Holy Water

Well, Rabbi, I am back in the US of A and you are off to the Hamptons, to Sag Harbor this Shabbat, by the water. My synagogue has many Shabbatot where they have Kabbalat Shabbat on the beach. The truth is that when my wife is away I know that every Friday night I can go to the beach in my town of Westport, CT and there will be a congregation that will be having Kabbalat Shabbat on the beach, there’s something about being on the water that makes Kabbalat Shabbat, just a little bit more meaningful, and we’re going to explore that kind of sense within me, which maybe is shared by you and by other people tonight, this powerful synergism of water with spirit. Spirituality, with purification. So, are we ready to go?

2:03 – AM:

We’re ready to go. Let’s go.

2:04 – GS:

We are in Chukot, and again, like I said in the intro, it starts with the death of Miriam, and the second that Miriam passes away, there’s a water crisis. And all of the rabbinic commentaries make a connection between the two. And then we get into the story of the Mey Meriva; the waters of dissonance, I would say, and then Moses has his fatal sin, the sin that stops him from going to the promised land. He’s supposed to talk to the rock—it’s really a water rock, as I said in the intro—and instead he hits it, and so there’s water again. And then it segues into the laws of actually Tumah, impurity, which seemed to be in Judaism all related to anything related to death, and it says as such in Numbers 19.14, it says, zot ha-tora adam ki amut ba’ohel. This is the law when a person dies in a tent. Whoever enters the tent and whoever is in the tent shall be impure seven days, and every open vessel with no lid fastened down shall be impure, and in the open anyone who touches a person who was killed or who died naturally or human bone or a grave shall be impure seven days. Some of the ashes from the fire of purgation shall be taken.” So I cut right to the chase, but in the prior verses, it talks about this red heifer who had to be pure red, who ultimately was sacrificed, his ashes were gathered and they are sprinkled into water, and that’s what we’re referring to. Some of the ashes from the fire of purgation shall be taken for the impure person, and fresh water shall be added to them in a vessel. Another party who is pure shall take hissop, dip it in the water and sprinkle on the tent and on all the vessels and people who were there, or on the one who touched the bones or the person who killed or died naturally, or the grave. The pure person shall sprinkle it upon the impure person on the third day, on the seventh day, thus purifying that person by the seventh, it talks about washing their clothes, and it goes on again, and it says, the water of lustration was not dashed on that person who is impure, that shall be for law for all time, and it goes on. And so in these verses, there’s this sense of sprinkling, v’chizah ha-tahor al-hatameh, and then it also talks about mei nida. Now we normally when we think of nida, we think of a woman in her menstrual cycle, but the truth is that the way mei nida lo tizraq olov It is really this water that is made for the impure and I think the obvious connection is that when a woman goes into her monthly cycle, it’s basically because an egg, which has the potential of life,

AM: Correct.

GS: And so it seems to be all associated with potential life, with death, but that is the crux, I think, of tumah, which we’re not necessarily going to discuss tonight, but we are talking about this kind of capability of water, and we’re not even talking about immersion. We’re talking, as I said in the intro, about sprinkling. It uses the word hizah. It uses the word zoreik, to throw. We don’t really have a strong sense, a strong tradition..

6:37 – AM:

The Torah does talk about sprinkling like on Yom Kippur, the Kohen would sprinkle the blood on the altar so we do have that idea of sprinkling but you’re right it didn’t make the cut means we don’t do it today we still immerse we don’t sprinkle anymore I mean I I would think that’s because immersion is more of you know it’s more significant than sprinkling

