Feature Tidbit Mother & Son With the Sin of the Golden Calf looming as a major theme of this week's sedra of Ki Tisa, and the Para Aduma being the theme of the Maftir and the Shabbat, it is hard not to examine these two topics in light of each other. Shabbat Parshat Ki Tisa is Parshat Para 41.7% of the time, more than twice as often as any of theother partners for Para. This says, DORSHEINI, analyze me and explain me. It is a well known concept that the Para Aduma is an atonement for the Golden Calf. Rashi records the MASHAL (analogy) of the woman who is servant to the King, who is called by the King to clean up the mess caused by her some. In the mitzva of Para Aduma, we have the mother (so to speak) of the Calf who is used to cleanup the mess of the Golden Calf. Slight problem. The Para Aduma potion is used to purify the ritually defiled. It isn't a sin to be TAMEI. Sometimes it's even a mitzva. The Para Aduma is not a "Sin Offering", that would match the idea of atonement. In fact, Para Aduma isn't a Korban of any kind. It was prepared completely outside the Beit HaMikdash. On the other hand, the potion of the Para Aduma is called MEI CHATAT. There just seems to be something out of synch. Some jump that was made from Tum'a and Tahara on the one hand, and sin and atonement, on the other. Part of the answer that will be suggested here lies in the fact that the Para Aduma potion is not used for general ritual impurity, but only for the impurity contracted by contact (or whatever) with a dead body. And that Mikve, which is the M'taheir in all other forms of ritual impurity is just as required for the specifickind of Tum'a of the dead body. In other words, Eifer Para Aduma is an additional procedure of the purification process, not something that works on its own. There seems to be an aspect of the Tum'a of a dead body, in particular, that is related to the Golden Calf through its relationship to the Para Aduma. With any source of Tum'a, we can ask the question - why is this considered a source of ritual defilement. The answers will not be the same from source to source. Here, the specific source is known as Avi Avot HaTum'a (the father of all defilement). Why is this so? Why is a dead body Tamei? Why should it not be viewed as the empty shell that had been the vessel containing the NESHAMA? The answer lies in what could have been and what turned out to be. G-d's original plan, so to speak, was for humans to be His earthly partners. His "expectation" was that we would be only good, and we would live forever. It was not to be. First humans sinned. And G-d distanced Himself from them. Death was the manifestationof the distance between humans and the Divine. With Bnei Yisrael accepting the Torah the way we did, G-d once again was to have His earthly partners. But the Sin of the Golden Calf said otherwise. The body is not just the vessel of the soul - it became the antagonist of the soul (sometimes). And when the soul leaves thebody, what is left behind is the ultimate source of Tum'a. The purification process, which needs Eifer Para Aduma (and not just Mikve) restores a state of Tahara, but also has an atoning aspect for sin, as well. [The Ki Tisa Homepage] |
