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0:00 Dear friends, welcome to this week's virtual drasha. 0:02 This week we have the incredible privilege to read the double parshas of Chukas and Balak. 0:06 In the beginning of parshas Chukas, the Torah gives us the mitzvah of Para Aduma, the red heifer, the red cow. 0:12 And again, this is amongst what we call the paradigmatic chok in the wide, beautiful, and holy world of mitzvahs. 0:18 There are many types of mitzvahs. 0:19 There are some which are just automatically intuitive. 0:21 Kavod es avivcha v'es imcha. 0:23 Even if I had not commanded me to honor my parents, I would have done so because it makes sense. 0:28 Lo sirtzach, don't kill, intuitive. 0:30 Then there are other mitzvahs which are not necessarily intuitive. 0:33 For example, Hashem tells me to go ahead and keep Shabbos. 0:38 So, I don't know that I would have known on my own to have a day of rest. 0:41 But once Hashem tells me to do it, and once I understand that the hashkafa behind it is to understand that Hakadosh Baruchu is the primary mover and shaker in the universe. 0:48 He is the ultimate ongoing creator. 0:51 It makes sense. I understand it. 0:53 I wouldn't have intuitively known to put tzitzis on the corners of my garment. 0:56 But once I understand that the number of strings and the knots correspond to the number of mitzvahs. 1:01 Once I understand that the techeiles, the blue string, is to remind me of the sea, which reminds me of the heavens, which reminds me of the throne of Hakadosh Baruchu, again, intuitively it makes sense. 1:10 But then, there's a third category of mitzvahs, what we call just chukim. 1:14 And chukim are these mitzvahs which really seem to defy all human comprehension. 1:18 They don't seem to have a reason. 1:20 Now, of course, every mitzvah has a reason because Hakadosh Baruchu does not ask us to do things for the sake of doing things. 1:26 Everything has a reason, everything has a purpose. 1:28 But in this world of chukim, these are these mitzvahs which don't appear at first glance to have a a reason which I understand, or a reason which I could comprehend. 1:37 And Para Aduma tells us that if a person contracts ritual impurity by coming in contact with a corpse, there's an entire process. 1:43 You have to find the red heifer, and again, the halachos, the details of what determines a red heifer, the criteria, are quite intense. 1:49 Then you take the cow, you slaughter it outside of the Beis Hamikdash, you reduce it to ash, you mix the ash with a whole bunch of other ingredients. 1:56 This process or this mixture is then sprinkled upon the individual who was tame, who was ritually impure and renders him tame, and renders him tahor, excuse me. 2:05 Renders him ritually pure. 2:06 And then again, fascinatingly enough, it has the opposite effect upon the person in people involved in the process. 2:12 The coin is sprinkled, the one who transports the water. 2:15 These individuals who may have started as tahor, ritually pure, then become tame. 2:21 Fascinating halakha, a fascinating chok. 2:23 And again, the point of this chok ultimately is to highlight and to cultivate the sense of allegiance and fidelity to Hakadosh Baruch Hu. 2:30 Because, dear friends, we do not follow our king because it appeals to our intellect. 2:35 We don't follow our king because we understand everything and anything that he asks of us, but we follow because it's a privilege to follow. 2:41 We follow and we serve because it is the greatest privilege in the world to be close to Hakadosh Baruch Hu and through the performance of the mitzvot, the ones we understand and the ones we don't, we are privileged to relationship. 2:51 And I want to draw your attention to a fascinating detail in all of this. 2:55 The Torah says, this is in Parshat Ki Tisa, chapter 19, verse 15, pasuk test vav. 3:02 The Torah says when speaking about all of the halakhot of tumah, ritual purity, it says the whole kli pasuach asher ein samit pasil alav tamei hu. 3:12 So, literal translation, any open utensil that does not have a stopper, no stopper, no cork, no plug to the utensil, tamei hu, it is ritually impure. 3:23 What is this referring to? 3:24 Serach Hakodesh says, "Bikli cheres Hakodesh medaber." 3:28 Torah is speaking about a very specific utensil, an earthenware utensil. 3:32 She'ein mekabel tumah migabo, ela mitocho. 3:36 There's a fascinating halakha, fascinating detail, technical detail about earthenware utensils. 3:41 Earthenware utensils cannot contract tumah on the outside. 3:46 So, for example, if you were to take a tamei item, again, without getting too graphic, you were to take a dead rodent, which is source of tumah, and you were to slap that on the outside outside of an earthenware utensil, 3:58 it would not become tumah, the earthenware utensil. 4:01 The only way an earthenware utensil, a clay Harris, becomes tumah is what Rashi calls mitoch ho, on the inside. 4:08 So, if you were to take that same rodent and dangle it in the interior airspace of that earthenware utensil, even though there's no contact between the tumah, the item of ritual impurity, and the actual interior walls, the earthenware utensil becomes 4:24 tumah when the tumah item, when the item of ritual impurity, is within inside the airspace. 4:30 Even again, obviously, if it touches the interior walls, then it becomes tumah. 