GS:  And of course, you have here, in terms of I was thinking about all of the other rituals associated with this kind of sprinkling of water, or even dipping into water, or even drinking water. You have the mei sota. You have the woman who’s fidelity is questioned by her husband. She has God’s name (written on parchment, dissolved) that are put into the water, just like the ashes of the red heifer here are put into the water, and there she has to drink it. I believe after the sin of the golden calf, the golden calf was ground up (and mixed with water), and it was also a kind of test. The people who drank it, those who sinned, died, and those who were not guilty did not. So, you have a little bit of that in terms of the grinding up. In Rashi, he makes the connection, and as always, Rashi is following the traditional commentaries. He talks about that they take unto themselves just as they divested themselves of their golden earrings for making of the calf of which was their own, so shall they bring the calf-like animal as an atonement for them which is their own. And he goes, since they became defiled by a calf, let its mother come and atone for the calf. So, he does make a connection between the red heifer and the golden calf, and in a sense, almost like the Garden of Eden (for the individual), this was the iconic sin of the Jewish people, and they’re forever atoning for it, and you know, you could make the case that when death occurs, death as the kind of personification of sin, somehow, you need to get the ashes of this red heifer. But he does make that connection, which is kind of fascinating.

8:56 – AM:

Well, you know, it’s a typical rabbinic thing, and that is, you know, where does the red heifer come from, right? Where do you have such an idea? So, it must be connected to the other idea of an animal in the Torah. That’s the golden calf, and it kind of plays one off the other. I think that’s a very powerful Rashi.

9:17 – GS:

You know, in the introduction I said that the name of the parasha is chukat, and we’ve talked about this before. I mean, chukat typically means there are some rules in the Torah that seem to be logical, that you can give a rationale for, and there are some that seem to be just like scratched to a rock, Hok Hakakti, there’s no logic to them. And so, you’re absolutely right. Rashi and the rabbis are kind of like pulling straws here, trying to find out some significance or meaning from this very enigmatic law. But yes, and therefore it becomes a little bit like a Rorschach test where everybody projects a little bit of themselves, so you know, what do you really think type of thing. But Rashi and the rabbis he’s quoting clearly see a connection to the other calf, the golden calf. It’s interesting, I saw a Devar Torah from Kenneth Brander from Or Torah, and he quotes Brachot 63b, where Reish Lakish said, from here it is derived, meaning from our pasuk it is derived, that matters of Torah are only retained by one who kills himself over it, as it is said, this is the Torah when one who dies in a tent. So it’s a really taking a pasuk out of context, but that ultimately is what we do when we look at the laws of the temple that is no more. And not only is it no more historically, you can almost make the case it’s no more psychologically, it’s not in our paradigm, so to speak. So, when it says So the rabbis go and say, you know, when you study Torah, you have to give up your life for it. And Brander goes on to say, and this is where I’ll bring it into the present, he goes, this is a verse or a reference in the Talmud that those who believe that the Jews who are studying Torah don’t have to go into the army are used. And he goes, our contemporary reality as a sovereign state in Israel, this explanation is no longer pertinent. So, what I’m trying to get at, we’re not We’re not going to linger here, but the point is that this is a little bit of a Rorschach test and somehow, we need to make this powerful law of the red heifer and the purity that’s embedded in it talk to us. The rabbis did that then and Rabbi Bender is engaged in the conversation today and they say it no longer applies and he makes an argument that you have to be in the army, but that’s where we are.

We’re looking at something that’s very ancient and like many laws, the ancient days in the Torah, whether it’s challah that we’ve talked about in the past. They have an afterlife. We still do challah, even though we don’t live in the Land of Israel. We still do mikveh. So, what we’re going to spend the rest of the evening discussing is how, why, and what of this concept of sprinkling water, of the purity of water, lasted, how it lasted, how it was reflected. And one of the things I want to make sure that we get into is because you are so engaged in conversions, I want you to jump in at any moment because you are seeing people who are literally being reborn, changing their lives by making that dip into that water. And whatever else any of us feel when we go into, whether it’s a mikveh, or we go into the ocean, or maybe you’re swimming pool in our backyard, they’ve got to have an insight into what that moment felt like, so why don’t we start now?

13:37 – AM:

You want to start with that?

13:38 – GS:

Yes, let’s go ahead. What are some of the things that you’ve learned from your converts when they’ve gone in and come out of that mayim chayim, the living water in the mikveh?

