Rabbi Reuven Kigel - Making Some Sense From Laws That Don't

hello everyone Ru and keigle EM at Outreach I want to talk to you today about the two main types of Mitzvah Commandments that there are in the Torah one is called the H and one is called the Mish now H is a decree from Hashem a decree from God that we don't necessarily understand one of the most famous ones is shess which means you can't wear wool and linen together why can't we wear wool and linen together we can give reasons but the real reason is hidden from us it's a decree from Hashem other things are Mish right which are ordinances which are laws and judgments that make sense for example don't steal don't murder we need this in order for society to function this makes sense and it's called a mish these are the two types of Commandments we're generally dealing with and Mim now this week's Torah portion which talks about the red heer the red cow the paruma so that is a hoke right that is something we don't understand why let me explain what's going on when someone is ritually impure which is already hard to understand the only way to become RIT pure is to get a sprinkling from water that has ashes from a red heer in it okay so the only way to become rich ually pure this is the type of impurity that comes from touching a deceased body and the like right the only way to become rally pure is to get the sprinkling of ashes on you that just in water which the and the ashes originally came from the red heer so now once you get this sprinkled upon yourself you're pure now the only problem is the person who does the sprinkling becomes impure so listen to this ununderstandable hook right the person that gets this sprinkled on him becomes pure so this is obviously something that purifies you but the person does the sprinkling even though what's he doing he's handling the actual object that be makes someone else pure he himself becomes impure and this was so so such a puzzle that King Solomon who knew everything in the Torah he said he could not figure this out right how can something that makes one person pure that same thing means makes the person that is administrating it impure doesn't make any sense right doesn't make sense to us but it makes sense to so I'm not about to make sense of it but I can tell you a tremendous lesson that we all have to learn and if we learn this Our Lives is going to be so much better what is it you know Judaism is a relationship between us and God between us and the people around us and between us and ourselves and this Hoke this law of the red heord the paruma is a tremendous insight into how we're supposed to relate to other Jews I'm supposed to love another Jew so much that I'm willing to make myself ritually impure in order to make him pure if you could look at every other Jew in your life as someone that you be willing to make yourself impure for just for him to be ritually pure for that's love right and that's how we're supposed to look at each other so my sincerest blessing to all of us is that Hashem should bless us with ability to love every single other Jew and to be willing to make ourselves impure in order to make them pure to to be willing to somehow take away a little bit from ourselves in order to help our fellow Jew have a great job