Ritual Purity
In what ways can we relate today to ritual purity? To what would you compare the attention to ritual in our own time?
וַיְדַבֵּ֣ר יְהֹוָ֔ה אֶל־מֹשֶׁ֥ה וְאֶֽל־אַהֲרֹ֖ן לֵאמֹֽר׃ זֹ֚את חֻקַּ֣ת הַתּוֹרָ֔ה אֲשֶׁר־צִוָּ֥ה יְהֹוָ֖ה לֵאמֹ֑ר דַּבֵּ֣ר ׀ אֶל־בְּנֵ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵ֗ל וְיִקְח֣וּ אֵלֶ֩יךָ֩ פָרָ֨ה אֲדֻמָּ֜ה תְּמִימָ֗ה אֲשֶׁ֤ר אֵֽין־בָּהּ֙ מ֔וּם אֲשֶׁ֛ר לֹא־עָלָ֥ה עָלֶ֖יהָ עֹֽל׃
God spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying: This is the ritual law that God has commanded: Instruct the Israelite people to bring you a red cow without blemish, in which there is no defect and on which no yoke has been laid.
(ב) מים חיים אל כלי. דמת הוא אבי אבות הטומאה. וכל זה מצד הגוף שעומד למיתה. והנשמה כתיב בה ויפח באפיו נשמת חיים. והוא שורש כל הנשמות בחי' חי החיים. עמך מקור חיים. וכל הטהרה מכח הנשמה כמ"ש נשמה שנתת בי טהורה. ובשבת יש התגלות מנשמה זו. לכן אומרים נשמת כל חי תברך. כ"ל ח"י גי' חיי"ם. זה נשמת חיים. דאיתא בזו"ח שנתרעם הכ' במ"ש ויהי האדם לנפש חי'. כי נשתנה מבחי' נשמת חיים לנפש חיה ע"ש. וכפי התגברות הנשמה על הגוף כך זוכה לטהרה. ובמתן תורה נתחדש זו הנשמה באמרו אנכי ה' אלקיך. ולכן כתיב אמרתי אלקים אתם. ח"י חיי"ם גי' אלקי"ם. וזהו שורש כל המצות לדבק הגוף אל חיות הנשמה. כמ"ש וחי בהם שנעשה הגוף כלי. ע"י המצות. ואז הנשמה מים חיים אל כלי. וזה רמז המים ואפר התקשרות הנשמה בהגוף. שמזה בא הטהרה. זאת חקת התורה. דהתורה היא משיבת נפש והעוסק בתורה יוכל לחזור הנפש לבחי' נשמת חיים כבראשונה ואז נעשה טהור כמו נשיקה במים שמטהר:
Contact with a dead body is the most severe impurity. It is caused by the body disconnecting from the soul, which is the source of life. The method of purification is to return the soul to its prominence over the body. This occurred at Har Sinai when the Jewish people became immortal (until it was lost after the sin of the golden calf). The purpose of all mitzvos is to connect the body to the soul. This is reflected in the verse (Numbers 19:17): "and you shall put living water on [the ashes of the red heifer] in a vessel." And this is hinted to in the mixture of ashes and water, connecting the soul and body. And this is why this section of the Torah begins with "this is the law of the Torah", because the Torah is what allows to return to our living soul.
Though the ritual has not been practised since the days of the Temple, it nonetheless remains significant, in itself and for an understanding of what a chok, usually translated as “statute,” actually is. Other instances include the prohibition against eating meat and milk together, wearing clothes of mixed wool and linen (shatnez) and sowing a field with two kinds of grain (kilayim)....The most famous is that a chok is a law whose logic we cannot understand. It makes sense to God, but it makes no sense to us. We cannot aspire to the kind of cosmic wisdom that would allow us to see its point and purpose. Or perhaps, as Rav Saadia Gaon put it, it is a command issued for no other reason than to reward us for obeying it. Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks
We are holy when alive, because we have souls. In Sefer HaChinuucuh, it says that at death, the body sinks to a level of impurity. Without a soul, we are like beasts...and when our soul departs, the body becomes mere waste.
The cow shall be burned in his sight—its hide, flesh, and blood shall be burned, its dung included— and the priest shall take cedar wood, hyssop, and crimson wool, and throw them into the fire consuming the cow. The priest shall wash his garments and bathe his body in water; after that the priest may reenter the camp, but he shall be unclean until evening. He who performed the burning shall also wash his garments in water, bathe his body in water, and be unclean until evening.
