SHABBAT SHALOM - GOOD SHABBOS This weeks Torah reading opens with the ritual of the Red Heifer, where a person who has become ritually Impure is Purified by sprinkling the ashes of the offering mixed with spring water. Tahara/ Purity and Tuma /impurity are intrinsically related to the life/death cycle, and unrelated to personal hygiene or disease. Tuma is connected to all forms of “death” and the mortality of life, both literally and figuratively. Conversely, Tahara is connected to “life,” both literally and figuratively, and immortal forces of life. Life is movement and possibility. Death is an ‘end’, a state of stagnation. In death, at least in the physical realm, there is a stopping, a ceasing of hope, a cessation of movement and possibility. To be impure implies a connection with a ‘hopelessness’ consciousness. Purity, on the other hand, is all that is related with life, fluidity and newness, and all that stems from a place of possibility and hope. Although the ultimate mystery and paradoxical nature of the ritual is beyond comprehension, the specific symbolism is very pronounced. Ashes and water are mixed and sprinkled. When ashes and water mix it creates a form of soap, a cleansing, but there is something deeper occurring. Water is fluidity and life, pure and renewed. Water is the primordial state of creation, as the primordial waters covered the earth. Water represents creation existing in the cosmic womb as pure potential. Ashes represent the end of an old and the potential of a new, the dust returns to dust and thus a new cycle of life begins. There is Afar/earth and there is Eifar/ dust or ash. Earth represents the Ayin/ no-thing-ness of the Yesh/ existence, as the earth contains the potential of vegetation, yet, Eifer/ash is the deeper Ayin, the Ayin that is relatively beyond Yesh, pure potential. The ritual sprinkling of ash and water reconnects us with the cycle of life and potential of the new. Ultimately, it is our connection to the Creator, the source of all Reality, of all Life, the One who brings death to the living and brings the dead to life, that offers us renewal, hope and thus Tahara, a fresh renewed breath of life. Rav DovBer Pinson IYYUN
Posted on: Fri, 14 Jun 2013 17:00:42 +0000