13:50 – AM:

So they feel that going into the mikvah is a holy moment. Now we make the point before they go into the mikvah that it’s almost like magic. They before they go into the mikvah, they’re not Jewish. They dunk in the mikvah, they immerse in the mikvah, and magically they’re Jewish. So, in a sense, it’s magic water. And that’s really very powerful to think about it. The truth of the matter is the same thing is true about a woman who goes to the mikvah every month. She’s not allowed to be with her husband. She’s not allowed in the time of the temple to go into the temple. She immerses in the mikvah and magically she’s pure. And of course, the idea is that mikvah, and it’s called mayim chayim, means live water, that water represents life. Water is flowing and water represents life. So, it undoes impurity, and it undoes that sense of impurity for a woman. And it means life. And in the case of a convert, it means life. We’re giving you the life of a Jew, which is amazing. And I think that everyone in their own way appreciates it. Some of the converts, now the men aren’t in the mikvah room, of course, with the women converts. So, we have a special woman who goes in with them. But sometimes the converts want to spend some extra time by themselves after they immerse. They just want to be in the water. They want to spend some time in that moment. And you see also the power of that moment.

15:34 – GS:

And you know, as I can only think about my daughter, before she got married, was starting to do some shopping of what a mikvah was and where to go in New York City. And she actually got advice from a friend of hers who converted in New York City. And the friend said: you’ve got to go to this mikvah. It’s wonderful. And when she called up, they said, are you a bride? And there were special days for the bride. They made it special. It is something. I think that mikveh is one of those traditions, and it’s not sprinkling, but it is immersion in the water. That number one is a little bit stronger in the Orthodox community. It’s been retained a little more in the Orthodox community. I think that, you know, I always say, what are the ingredients of a typical Jewish community? You always have the Beit Knesset, you have the G’mach, the Free Loan Society, you have a mikvah, and I think that has been retained to their credit by the Orthodox community. I’ve read just in preparing today that there is a movement within Conservatism and others.

16:48 – AM:

Yeah, I was going to say, you know, what you just said is correct. In the past five years, there’s been a movement in the more liberal branches of Judaism to bring back mikvah. That just makes your point stronger. And that’s the sense that, you know, they realize the power of water, the power of mikvah.

17:11 – GS:

That’s the very positive interpretation. Some of the negative interpretation that I’ve come across is where a Conservative rabbi has trouble getting into an Orthodox mikveh (for e.g. conversions).

AM: Yeah, that’s true also.

GS: So we’ll see. There is always politics involved. But before we get to the rabbinic sources, I want to quote Ezekiel 36, because in that he takes this sense of mikveh, this sense of water, to a new height that actually can make one understand where it went in the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Essene community, where it went with Christianity. Retained within Judaism. So, in Ezekiel 36 it says, I will sprinkle pure water upon you and you shall be purified. I will purify you from all your defilement and all your fetishes. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit into you. I will remove the heart of stone from your body and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit into you and I will cause you to follow my laws and faithfully observe my rules.” And obviously he is addressing this not to an individual, but he is addressing this to LeBet Yisrael, the house of Israel, so clearly, when we get to prophetic Judaism, they understood the power of the metaphor, and I have to admit there is a connection between what we’re saying today And last week, where you were struck by the metaphor in Joel 3: 1 אֶשְׁפּ֤וֹךְ אֶת־רוּחִי֙ עַל־כׇּל־בָּשָׂ֔ר

 “I will pour out my spirit on all flesh” … about pouring the spirit, this sense of water as a medium, of a spiritual medium that can transfer, that can give life, is very, very powerful. And Ezekiel, it clearly, clearly comes through. (see also Bamidbar Raba quoted last week: (במדבר כז, כ): וְנָתַתָּה מֵהוֹדְךָ, כִּמְעָרֶה מִכְּלִי לִכְלִי.

