KI SISSA - PARAH - 1999 

Today is Parshat Porah.  Today we read how when a person became unclean by coming into contact with a dead body, they had to be sprinkled with a mixture of ashes of the red heifer and water on the third and seventh day after they became unclean.  We read this portion now because to enter the Temple, you had to be ritually clean.  Since everybody wanted to go to the Temple and offer the paschal lamb, the Korban Pesach, they had to be reminded that they had to be ritually pure.

In the Haphtorah that we read, we say, "And I will sprinkle upon you pure water, and you shall become cleansed from all your contamination, and I will give you a new hear and a new spirit, I will put in your midst, and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh.  ii We know that Parshat Porah comes almost always on the Torah portion, Ki Sissa, where we read about the sin of the golden calf.  In fact, the rabbis say that the commandment about the red heifer was given to counteract the sin of the golden calf.

We learn in the Torah portion, Ki Sissa, how Moshe was given the Ten Commandments, and how they were written on stone.  Stone is different than steel or iron or any other metal.  It is shaped from the outside.  Metal you heat, and it is shaped from the inside.  This is to teach us that our values come from outside us, not from inside us.  Left unaided, we will not come up with correct values.  Kant and other philosophers used to believe we could, but Hitler and Nazism proved that he was wrong.  When such great ends as Heidiger and VanHeisenberg and Kittel could all become fervent Nazis, you know something is wrong.  If you make false assumptions, you are going to come out with false results.  Hitler's cabinet was brilliant.  Every one of them except for one was a Ph.D.  The values must come from the inside.  The purpose of Jewish education is to make us want to do what we ought to do.

That's why it says, "I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh."  In other words, by internalizing the values of the Torah, we will be able to live kind and compassionate lives.  The Torah is not just a set of rules.  We have to internalize the Torah.
That's why we learn in the Shema, "I will place the Torah upon your heart.  "We have to internalize it constantly.  We are not robots and Jews especially will not observe rules unless they understand that they are avenues to G-d, that they create spirituality.  When we try to make our own religion, then we end up with golden calves.  The red heifer was to teach us that we cannot understand everything, that life is filled with mystery.
We learn that everyone who came into contact with preparing the ashes of the red heifer themselves became ritually unclean.  Here the people who were preparing the ashes which would cleanse others, themselves became ritually unclean.  This is a mystery which nobody can explain.  Life is like that.  We have to be careful that we do not falsify religion, as the followers of the golden calf did.  

The rabbis teach us that Amalek came upon the Jewish people and fought with them after they left Egypt because the Jewish people had tried to falsify religion.  Some people said that we would follow the Torah and keep the religion as long as G-d makes sure that nothing bad happens to us.  In other words, the Torah is an insurance policy.  If we follow it, only good things will happen to us.  G-d, though, never promised that if we are religious only good things will happen to us.  He only promised us that He will give us the strength to overcome all our problems, but He has never promised us that we will not have problems.

The second group of people said that they would believe in G-d and keep all the Torah as long as they could earn a living, but they should not have to worry about making a living.  If they followed G-ds laws, they would always make a good living.  They may have problems, but that is okay, just as long as they could earn a good living, but G-d never promised us that.

The third group of people said they would be religious and follow the Torah as long as no matter what happened to them they will never question G-d or His ways.  That is not a religion either.  We cannot understand G-d and His ways.  The Jewish people said, well, if being religious cannot prevent us from having problems and cannot assure that we will make a good living and cannot assure that we will never have any questions, then G-d must not be G-d.  There must not be any G-d among us.

Amalek then struck.  We have to realize that a religious person will have questions, and a religious person will have difficulties sometimes making a living, and that a religious person will sometimes have problems, but so what?  We know that we are religious and follow the Torah because the Torah elevates us and brigs us closer to G-d.  It gives us meaning and purpose in life.  It lets us live a better inner life.  People, though, like to falsify religion, make it something it is not.  This was the sin of the golden calf.  Moshe broke the tablets.  Why did he break the tablets?  Rabbi Meyer Simcha Cohen of Dvinsk said he broke them because if he would not have, the people would have worshipped the tablets in place of the golden calf.  Judaism, we are not to make even the Torah an idol.  Some people admire the Torah and will even give a lot of money to house it, but they will not follow it.  They say they love the Torah, but they have, in effect, made the Torah an idol.  The Torah is not just a group of practices.  It is supposed to be internalized and make us into a better person in every given situation.  Unfortunately, many people have falsified religion.  We see that today with the Taliban and with Osama bin Laden, etc.

I am reminded of the story about Osama bin Laden whose 120 years were up, and he went up to heaven and was met by Gabriel, who told hi to go into heaven.  He was met by George Washington who slapped his face and said, "How dare you do what you did to my America?" He next met Thomas Jefferson who kicked him and said, "How dare you do what you did to my America?"  Next, James Madison hit hi in the stomach and said, "What did you do to my constitution?" Then James Monroe hit hi in the face and said, "How dare you do what you did to my America?"  All told, 72 Virginians gave him a klop.  He was bleeding and in great pain.  He said to Gabriel, "This is not what I expected.  "Gabriel replied, "We promised you 72 Virginians, what else did you expect?"

Religion can be falsified and tued into a terrible negative force.  We have to be reminded that there are many things we do not understand in the world, that we have to internalize the moral values given to us at Sinai.  It is not enough to follow rules.  It is a begining, but it is not enough.  We have to internalize the values of the Torah, and we have to become menschen.  Let us all hope and pray that we will do so so the Mashiach will come quickly in our day.  Amen.