'זאת חקת התורה אשר צוה ה, when the Torah in Nuimbers 8,7 had spoken of the need to sprinkle the waters of “chatat” on the Levites in order to purify them before they would begin their function newly assigned to them, our sages (Yuma 16) had already referred to the procedure as a chukkah, a statute, adding that these kinds of statute must not be questioned and probed as they are in the nature of a decree issued by God. The wise King Solomon, when mentioning that he had striven to unravel the wisdom in this legislation admitted that he had failed, that it was beyond him. (Kohelet 7,23). The thing which is most baffling in the red heifer legislation is that most who is ritually pure becomes ritually contaminated by direct contact with it, although the whole purpose of the red heifer, its ash, etc., is to purify the people who had been ritually contaminated prior to being sprinkled with spring water containing its ashes.
However, when we examine the entire commandment in detail we find that some of the people concerned with that red heifer from the moment it has been burned after having been slaughtered become ritually contaminated, i.e. the person burning its carcass, the person collecting its ashes, as well as the ones throwing the cedar wood as well as the one using the hyssop and crimson thread. into its burnt ashes. The same applies to all those either touching the remains or carrying them.
By contrast, the person performing the sprinkling with the mixture of the ash and water as well as the one sanctifying the location where the red heifer is to be burned and the one lighting the fire prior to burning the slaughtered red heifer are not contaminated by their activities.
One of the principal conditions concerning the red heifer is the requirement that it must not even have 2 hairs that are white or black. The symbolism of the color red is supplied by the prophet Isaiah 1,18 who writes that even if your sins are as red as certain type or wool dyed red they can become white as snow under certain conditions of remorse.
Our sages considered this line so important that they used to tie a red string to the entrance of the Sanctuary when the scapegoat was thrown down on the Day of Atonement. This string would turn white as proof that the people’s sins had been forgiven. When this happened the people would rejoice for the remainder of that day, whereas when it failed to turn white they would be greatly saddened. (Yuma 67)
[King}Solomon merely said, “For what reason is a leper cleansed through the tallest among the trees (the cedar) and through the lowest of the low (the hyssop); through (according to Lev. 14:4) cedar wood, [crimson stuff,] and hyssop?’ It is simply because he had exalted himself like the cedar, that he was stricken with leprosy. As soon as he humbled himself like the hyssop, he was therefore cured through hyssop”. (I Kings 5:13, cont.:)
(ז) וַיְדַבֵּ֥ר יְהֹוָ֖ה אֶל־מֹשֶׁ֥ה לֵּאמֹֽר׃
(1) The Israelites arrived in a body at the wilderness of Zin on the first new moon, and the people stayed at Kadesh. Miriam died there and was buried there. (2) The community was without water, and they joined against Moses and Aaron. (3) The people quarreled with Moses, saying, “If only we had perished when our brothers perished at the instance of the LORD! (4) Why have you brought the LORD’s congregation into this wilderness for us and our beasts to die there? (5) Why did you make us leave Egypt to bring us to this wretched place, a place with no grain or figs or vines or pomegranates? There is not even water to drink!” (6) Moses and Aaron came away from the congregation to the entrance of the Tent of Meeting, and fell on their faces. The Presence of the LORD appeared to them, (7) and the LORD spoke to Moses, saying,
(8) “You and your brother Aaron take the rod and assemble the community, and before their very eyes order the rock to yield its water. Thus you shall produce water for them from the rock and provide drink for the congregation and their beasts.” (9) Moses took the rod from before the LORD, as He had commanded him.
(10) Moses and Aaron assembled the congregation in front of the rock; and he said to them, “Listen, you rebels, shall we get water for you out of this rock?” (11) And Moses raised his hand and struck the rock twice with his rod. Out came copious water, and the community and their beasts drank. (12) But the LORD said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not trust Me enough to affirm My sanctity in the sight of the Israelite people, therefore you shall not lead this congregation into the land that I have given them.”
Consequences of Anger
What is your response to Moses' punishment?
(ג) וְהָאִ֥ישׁ מֹשֶׁ֖ה עָנָ֣ו מְאֹ֑ד מִכֹּל֙ הָֽאָדָ֔ם אֲשֶׁ֖ר עַל־פְּנֵ֥י הָאֲדָמָֽה׃ {ס}
(3) Now Moses was a very humble man, more so than any other man on earth.
About the CADUCEUS:
"a staff with two snakes coiled around it, is the official insignia of the United States Medical Corps, Navy Pharmacy Division, and the Public Health Service. The caduceus is also the magic wand carried by Hermes (the Romans knew him as Mercury), the messenger of the gods...... Legend states that Hermes discovered two snakes fighting and thrust his rod between them. The snakes stopped fighting and wound themselves around the rod. Thus, this combination became the sign of settlement of quarrels." Mayo Clinic.com