“You shall confer from your grandeur [upon him]” (Numbers 27:20) – like one pouring from vessel to vessel.)

19:21 – AM:

Yeah, that’s good. You know, we pray for water. Water, you know, when you take it out of the context of mikvah for a second, and you use it for rain, so water is what gives us life. Without rain, we can’t survive because there’s no crops. That’s why there’s a special prayer that we recite on Shemini Atzeret. It’s called Tfilat Geshem. If there’s no rain in the winter, we’re not going to be able to survive. You know, that’s related to water being life.

19:57 – GS:

You know, it’s really a continuation of our conversation last week of mashav ha-ruach, umarid ha-gashem.

20:05 – AM:

Right?

20:05 – GS:

Isn’t it right? Especially in the Middle East, especially in where Israel was located, as opposed to Egypt where you had an Nile, here you were totally dependent on rain coming down. And at the end of the day, that’s what Mayim Chaim is, correct? It’s free rain coming down, not transferred through piping or whatever, but direct from the source, so to speak.

20:36 – AM:

And of course we know that the mikveh has to be pure water, rainwater, river water, but it can’t be, you know, it can’t be water that went through the pipes because that’s not water that’s life. Life is from natural water.

20:56 – GS:

So, the next piece of Talmud that I want to quote is, I know, from Lag b’Omer in the Yeshiva. And in Lag b’Omer, there’s a strong association with Rabbi Akiva because, of course, Rabbi Akiva’s students died from the plague, and that’s why we have Sfirat haOmer in terms of not shaving and other, not having weddings and stuff, but what they sing at the top of their lungs is the most famous song of Lag B’Omer, comes from the Mishnah in Yuma 85b, and it says, who purifies you. It is your father in heaven, as it is stated, and I will sprinkle purifying waters upon you and you shall be purified, quoting our verse in Ezekiel, and it says the ritual bath of Israel is God.

22:02 – GS:

So what it does is it makes the parallel between the waters of the Mikvah and God, him or herself, that Israel has this special, maybe on Yom Kippur, maybe other times, special connection that God is our mikvah, but in both Ezekiel and here, it definitely takes the concepts that we see in the sprinkling of the water in the mikvah and makes them into a metaphor for something much bigger and more profound. Isn’t that amazing?

22:36 – AM:

that is absolutely amazing yeah I mean that’s just great mikvah and rain and natural water it’s what beautiful how all this comes comes together and of course you know the second part of the parasha there’s no more water for the people and that’s a crisis and that leads Moses to hit the rock and all of those things but there was all related isn’t it It really, instead of being called Chukot, it definitely could be called Mayim.

23:03 – GS:

You know, there’s so many connecting links between what happens and water. It struck me. It really struck me this year. You know, in Kabbalat Shabbat that we will hopefully all sing, maybe I will be singing it on the beach tomorrow. Night, we talk about mikolot mayim rabim, adira mishpere yam, adir b’morom Hashem. The rivers have raised, Adonai, the rivers have raised their voice, the rivers raised their raging waves. There’s just a beautiful use of mayim as a metaphor. It gets back to Mekaveh HaMayim in creation. It’s a very strong, powerful force. And of course, we have the Shivchi Kamayim L’Beich, I will pour out my heart like water in the presence of the Lord, and that is in Eicha. And we will be reading that in a few weeks in Lamentations on Tisha B’av. So my point is that the Mayim aspect of the spirituality of purification is very, very strong in our texts. And I guess what I’m raising is a question then about how it is not more obvious. I mean, I guess from my background as a yeshiva bachor, I would wake up in the morning, I would, before my feet touched the ground, I would reach under my bed, I would take out a can of water that I had prepared the night before, I would wash my hands, it’s called negel vasser, and I would follow the precept of washing my hands because sleeping is 1/60th of death, even before my feet touched the ground. I washed my hands when I came out of the bathroom and I made a blessing. I washed my hands before I ate bread.” A lot of it had to do with kind of ritual purity, and I’m just wondering why it isn’t It almost sounds like a ritual. We consider people that wash their hands over and over again, it’s almost a neurosis sometimes, you get that. I don’t understand why it hasn’t transferred more in a more positive way. I guess I’m kind of just talking out loud here and I’m wondering what your impression was. Have we lived up to the potential of the power of water?