4:35 But, even if it doesn't touch the interior walls, but it's just dangled in the airspace of the earthenware utensil, the earthenware utensil becomes tumah. 4:43 Now, I know, not the most riveting halachas, a lot of technicality, but this is important. 4:49 Therefore, Rashi explains over here, the possuk is talking about an earthenware utensil. 4:53 The clay Harris the possuk is madaber, she ain't macabel tumah migavo el mitoch ho. 4:57 The item, the utensil, only contracts tumah on its interior, but not from its exterior. 5:02 Therefore, lefi chach, im ain megufas tzimdoso psula alav, yafeh bechibur, tamei hu. 5:10 So, therefore, this is an important halacha. 5:11 So, therefore, if you have, let's say, now remember, one one more technical detail. 5:16 There's something called tumas oil. 5:17 I know, a lot of technicalities this week. 5:19 There there's something called tumas oil. 5:20 Tumas oil means, let's say, God forbid, a person dies and they're inside a home. 5:24 Anything underneath the same roof as that corpse ultimately becomes tumah as well. 5:29 That's what's called tumas oil. 5:31 So, therefore, Rashi says, here's what the possuk is teaching me. 5:33 If, let's say, someone passes away inside of a home, and underneath that same roof with the person who passed away is an earthenware utensil. 5:41 So, now the shaila, the question is, does the earthenware utensil become tumah? 5:44 And the answer is, it depends. 5:46 What does it depend on? 5:48 Was the earthenware utensil open or was there like a cork? 5:52 Was there a stopper in the on the original on the on the mouth of the earthenware utensil? 5:56 If there was a stopper there, a cork, some type of plug, so the earthenware utensil the interior is plugged up, it's closed, there was a lid on it, so then the tumah can't permeate the utensil because remember as we said 6:08 before, an earthenware utensil only becomes tumah through its interior, not its exterior. 6:14 So therefore the utensil is not tumah. 6:15 If there's a cork, there's a plug, there's a stopper, there's a lid, the earthenware utensil remains ritually pure, tahor. 6:23 However, if there is no cork, no stopper, no lid, the earthenware utensil is open, then by definition it contracts tumah by being underneath the same roof as the corpse. 6:35 That says Rashi the So therefore, if we both go back and we read the pasuk, the kli pasuach in some any earthenware utensil which is in the same house underneath the same roof as a corpse, and it doesn't have a 6:48 lid, it doesn't have a stopper, it doesn't have a plug, right? 6:51 Therefore, tumahu. Ultimately again it will contract tumah. 6:54 Why? Because once again an earthenware utensil only contracts tumah from its interior, not its exterior. 7:02 So you think to yourself, okay, we're 7 minutes in and I just got a bunch of halachas, a bunch of laws about the laws of tumah and taharah, ritual purity and impurity as they apply to an earthenware utensil. 7:12 Now what? So dear friends, here's where I think the Torah is giving us a tremendous and overwhelming and beautiful and profound life lesson. 7:20 We know Adam mashal kakli. 7:23 A person is often compared to a utensil on many different levels. 7:27 But the utensil that a person most resembles, chazal the rabbis tell us, is an earthenware utensil. 7:33 A kli cheres. Because just like a kli cheres is made from the earth, so ultimately Adam Adam comes from adamah, comes from the earth as well. 7:42 And therefore we find especially as we come to the Yamim Noraim liturgy and it's an amazing to contemplate that the Yamim Noraim, the high holidays are not too far off. 7:50 We find many many references that Adam nimshal kikli cheres, a person, right? 7:56 Hineni arei aniy l'fanekha kikli malei v'shokhin. 7:59 We say at the end of Shmoneh Esrei, "I shall stand before you like like a utensil, like a utensil full of all different kinds of things." 8:07 But I think that this imagery of this metaphor is so incredibly important. 8:11 Because just like an earthen ware utensil only becomes tamei if you allow the impurity inside of it. 8:20 So so too, dear friends, we only become ritually impure if we allow things inside of us. 8:30 You see, in life you often don't have a choice about what impacts the outside of your utensil, right? 8:37 I can often can't control I go into the world I can't control what's hitting the outside of my utensil. 8:42 I can't control sometimes the exposures that I have, what I see, what occur, what is said what is said to me. 8:49 I often don't control the stimuli around me. 8:53 I don't control the circumstances around me. 8:55 But what do I control? 8:57 I control what I allow into my utensil. 9:01 I control the influences. 9:03 I control the baggage. 9:05 I control the positivity or the negativity that you allow to permeate to come inside of your utensil. 9:12 You know, the Meforshim, the commentaries point out that the 10th of the 10 Commandments is lo sachmod. 9:17 Lo sachmod, don't covet, don't be jealous. 9:20 And many of the commentaries are bothered by this. 9:21 How can you tell someone not to be jealous, right? 9:24 I come home, I see my neighbor got a brand new beautiful car. 9:27 Ah, I maybe I can't afford that car or maybe I I I want it but I can't have it or my neighbor's putting on an addition or my neighbor's kids are so well behaved or their marriage looks so perfect. 