Menachem Mirski
In this week’s Torah portion we find a number of laws related to matters of purity and impurity. Moses teaches the people of Israel about the laws related to the red heifer, whose ashes purify a person who has become impure as a result of touching a dead body. In addition, in the subsequent part of the Parashah we find a story in which venomous serpents attack the Israelites’ camp after yet another outburst of their discontent. Moses once again pleads on behalf of his people and as a result of his prayers God instructs him to cast a serpent in brass and put it on a high pole. Anyone who’s been bitten by a serpent would be healed after looking at that figure.
A Midrash claims that all the instructions given to Moses by God in essence referred to two matters: becoming impure (including also becoming non-kosher) and purifying oneself from that impurity (or from being non-kosher). That purity and impurity, kosherness and non-kosherness relates to all aspects of human life.
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]“…and the people spoke against God and against Moses, “Why did you make us leave Egypt to die in the wilderness? There is no bread and no water, and we have come to loathe this miserable food.” The [Eternal] sent seraph serpents against the people. They bit the people and many of the Israelites died. The people came to Moses and said, “We sinned by speaking against the [Eternal] and against you. Intercede with the [Eternal] to take away the serpents from us!” And Moses interceded for the people. Then the [Eternal] said to Moses, “Make a seraph figure and mount it on a standard. And if anyone who is bitten looks at it, he shall recover.” Moses made a copper serpent and mounted it on a standard; and when anyone was bitten by a serpent, he would look at the copper serpent and recover.” (Numbers 21:5-10.)[/perfectpullquote]
The story of the exodus from Egypt is in fact a story of the purification of the people of Israel and of its internal, spiritual transformation. And that was exactly the reason why God forced the people to make a series of sacrifices – so that it would learn how to think, act and live in a completely different way than it was accustomed to in Egypt. God did not directly punish our people, but He did force them to make certain sacrifices, while at the same time continuously supplying the Israelites with the necessary means so that they could survive the harsh conditions that camping in the wilderness entails. Those punishments, at times very severe and painful, came as a result of the many repeated rebellions of the Israelites against Moses and God.
I’d like to propose the following interpretation of this passage from the Torah: if someone in the course of their own spiritual, personal or psychological transformation complains about its necessity and starts to miss the state they originally decided to renounce, they can end up in a great deal of trouble. However, if such people are able to direct their attention and to remain aware of what is destructive for them and what they have decided to overcome either in themselves or in their surroundings, this can lead to their healing and it can protect them from tragedies and from the return of the previous, negative state.
The story we find in our Torah portion teaches us yet another wisdom: the process of our spiritual transformation and improvement never reaches its end. In our lives this process often comes to a halt. We stop it ourselves because we are content and accept the state that we have reached at that given point in our lives. We come up with different rationalizations in order to justify our lack of action in certain areas. However, we should not rest on our laurels and we should not allow that process to stop, since in such a case we experience stagnation and we stifle our life’s dynamics – the dynamics which is in fact its inherent, essential part. We can observe this situation every day, both in our human world as well as in nature. In fact, stagnation and acceptance of the existing state of affairs can be more dangerous than we usually think and sometimes it can have very painful consequences for us.
We can also observe this situation in our personal life, for example in interpersonal relationships, especially in romantic relationships, which simply cannot stand stagnation. In fact, as we are stuck in accepting the existing state of affairs, we can make the life of our close ones – and as a consequence also our own – worse off. I believe there is no need to provide any examples of this here; many of us have certainly experienced such situations and can point to such examples in their own lives.
We face the same situation in our political reality, where people with good intentions and with an openness towards the world and other people often overlook the possibility of a real, positive change, which in effect makes our common life worse than it was before. Therefore we should always remain alert, even – or especially – as we experience a state of blissful well-being, since we can never be completely sure what processes are unfolding in our world, since part of them are beyond the reach of our direct perception. Often as individuals we don’t have direct influence over those processes, but they nonetheless impact and shape our reality. However, we can try to influence them and oppose them, but this requires us to stay aware and to undertake joint actions.
Shabbat Shalom!
Translated from Polish by: Marzena Szymańska-Błotnicka
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