Posted March 11 2008
Being a Heretic, OR, Holy Unfathomables, Batman
This is the fourth in a series of articles promoting the idea that people should feel free to come up with their own ways of interpreting biblical verses and Talmudic reasoning. You don’t have to be right to have an opinion, but you do need an opinion if you want to be right.
The 71 Sided Die - Why should you want to have your own interpretation of Torah?
Esther vs. Kermit - Why does the Gemara say Esther was green?
Disagreeing with the Talmud - How to find meaning in fuzzy, fluffy logic.
Intro
Anyone trying to understand the laws of the Torah is told that no matter how much effort is put into understanding the logic behind an edict, it will never be fully understood. Regarding a select few Mitzvot one will be told that no matter how much effort is put into understanding the logic behind those edicts, they will never begin to be understood.
The creme de la creme in the unfathomable lot is the Holy Cow, the Red Heifer, the Para Aduma or the Impure Purifier. This mystical bovine somehow makes some people pure while making others impure. Trying to understand this conundrum is contingent on our understanding the difference between pure and impure.
Purity
To be brief, the Jewish force of purity (Tahara) is life force. How things are alive is something which modern scientists are still attempting to wrap their heads around. The more life something has, the more Tahor it is. When life leaves some being, the being and what it touches becomes impure, or Tameh. The easiest example to explain this is womanhood. Women have life enter and leave their bodies on a constant cycle. When a woman has her period, a potential life leaves her body, and she becomes impure for a short amount of time. When a woman gives birth, an actual life leaves her body and she is impure for a greater amount of time. Mathematically speaking, a moment before the birth the woman was (at least) a +2 (0 being dead) on the life scale, and the process of birth was a -1. This leaves her at +1 from dead, but -1 from where she was previously. (Consider also that when a female child is born the mother is impure for longer. A female is born with all the egg cells already developed, so a female baby in the mothers womb would be slightly more than a 1 on the mathematical life scale.)
Purity comes in all levels, but always in relation to life and death. Even dead bugs can alter human purity based on certain forms of contact. When a person touches a dead human (and in a few other cases), the live person has entered the most extreme level of impurity. Other levels can be set right by the use of time and a ritual bath into “living waters.”* The level of impurity caused by contact with human death can only be returned to purity through the sprinkling of a soup whose major ingredient is the ashes of a red cow.
Red
Why red? Red is the color of blood, sin and vice. While that doesn’t seem to be the kind of thing that would make us pure, we might want to consider our very essence. The Biblical ancestor of humanity is Adam, a word which means earth (dirt), and shares the root form of Edom, red.
Although we may have been red once, we are told to strive for a different spiritual color. Isaiah 1:18 is read many times when we are asking for redemption. There we are told that although our sins be red like scarlet and crimson, they shall become white like snow or wool.** Red is the color of lust, anger and pain. White is the color of serenity.
It should not surprise you (though it probably will) that after the slaughter of the red cow, its tail turns white. This is similar to a miracle that happened annually on Yom Kippur, when a red cloth turned white to symbolize God’s acceptance of the day’s rituals.
Life and Death
Symbolically, the red cow is an animal that lived a dead life and only after its death began to live. Its redness is only the most obvious of signs that point to this conclusion. Once the ashes of the red cow [turned white] are mixed together with particularly potent “living waters” the conclusion is bottled life force. A life force strong enough to correct the situation for someone who is experiencing a negative in his life force due to contact with the dead. Similarly, those pure people that dealt with the water have a minor decrease in their equation since they were holding it and now have to let it go.***
And so, in about 600 words, I believe I have summed up and answered the Mitzvah with the biggest question mark. Purity is life force. The red cow was an inverted being that was dead while living and now more alive that it is dead. The sprinkling of the water added life force to those sprinkled and too it away from those who sprinkled it. Next week, I’ll establish peace and harmony on Earth in nine words…†
I realize that my thoughts are MY thoughts, and I have left out many details for the sake of some brevity. The idea I hoped to present is that no matter how deep a concept, you (yes, YOU) should not feel you are not permitted to try to understand it. The Torah is your Torah, take everything for yourself… and share what you have taken.
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*The parameters of Mikvah are a bit too complex and tangential to go into now. Most importantly, water is considered life on many Kabbalistic levels, and the water of the Mikvah requires running waters, defined as “living” waters.
**Interestingly, the verse claims that the sins will become white [purified], not the sinners. Also interesting is that this verse is in the context of a condemnation of rituals and commendation of good deeds.
***There is a dispute whether the Kohein who did the actual sprinkling is Tameh. Most claim that he is not Tameh, while I disagree. Also, the person who got sprinkled does not become 100% better immediately, the process takes a full week.
† (Please note, that symbol is not a crucifix.) For those who lack patience, here it is: “Kill them all and let God sort it out.” Life would be much simpler if it wasn’t.
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