A.
The last few parashoth have been occupied largely with
questions of tum’a and tahara, which have been defined as states
of metaphysical defilement and purity. In commenting on parashath Shëmini in
particular, the Hesed lë-Avraham appears to some extent to
conflate the concepts of qëdusha and tahara, and to see tun’a as
the antonym of both.
It is therefore with a little surprise that we read, in this week’s parasha,
of Aharon’s purpose in sacrificing the par ha-hattath, the
bull intended as the public sin-offering on Yom Kippur: וכפר על הקדש מטמאת
בני ישראל וגו' (“And he will atone for the sacred
[vë-chippér ‘al ha-qodesh] from the tum’oth of the bënei
Yisra’él....”; XVII, 17), the implication being that people who have the
status of being qëdoshim can somehow still have tum’a in need of tihur,
of “purification.”
The matter cries out for clarification.
B.
A profound insight is provided by Rabbi Yëhi’él Hayyim ha-Lévi Epstein זי"ע, founder of the dynasty of Ozherov, but to appreciate it properly, it must be approached over ground prepared by his son and great-grandson, in their works the Birkath Tov and Be’ér Moshe. What follows now is a synthesis of both.
A profound insight is provided by Rabbi Yëhi’él Hayyim ha-Lévi Epstein זי"ע, founder of the dynasty of Ozherov, but to appreciate it properly, it must be approached over ground prepared by his son and great-grandson, in their works the Birkath Tov and Be’ér Moshe. What follows now is a synthesis of both.
We begin by considering a famous ma’amar Hazal:
אשריכם ישראל לפני מי אתם מטהרים ומי מטהר אתכם אביכם
שבשמים שנאמר "וזרקתי עליכם מים טהורים וטהרתם" ואומר "מקוה ישראל
ד'" מה המקוה מטהר את הטמאים אף הקב"ה מטהר את ישראל (“Happy are you, Israel : Before
Whom are you purified, and Who purifies you? Your Father Who is in heaven, as
it is written: ‘And I shall throw upon you pure water and you shall be pure’
[Ezekiel XXXVI, 25], and it says, ‘Israel ’s miqve is Ha-Shem’
[Jeremiah XVII, 13]. Just as a miqve purifies the tëmé’im, so
does the Holy One, Blessed is He, purify Israel ”; יומא
פ"ה:).
We note the repetitive wording at the start, first
Before Whom are you purified, then Who purifies you, the first suggesting
something requiring human action and effort, the second Divine action, which
seems to imply that tahara is entirely dependent on G-d and so requires
no human input. What can this apparently contradictory doubling mean?
The question becomes even stronger when we consider
the following verse, just a little later in our parasha: כי ביום הזה יכפר עליכם לטהר אתכם מכל חטאתיכם לפני ד' תטהרו (“For on this day He will purify you of
all your sins; before Ha-Shem you will be pure”; v. 30), which again appears to
say first that G-d must purify us, and ends up implying that we must be pure before
Ha-Shem (and so it is in our power, as the Targum Yonathan clearly says
here: ואתון קדם ד' תודון סורחנותכון ותדכון, “and you, before Ha-Shem will confess
your sins and become pure”). So which is it?
The answer is that it is both. First, we must recognize
that there are two distinct grades of tahara, as the Bë’ér Moshe explains:
לאמיתו של דבר שתי דרגות בטהרה, האחת כפשוטה טהרה מטומאה,
כלומר, שלילת הטומאה, נמצא שדרגה זו אינה חיובית בעצם בקום ועשה, אלא התרחקות
והפיכת הטומאה לטהרה בשב ואל תעשה, בזה נזהר מטומה ואפילו אם כבר נטמא מטהר עצמו
במטרה לשלול מעצמו את הטומאה
(“In truth there are two levels of tahara, the one according to its
simple meaning, tahara from tum’a, that is, the negation of tum’a,
such that this level does not require positive action, but simply
distancing oneself from tum’a and turning tum’a into tahara by
refraining from action; in this way, one can beware of tum’a, and even
if one is already defiled, he purifies himself with the goal of negating the tum’a
from himself”).