25:53 – AM:

I’m going to tell you something interesting. Six or seven years ago, there was a Reform Rabbi. Her name was Rabbi Sarah Luria. She was a Reform Rabbi in Brooklyn, and she had this idea to train Mikva facilitators, and they would help people who wanted to go to the Mikva critical moments in their life, not religious moments. Someone who, God forbid, was diagnosed with cancer, and they had to start chemotherapy, or they finished chemotherapy, or they had a baby, or they just got divorced, or their child is getting married, whatever, at critical moments, you know, life cycle kinds of moments. And she trained a whole group of these facilitators and she somehow got, you know, connected them with these people and, you know, there could be 20 people a month who go to the mikvah with these people. And you talk about whether we lived up to the potential, maybe the answer is that we did live up to the potential, because look at things like this. This project, Immersive NYC, was now taken over by the JCC in Manhattan. And it’s something that’s a perfect place for it because they can publicize it. So it’s kind of a way of publicizing Mikva, of trying to get more people to appreciate the value of water.

27:32 – GS:

You know, I just so love what you’ve introduced, and your takeaway is maybe we have lived up to the potential. My takeaway is here’s a woman and a movement that show us the potential, because just as I said before that every Jewish community had a beit Knesset, a G’mach and a mikveh..  I said that means that those institutions were there for people literally as you were saying at every moment in their life, at every segue, at every milestone in their life, whether it was the need for prayer, whether it was the need for financial support or whether it was the need for that mikvah and what my argument is tonight and you can see it in the notes is that What the rabbis did was they kind of made a dividing line. One of the definitions of an Am Ha’aretz is someone who does not eat non-sacred food in a state of ritual purity. They created this purity as a dividing line. The Essenes left the rest of the Jewish community and created something that was based on multiple immersions and purities, and John the Baptist came right out of that and all that. And my argument is that in a sense they politicized this purity code and this sense of when you have to wash and when you have to dip, so to speak, and in a sense they robbed us of being able to use water. To say I once went on one of those Shabbatot that my wife is away and I said okay I’ll go to the beach and it was a Reform congregation that was having their Kabbalat Shabbat and not only did they have it at the beach but I saw people started walking over to the surf and I almost felt like what is this? The Rivers of Jordan that we’re at, it felt like it was beautiful, I went with them, but I just have this core kind of feeling that what this woman that you describe is doing has to be successful, that we have to be able to re-engage with this ability to use the power of water. I love on a Friday to dip in my pool and just dunk in the water, whether it’s Mayim Chaimim or it has a little bit of chlorine in it.

AM: I want to tell you, that is your mikveh. Hasidim go to the mikveh and you go to your swimming pool. That’s just as good.

GS: There is something about that rebirth and that embryonic fluids and whatever and I think that’s what I connected to this year when I read this Parsha and I saw the emphasis on the water and it was a crying out to us I mean I have to and there were pictures in this, a few are notes of a church that I went to in Luca Italy that they excavated, a baptism thing that looked just like a mikvah to me. I have pictures of mikvahs that they’ve uncovered in Israel that are 2,000 years old. This is something that we should definitely reconnect to, and it should be available to all of the Jewish people, and that’s what my takeaway was.

AM: That is a great takeaway. This was a really important session. Enjoy your dunk in your pool mikvah tomorrow. Enjoy your Kabbalat Shabbat.

GS: We’ll enjoy—

AM: Sag Harbor is not actually on the ocean, but we will enjoy the water as well, and I look forward to next week. Shabbat shalom, everybody. Enjoy a great Shabbat and a great week. GS: Be well, everybody. Shabbat shalom to you. All the best.