9:39 How can you tell a person not to be jealous? 9:41 Jealousy is the most natural reaction ultimately to seeing someone who has something that you don't have, that you want, but for whatever the reason maybe you don't have it, you can't have it. 9:52 How can you tell a person not to be jealous? 9:55 And many of the commentaries explain so beautifully, the prohibition, the love, right? 10:00 The prohibition is not that you can't be jealous. 10:03 It's that you can't remain jealous. 10:05 Sometimes I can't control initially how I feel. 10:09 But I control sustained feeling. 10:12 Do I allow myself to continue feeling a certain way? 10:17 Initially, the reflexive the reflexive feeling the reflexive emotion maybe I can't control. 10:21 But do I allow that emotion, do I allow that feeling to sit inside of my personalistic utensil? 10:28 That's my decision. Because dear friends, I control what I allow into my personalistic earthenware utensil. 10:35 I control what I allow to reside inside my clay. 10:39 And if I want to put a lid on it, if I want to put the stopper in it, if I want to put the cork in there, I can control what goes in. 10:47 On the outside of the utensil, I control very little. 10:50 I control very little. 10:51 But what I choose to keep in my utensil, what I choose to retain in my utensil, that's up to me. 10:58 And what a profound lesson for us. 11:00 What do you keep inside your utensil? 11:04 And sometimes if you can't necessarily control what immediately goes in, you absolutely control what remains inside your utensil. 11:14 What do you carry around inside your personalistic clay? 11:19 Do I harbor animosity, grudges, resentment? 11:22 And maybe it's well-founded. 11:24 Maybe because people did stuff to me, hurt me, did all kinds of different things. 11:28 But I choose if I want to schlepp that around or they're That's up to me if I keep it in my utensil. 11:33 Maybe I'm so down just about my past failures, my feeling of under accomplishment, my feeling of not measuring up. 11:40 Okay. Maybe it's legitimate, maybe it's not. 11:43 But do you want to schlepp it around in your clee? 11:45 That's your choice. That's your choice to decide what you want to put inside your clee. 11:53 Feelings of optimism, feelings of hope, feelings of depression, feelings of simcha. 11:57 What you choose, you choose. 12:00 You can't choose what impacts the outside of your personalistic utensil. 12:04 But you absolutely choose what to carry around inside your utensil. 12:10 I choose what to let in, and even if I can't choose initially what to let in, I choose what to allow to remain in. 12:19 And have a how incredible would it be during these days of tammuz, during these days which kind of lead up to some of the darkest times on our calendrical experience, to take a step back, to take inventory. 12:31 Let me kind of take my personalistically, let me empty it out on the table of life and see like what what what do I got in there? 12:38 What's what's in there? 12:40 What's inside the personalistic clee? 12:42 And I'm sure there's a ton of stuff that's fantastic and wonderful. 12:45 But I have no doubt for myself that there are a number of things that should not be in there. 12:50 There's negative feelings, there's resentments, there's toxicity, there's grudges, there's all kinds of things that are in there. 12:58 There are feelings of inadequacy, all kinds of things that are lining that clee. 13:03 And do I want to carry it around with me? 13:05 Do I want to schlepp it along with me in life? 13:08 Or do I want to empty out the personalistic clee, put the stopper, put the lid, put the covering on it and say, "You know what? 13:16 Enough. Enough. I can't control the outside of my clee, but I absolutely control the interior." 13:21 And the problem is, if I don't control the interior, if I I control what goes into my clee, the Gemara says the whole cle pasul. 13:28 If your personalistic utensil is just wide open and you don't filter what you allow to go in there, but anything and everything that happens, you just let inside of your personalistic cle, asher ein samuch b'fiha, there's no lid, there's no 13:40 lid, there's no stopper, tamei hu, you're going to defile your cle. 13:45 Because if you have no filter, you just let everything in there, it's going to destroy you. 13:50 It's going to corrode you. 13:51 It's going to undermine your ability to accomplish great things in life. 13:55 I decide what goes in my cle. 13:58 I don't decide what happens on the exterior, but here's the good news. 14:01 What happens on the exterior doesn't make my cle tamei. 14:04 It's only what happens on the inside. 14:06 Control your cle. Take control of your life. 14:10 Take control of who who and what you want to be and decide that although you can't control the external stimuli, I absolutely decide what I allow in and maybe better stated what I allow to remain inside my cle. 14:25 Use your stopper. Use the lid. 14:27 Control your cle and decide what in life you want to be part of your experience. 14:33 What are the things you want to remain inside of you and what are the things you're finally ready to let go of. 14:40 Control your cle and if we could do that, then we pave the way for beautiful, dramatic, and holy, successful living. 14:47 Wishing everyone a good nerve shabbos and a beautiful shabbos kodesh.
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