The second level, however, cannot be accomplished
by simple avoidance, and requires positive action: כלומר
עצם הטהרה בלי להזדקק לשלילת הטומאה וזוהי מעלה בפני עצמה ששמה הוא
"טהרה" ובאמת מושג זה של טהרה הוא רחב ביותר וכולל גם את טהרת הלב
בשלמות הכונה "בלתי לד' לבדו" שאז ראוי האדם להקרא בשם "טהור"
בעצם (“that is, the essence of
tahara [‘etzem ha-tahara]without recourse to the negation of tum’a,
and this is a virtue in and of itself named ‘tahara’; in truth, this
concept of tahara is very broad and also includes purity of the heart in
the per-fection of the intent ‘only for Ha-Shem alone’ [Exodus XXII, 19], such
that then a person may be called tahor bë-‘etzem”).
So, the rebbe tells us, our Talmudic passage
refers to this second, higher level of “positive tahara”, שבכדי לזכות אלי' צריכים לעמול ולהתייגע
הרבה והוא מוטל אך ורק עלינו להשתדל בזה, אמנם כשכבר זוכים לה אזי הקב"ה
מסייע לאדם לזכות לשלימות הטהרה שהיא הטהרה בעצם, וזהו "ומי מטהר אתכם אביכם
שבשמים" שאף שחייבים לעשות הכל במטרה להשיגה היא מתנת אלקים, שהשי"ת
החפץ בעבדיו העושים נחת רוח לפניו מזכה אותם בדרגה מופלאה זו (“that in order to merit it, it is
necessary to work and toil very hard, and we alone are obliged to attempt
this; however, when one already merits it, the Holy One Blessed is He helps a
person to merit perfection in tahara, which is the essential tahara.
And this is ‘and Who purifies you? Your Father Who is in heaven,” since even
though we are obligated to do everything with the goal of achieving it, it is a
gift of G-d, for Ha-Shem, Who favors His servants who are providing
satisfaction before Him, grants them this wonderful level”).
And so the gëmara cites our two verses: The
first, from Ezekiel, relates to the first stage of tahara, the negation
of the tum’a of “all your sins,” analogous to the simple, first-order tahara.
In other words, as King David sang, one must first be סור
מרע, “turning away from evil,” before one can be עשה טוב, “doing good” (Psalms XXXIV, 15; XXXVII, 27). The fact that G-d
says that He will “throw pure water over you” does not contradict this, for it
is true of any human effort thatאלמלא הקב"ה שעוזר
לו לא הי' יכול לו (“were it not that the Holy One, Blessed is He
helps him, he could not do it”; סוכה נ"ב:); or, perhaps more to the point הבא ליטהר מסייעין אותו (“One who comes to be purified finds support”;יומא ל"ד: ועבודה זרה נ"ה. ). However,
the hishtadluth, the initial effort, is entirely in human hands to make.
The second verse, from Jeremiah, refers to the
second, higher level of “essential tahara”, as we find elsewhere in the
Talmud: והוי יודע שהקב"ה טהור ונשמה שנתן בך טהורה
היא (“And be knowledgeable
that the Holy One, Blessed is He, is tahor, and the nëshama which
He placed in you is tëhora”; נדה ל:) in its essence, implying a symmetry, if
not an identity, of the nëshama with its Divine Source, which prompts
the holy Zohar to comment on the verse from Jeremiah, ישראל מקוה איהו,
“Israel is a miqve” (שם ח"א ל"ג.) and thus the source of tahara for
the rest of the world. In the same vein, the Tiqqunei Zohar applies
Genesis I, 9, יקוו המים אל מקום אחד (“Let the waters be gathered [yiqqavu, the root of miqve]
to one place”; שם קל"ו.) to the nëshama. Hence, it is obligatory that the ba‘alei
nishmoth Yisra’él exert themselves to seek shëlémuth in tahara so
that they will be suited to the task which they have been set in the world.
