As we have been preparing for the
Pesach holiday, running to various supermarkets in Toronto, bringing up the
Pesach dishes, kashering the oven, cleaning, and cooking while simultaneously
get children to their various activities and still take care of my responsibilities
at work, I had a very interesting phone conversation with our son. I had just
finished meeting with a family in preparation for a funeral. I called my wife
to check in and to check if she needed me to pick run any errands. Our son
answered the cell phone. He was talking very quietly and I asked him where he
was. “Mommy took us to the mall because one of your daughters needed a blouse
or something.” I asked why he was talking so softly. “I don’t want mommy or
your daughters to hear what I am about to say. I hate going to the mall with
them. I hate shopping with them. Girls have cooties. Please pick me up and get
me out of here.” The poor kid sounded
like this was his one call from jail. Thankfully he couldn’t see me smiling. I
agreed with him regarding his assessment about girls. “Yes, when I was your
age, girls have cooties. Trust me, as you get older you will realize that they
don’t.” I re-assured him that they would be leaving in a few minutes as our son
had to get to his activity anyway. I
hung up and thought about what our son had said and thought about myself when I
was eight. After all, when we little boys still feared the girls, and thought
of them as “gross”, the boy who was the Cootie Doctor held an enormous amount
of power. He determined who had been rendered contaminated. Make no mistake,
the Cootie Doctor made it very clear, just touching the girl, accidentally
grazing her arm, let alone her punching you after you pulled her pig tails,
rendered us boys contaminated. Only the Cootie Doctor could re-purify us. It
was only now, after listening to my son explain that he too thought that girls
have cooties that I realize if the Cootie Doctor had any entrepreneurial spirit
whatsoever, he could have made a tidy fortune off of every eight year old boy’s
perspective on girls.
This Shabbat we read from Parsha
Tzav. While the previous Parsha, VaYikra spoke of the various rules and
regulations for the number of offerings; the Parsha focused upon Bnai Yisroel,
the types of animals that are brought for Korbonot (usually animal offerings)
and what happens to the animal at the time of the Korbonot. In Parshat Tzav,
the first two chapters, focus is upon the role of the Kohanim, the priests,
their entitlements, their privileges and the responsibilities in the
sacrificial process. Some offering are to be burned completely and the Kohen is
not entitled to anything, and some other offerings are NOT to be burned
completely and the Kohen is entitle to the food that is left over.
The Torah text suggests that the
transfer of purity and impurity is similar to our “little boy” perceptions of
Cooties. All we needed to do was touch or be touched and we could be rendered
as pure or impure. However the notion of transferring purity and impurity wasn’t
confined only to people. It could occur with our offerings and our food. In outlining the Meal Offering the Torah
explains that Kol Zachar Bivnei Aharon Yochlena Chok Olam L’Doroteichem Mei’Ishei
Adoshem Kol Asher Yigah Bahem Yikdash – Every
male of the children of Aharon shall eat it, an eternal portion for your
generations, from the fire offerings of Hashem; whatever touches them shall
become holy (6:11). Rashi clarifies that the Meal Offering state of purity is
quite powerful. If a food or vessel
touches the meal offering in such a way that the second vessel absorbs the
taste of the Meal Offering, then that food/vessel must be treated with the same
stringencies as Meal Offering. Meaning the second vessel of food must be eaten
in its entirety and in the same place as the Meal Offering is consumed. The
holiness of the Meal Offering has been transferred to the second food vessel;
and must be treated as holy.
Unlike children and the
neighborhood “Cootie Doctor”, we adults have a difficult time with this notion
of purity and impurity. Yet from a spiritual perspective it makes complete
sense. If we touch things that are not holy, we are rendered unholy. If we
touch things that are holy, we have become holier. There are certain behaviors,
certain foods and certain people we avoid because it we may be harmed. The same
holds true in the spiritual realm as well. No, we don’t have “Cootie Doctors”
anymore. But as Jews throughout the world make their final preparations for the
Passover Holiday, we rid our house of Chometz. We rid ourselves selves of the
unholiness that chometz, (leavened grain products) represents. In so doing, we will
be able to sit down at the Seder table and, like our son who will be sitting
next to his sisters not worrying about “cooties”; we won’t have to worry the
chametz. Instead, we will be in an elevated state of purity.
Peace,
Rav
Yitz
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