The Power of One to Purify the Many
Parshas Chukas begins with the laws of Tumas Mes, where we learn that if a person comes in contact with a dead body (or is merely under the same roof as a dead body) he is given the status of a ‘Tameh Mes‘ and the only way for him to become tahor (pure) is for him to be sprinkled with the water of the Parah Adumah (Red Heifer) on day three and day seven of a seven-day procedure.
The pasuk reads, ‘And the pure one shall sprinkle on the impure one on the third day and on the seventh day, and he shall purify him on the seventh day; then he shall immerse his clothing and immerse his flesh in water and be pure in the evening.’ [Bamidbar 19:19]. There is an interesting passage in the Talmud Yerushalmi (Jerusalem Talmud) which certainly requires further exposition. Rav Yehoshua ben Kafsai said ‘My whole life I read this pasuk ‘the pure one shall sprinkle on the impure one…’ and I assumed that a single tahor individual needed to sprinkle the Parah Adumah water on a single impure individual.’ Rav Yehoshua ben Kafsai then says, ‘This was the case until I learned otherwise from ‘Oztroseha shel Yavneh’ (literally – the storehouse of Yavneh) that a single tahor individual can even sprinkle on many tameh individuals.’
The question is, what does it mean he learned this law from the ‘Otzros of Yavneh’? What does the Talmud Yerushalmi mean by the term storehouse of Yavneh? Rav Meir Shaprio, the Lubliner Rav and the founder of the Daf Yomi concept, was also a powerful orator. He presents a homiletic exposition to this passage of the Talmud Yerushalmi.
What happened in Yavneh? At the time of the destruction of the Second Temple, Rabbi Yochanon ben Zakkai met Vespasian, the Roman General who later became Emperor of the Roman Empire. Vespasian granted Rav Yochanon ben Zakkai three wishes. One of the three things Rav Yochanon ben Zakkai asked for was ‘Yavneh and her Sages.’ Yavneh was a city on the Mediterranean Coast of Eretz Yisrael. It had a Yeshiva. Rav Yochanon pleaded that this Yeshiva be spared so that despite the great Destruction that was coming to the Temple and the Jewish population in Jerusalem and other parts of the country, he would have a few remaining Talmidei Chachomim who would preserve Torah and Judaism for future generations.
The Talmud (Gittin 56b) suggests that Rabbi Yochanon ben Zakkai may have made a mistake. Perhaps one of his requests of Vespasian should have been to spare the Beis HaMikdash. Be that as it may, Rav Meir Shapiro suggests that the Yerushalmi, in referring to the ‘Otzros of Yavneh,’ was indeed referring to the lesson learned from the Yeshiva of Rabbi Yochanon ben Zakkai in Yavneh!
The Torah that we learn here today, and the fact that there are still people who learn Torah throughout the Jewish world, is the result of the few Talmidei Chachomim left in Yavneh after the Churban HaBayis who literally saved the world of Torah. Had they been wiped out, Torah would have been forgotten.
So, what do we see from the ‘Otzros of Yavneh‘? Rav Yehoshua ben Kafsai was saying, ‘I see from Yavneh the power of one individual. One person—and certainly a few good people—can make a difference, can save the world! I always thought that one tahor person can sprinkle on one other tameh person and have a one-on-one affect. But from Yavneh I see that one tahor person can affect hundreds of people.’
We have seen in our lifetime individuals who have revolutionized the world. It is his homiletic insight, so we can cite him as an example. Consider Rav Meir Shapiro himself. It is mind-boggling to think of the zechus Rav Meir Shapiro has for coming up with Daf Yomi—now in their 14th cycle of daily Talmud study, completing Talmud Bavli once every seven-and-a-half years by synchronized study of a Daf a Day! Thousands and thousands of people worldwide learn Daf Yomi. Rav Meir Shapiro did not live 2,000 years ago or even 200 years ago. He lived in the 20th century. He came up with an idea that revolutionized the world. There are people like that.
There are others as well—Rav Aaron Kotler, the Vilna Gaon, the Ramban and the Rambam—people that revolutionized the Torah world. But even people like us can make a difference. One person can make a difference. For example—this is not a plug, but it comes to mind—The Ner Israel Rabbinical College, which many in my audience had the zechus to attend, started in 1933 with four students. Those four boys came to a nothing of a Yeshiva—it hardly even existed. But because four people came, it came into existence. Those four people who ‘took the plunge’ in 1933 can take at least partial credit for all the thousands of people who have passed through the portals of Ner Israel in all the subsequent decades of its flourishing development. They made a difference. This is what the Gemara means when Rav Yehoshua ben Kafsai says, ‘This I learned from the ‘Otzros of Yavneh‘.’ This is why one pure person can effectively purify many tameh individuals.