C.
But what of our initial question? Once this shëlémuth, this perfection in tahara, has been achieved, and the nëshama becomes a qodesh, a potent source of sanctity in its own right, how does it once again become tamé’ and require kappara?
But what of our initial question? Once this shëlémuth, this perfection in tahara, has been achieved, and the nëshama becomes a qodesh, a potent source of sanctity in its own right, how does it once again become tamé’ and require kappara?
The answer is implicit in what we have already
said: The nëshama begins in a pure state; but each of us has bëhira,
and (as the Hesed lë-Avraham makes clear in the remarks cited
in parashath Shëmini a few weeks ago), it embarks on a spiritual journey
according to that bëhira, either entering and then rising in the heichaloth
ha-qëdusha vëha-tahara, or, halila, descending into tum’a.
He possesses the same bëhira at every step of the journey,
and can therefore change his mind, and change his direction. More than that: Hazal
point out that the higher he rises, the greater he becomes, the greater the
resistance becomes: כל הגדול מחבירו יצרו גדול הימנו (“Anyone who is greater than his fellow,
his yétzer ha-ra‘ is [also commensurately] greater”; סוכה נ"ב.).
On what, then, can we rely to enable making subtle
distinctions and discerning the difference between qodesh and hol,
tahor and tamé’? Hazal tell us this, too: אם אין דעה הבדלה מניין?
(“If there is no knowledge [dé‘a, da‘ath], whence do we make
distinctions?”; ירושלמי ברכות פ"ה ה"ב), and: אין דעת אלא
תורה, “Da‘ath means
nothing but Torah”; סוטה מ"ט.), and the acquisition of Torah, such that it penetrates deep
into the soul and psyche, requires ‘anava, humility, and self-abnegation
(שם כ"א:).
אין בור ירא חטא ולא עם הארץ חסיד, they proclaim: “A fool does not fear sin, nor is an ignoramus
pious” (אבות פ"ב מ"ו ). For humility and self-abnegation are the necessary
prerequisites to recogniszing and internalizing the existence of G-d: דעת זה המכיר את בוראו
(“Da‘ath is evident in one who recognizes his Creator”; במדבר רבה פ"י סי' א').
D.
Rabbi S. R. Hirsch זצ"ל (amongst others) notes in his magisterial introduction to Leviticus that the nature and purpose of a qorban is evident from the word itself; derived from the root quf-réysh-béyth signifying “close, near,” its purpose is to foster or maintain a closeness between man and G-d.
Rabbi S. R. Hirsch זצ"ל (amongst others) notes in his magisterial introduction to Leviticus that the nature and purpose of a qorban is evident from the word itself; derived from the root quf-réysh-béyth signifying “close, near,” its purpose is to foster or maintain a closeness between man and G-d.
The very fact that the passage from our parasha discusses
the par ha-hattath is also evidence that we are addressing the
second-order, higher level of tahara, accomplished through kappara, and
not the simple negation of tum’a stemming from some chance contact with
a sheretz, which requires nothing more than waiting the requisite period
and immersion in a miqve. The sort of tum’a which can affect the qodesh
– those people on such a level that they are holy – and whose rectification
requires a qorban hattath, can only be that afflicting those nëshamoth
which, having reached rarified heights in the hei-chaloth ha-qëdusha, have
succumbed to the blandishments of the yétzer ha-ra‘ and chosen – for it
is always a matter of bëhira – to slide backwards.
As Hazal warn us in the
citations above, the only sure way to
avoid such lamentable backsliding or, once having succumbed, to find the way
back is qinyan Torah, the acqui-sition of Torah, which can only happen
when the learning is accompanied by and infused with ‘anava, so that one
comes to recognize his Creator.
As was accomplished by our ancestors at Mattan
Torah, after 49 straight days of preparation, as they counted the
days, and we today follow in their footsteps.
No comments:
Post a Comment