bath (especially prior to the holidays) in order to fulfil the rites of purification at least symbolically.