Koshering our souls
In this week’s Parshah we are introduced to the laws of Koshering utensils.
The backdrop to these laws is the fascinating story of the war waged by the Israelites against the Midyanites:
This war of aggression was specifically commanded by God to avenge the spiritual fiasco fomented by the Midyanites which almost brought about the demise of the Jewish people and ended in a plague killing twenty-four thousand people.
The background to that narrative was the failure of Bilaam (a great non-Jewish prophet and political figure) to curse the people (his curses were transformed into the most profound messianic blessings!). Bilaam knew that the people could not be defeated militarily because the Israelites had already overcome the great tribal kings of the region Sichon of Emori and Og of Bashan (today the famous Golan Heights). Moab and Midyan were subservient to these kings paying tribute so military aggression was out of the question. That is why initially Bilaam attempted in his contemptuous arrogance to curse the people only to find that “those who curse them are cursed and those who bless them are blessed”.
And so, onto plan B. Bilaam knew that God despised promiscuity (Zimah in Hebrew) amongst the Jewish people and so hatched a plan that involved sending the beautiful Midyanite women including the princesses to seduce the men and lure them into idolatry. It was the most lurid of scenes with thousands of Jewish men succumbing to the basest forms of addictive behaviour. This ultimately led to to the worship and attachment of the Midaynite idol Peor. The worship of Peor involved the basest action of defecation. This was highly symbolic as it represented the deification of all that is ungodly and unholy in the world- the antithesis of what the Torah strives for. In a nutshell Jewish men succumbed to the worship of pleasure stripped from its spiritual root.
Bilaam’s plan almost worked as chaos and frenzied behaviour spread throughout the camp leading to a plague killing thousands. The plague was only brought to a stop by the brave actions of Pinchas the grandson of Aharon (who had already died). He zealously acted to sanctify Gods name and killed the prince of the tribe of Shimon (Zimri) during his public promiscuous act with Kozbi (the midyanite princess).
In Parshat Mattot, God commanded that the Israelites send twelve thousand troops (1000 from each tribe) who represented the holiest most refined characters of the army to destroy Midyan on behalf of Israel. This was not a war concerning the conquering of land. That was the case in previous wars against the Emorites and future battles in the days of Joshuah to conquer the land of Israel proper.
This war was a spiritual war to eradicate an evil idolatrous society who were the antithesis of the Torah’ vision of creating a society predicated on freedom and the pursuit of justice and righteousness and holiness. Admittedly it is hard for us to understand the “justification” for an aggressive war, but we must try to appreciate the deleterious and toxic effects on society of such mass perversion of sexual morals.
And so, war began. The relatively small Israelite army were victorious and defeated the Midyanites. They brought back spoils from war including cooking utensils. The Torah commands us not to use the utensils prior to first purging them from prohibited substances. Even if the utensil was used only for cold non-kosher items, it would still require immersion in a Mikveh (which we do to this day!)
The laws of Koshering/purging vessels can be summarised with three basic principals
- Tastes of non-kosher food are considered (Halchically) to absorb into the walls of a utensil rendering the vessel none-kosher for Jewish use.
- Nevertheless, the non-kosher flavour can be extracted
- The rule of extraction is as taught in the Talmud “As the utensil absorbs so does it emit”. Thus, classically if non-kosher food was cooked in a utensil using boiling water, then to kosher the vessel it also must be boiled (cleaned of any visible substance prior) in water. This koshering process is called “Hagaalah”. Conversely if the utensil was used to dry roast a food, then the “fire” has come into direct contact with the food and utensil and so to kosher it the vessel too must be brought into direct contact with fire. This is a much more vigorous and hotter process known as “libun” (today a blow torch is used).
Now the Chassidic masters teach that every halacha has deep spiritual meaning as well as parallels in our inner lives. Translating the three principals of koshering into our spiritual lives we learn…
- Every morally negative or spiritually toxic experience in our lives absorbs into the walls of our soul. It penetrates us in profound ways effecting our beliefs, attitudes and feeding other negative behaviours if we do not address the toxicity we have inculcated into our systems.
- The GOOD news is that ALL negativity inside our selves can be extracted. At our core we are Divine sparks. As we mediate each morning at the start of Shacharit “My God the soul that You gave me is pure …”
- THE WAY WE ABSORB IS THE WAY WE MUST EMIT: The Rambam teaches in the laws of Teshuva that complete repentance is only achieved when a person is brought to the same or similar experience with the same potential triggers for negativity and they overcome it. the same situation.
- The way we manage to transform darkness to light is as follows: to achieve true spiritual healing and mastery we must see past the outer garb of our negative behaviours and emotions and realise that at their root they are a result of our fears and insecurities. Once we have compassion on the aspects of inner brokenness that lead to these transgressions, we can shine onto ourselves the light of love and compassion our souls so need. When we realise that we are connected at all times to Hashem who is infinite, when we realise that we are never alone in this world that God is with us at all times then we begin the process of feeling whole and pure once again. From this “space” we can refresh our lives to live with joy, happiness, creativity love, strength and courage and so on!
- And then our souls automatically eject the non-kosher flavours, we have absorbed. In a way the trials and challenges of life are there to help us kosher our souls. When we do then we fulfil the very purpose of our existence and nothing is more fulfilling or higher than that.
We are now in the nine days leading up to Tisha Beav when we join Jews around the world in mourning the loss of the Temple. Now is an opportune time to do Teshuva. We can look at our lives and see where we may have absorbed some none kosher flavours. These could be foreign ideas or negative emotions or behaviours.
For those of us who worry that we can never change the past the laws of Kashrut teach us in the words of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov “If you believe you can break it then believe you can fix it”.
Shabbat Shalom