Rav Haim Lifshitz

Parashat Hukat

 

 

 

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Evil Intermingles Within Good :

man can separate them,

by his behavior

 

 Translated from Hebrew by DR. S. NAthan

l'ilui nishmat Esther bat mordechai
L'ILUI NISHMAT MAYER HIRSH BEN LAIBEL

 

 

“If a man will die in the tent…”

Talmud: “If a man will kill himself in Torah’s tent.”

“The Torah is sustained only by one who kills himself over it.”

“Cancelling it means fulfilling it.”

“ ‘He must live by them,’ rather than ‘He must die by them.’”

 

Sanctity is located within human beings - rather than within any specific object or place.


How is sanctity attained?

 

“When someone attains repentance out of love –
the sins that he has previously committed out of malicious intent, are henceforth counted as virtues.”


By whom is sanctity attained?

 

“Aaron divested himself of his clothing.”  “This explains their intention, what they [the Talmudic sages] of blessed memory meant by their comment, in the [midrash] Yalkut: That ‘Aaron was to divest himself of his clothing, and then clothe himself in the clouds of glory.’ From this point on, Aaron would never be divested of clothing, even at the moment that Moses was undressing him, he would not be divested except of his clothing.  However, the cloud would clothe every single part and portion of the life force that was his.”

 

Rashi (19:22) regarding the Red Heifer, that purifies those who have, through contact with impurity, have impaired their access to sanctity: “It is comparable to the maid’s child who has dirtied the king’s palace.  All say: ‘Let his mother come and clean up the excrement.’  Here too, let the Heifer come and atone for the Calf.” (Tanhuma 8)


Sometimes it is the process that is decisive,  rather than the beginning or end point, as in: “Therefore, man leaves his father and mother, and attaches to his wife.”

 

Prohibited – permitted.  Evil versus good.  Sacred versus profane.  Impure versus pure. 

The tendency to externalize, to be extremist, and to be compulsively neurotic – is actually a tendency to judge reality from outside of the cycle of human existence.  It is to judge things according to values of good and evil that are external boundary lines, that do not reflect what is unfolding within the cycle of human existence. 

 

Such a fixed and rigid approach is alien to the Torah perception.  Human behavior flows along an axis that possesses extreme end points, it is true (good and evil, sacred and profane) but that is not determined by them.  Rather, behavior is determined according to the quality that is reflected from it.

 

All things follow from how one is human:

  • A transgression done for the sake of heaven. 
  • A mitsva done not for the sake of heaven. 
  • “In the place where ba’alei teshuva stand (where teshuva is done out of love) even the utterly righteous cannot stand.” 
  • Cavana, personal, subjective meaning, introduced into objective behavior.

 

 

This anti-rigid approach is symbolized by the red heifer.  The same cow serves in two opposite roles.  One person, it purifies.  Another, it defiles.  It is the process that counts. 

 

Good can become evil, through a process, by which evil swallows up good, just like in Pharoah’s dream: “No one could even tell that the one had entered into the other.”

 

To purify, the cow must be burned.  “Let the mother come and clean the excrement of her child.”  It is a process of cleansing, of intrinsic self-purification within the substance of the condition itself, within its own space and time.

 

“Therefore shall a man leave his father and mother and attach to his wife.”

Here is a process by which dependency passes into independence.  It is not a movement from one extreme to another extreme but rather a passage from a symbiotic connection of dependency to a connection through liberation and independence, which is expressed by giving.  Connectedness still remains, but its substance changes; from dependency it becomes reciprocity. 

 

This process is bound up with suffering and with injury: It defiles, and it purifies as well.

 

Such was the case with mei meriva: Moshe is attempting to undo the people’s tendency to fixate in a rigid fashion upon the rock as having magical features, or upon any object.  On the heftsa in general: “Do you think that from this rock, we will bring out water for you?” 

 

Hitting the rock misses the target, and fails to attain their goal of teaching dependency upon God through liberation from all rigid fixations upon objects.  Speaking to the rock would have kept the miracle within the cycle of human existence, whereas hitting the rock placed the event outside of the human cycle.

 

Similarly with regard to nahash hanehoshet, the snake of copper.  Just as the bitter waters were sweetened by the tree, and “from fierce, sweet came out”, it was necessary to uproot the tendency to fix a rigid attitude upon the snake as a source of harm: It is human behavior that is the cause of things, and not the snake.  It is not the principle that determines, and it is not the given data in the field of reality that determines.  Rather, the process that unfolds between these two is what determines, and is decisive.

 

For this reason, sacred and profane are not divided only into place and time, and this is true also of purity and impurity.  Purification is a process within the human inner self.  For this reason, mitat neshika, death by [God’s] kiss does not cause tumat met, death’s impurity – as seen in Aharon’s death.

 

Human quality is the determiner of good and evil.  It is not good and evil that determine human quality. 

 

The red heifer renders the pure impure, and the impure pure.  In conceptual terms: Just as a human being can turn into a cow, a cow can turn into a human being. 

 

Uprooting Judaism from the human cycle and turning it into something externalized and fixed means Reform, which exists in every movement that calls itself holy, and that fetters human beings, and calls dogma holy, and clothing, and ritual, and all other practices that call themselves holy, yet have ceased to be an expression of inner quality.

 

Being afraid of sinning is not the same as the awe and dread of sin.  Being afraid distances one, and prevents confrontation.  Awe immunizes one against the damage inherent in the sin.  We see here that being afraid fixes the sin outside of the human being, while awe encourages one to relate to the sin not as a defined action within an external time and space, but rather it deals with the human tendency toward sin, with the temptation factor and with the other features of sin, that are found within man himself, and not merely outside of him.

 

“All of the disease that I have placed upon Egypt, I shall not place upon you, for I am God, your Healer.”  The disease that I have placed on Egypt is the external condition that unfolds outside of the human cycle.  From this point onward, you, child of Israel, shall be God’s servant, dependent on yourself alone, and not on any external condition.

 

Your inner condition is connected to the Godly axis only, and activating it is in your hands only.

 

“For I (only) am God, your Healer”:  Only by your hand, when itaruta dilitata, “the awakening of the lower one” arouses itaruta dili’aila, “the awakening of the Higher One.”

 

“The Holy One is exacting with tsadikim, to a hair’s breadth.”  He judges them not according to their deeds, but according to their level.  See Nazir 52: 

Bar Kapra’s teeth were blackened by the fasts that he fasted all his life, for having had the arrogance to dispute the view of his master, Rabi Akiva.

See also Tractate Avoda Zara 17 regarding Rabi Elazar ben Harta and Rabi Hanina ben Tradion who were punished for not being concerned over publicity.

Consider also the principle of “mitsvot that a man tramples with his heels” and consider also the fact that one is judged according the quality of one’s own attitude to the mitsvot.

 

 

 

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