This week we read two Torah portions, Matot and Masei. As we read in Matot, when the Jewish people returned from the war with Midian with their spoils, Moses commanded them to purify themselves from their ritual uncleanliness (caused by contact with the dead) by being sprinkled with water containing ashes of the red heifer. Afterwards, Eleazar the kohen (priest) enumerated the various laws of how to render the Midianites' non-kosher vessels kosher.
The Connection Between Anger and Mistaken Judgement
Why was it Eleazar who taught these laws rather than Moses? As Rashi explains, "Since Moses came under the influence of anger, he came under the influence of mistaken judgment, and the laws of cleansing vessels which had belonged to heathens were concealed from him." As related a few verses previously, Moses had become angry when he saw the Midianite women the Jews brought back with them.
Technically, Moses did not render "mistaken judgment," which would imply that he had stated the laws incorrectly. However, his failure to teach these laws stemmed from a different kind of "mistake":
Can the Waters of Sprinkling Also Kasher Utensils?
Moses had assumed that the ashes of the red heifer could render the non-kosher vessels kosher. If a few drops of the "water of sprinkling" could remove the greatest impurity of them all, contact with the dead, surely it had the power to kasher utensils.
That is why Eleazar prefaced his words with the declaration, "This is the statute of the Torah." The fact that the ashes of the red heifer can remove ritual impurity is a statute, a super-rational law that only applies to that specific type of uncleanliness, and cannot render impure vessels pure. For even after a vessel's impurity has been removed by the "water of sprinkling," the forbidden foods that were absorbed into it must be purged.
A More Fundamental Type of Purging is Necessary
Removing uncleanliness and making something kosher are two separate things: To remove spiritual uncleanliness, a few drops of water are sufficient. But to render a vessel kosher, a more fundamental type of purging is necessary, according to the particular manner in which the utensil was used.
Symbolically, purity is an "encompassing" G-dly influence that surrounds a person from without. For that reason, is it relatively simple to purify oneself: immersion in a mikva, or being sprinkled with the "water of sprinkling." By contrast, the process of making something kosher implies an inner and essential cleansing to remove embedded evil.
The Difference Between Moses and Eleazar the Kohen
Moses, who viewed the Jewish people from "on high," believed that external purification would automatically purify the "inside" as well. Eleazar, by contrast, whose function as a kohen was to elevate the Jewish people from below, held that externals weren't enough. For it is through "kashering" the various powers of the soul, each one individually, that a Jew achieves true purification and becomes a proper "vessel" for holiness.
Reprinted from the Parashat Matot-Masei 5761/2001 edition of L’Chaim, a publication of the Lubavitch Youth Organization in Brooklyn. Adapted from Volume 8 of Likutei Sichot.
