I am privileged to welcome Aharon and Mendel to El Paso. They are rabbinical students at the Central Chabad Yeshiva in Brooklyn and they will be spending two weeks visiting Jews in the El Paso area. They are members of the “Roving Rabbis” summer program, the oldest Jewish outreach program in the world, established and organized by the Rebbe himself in the early 1940s.
The Rebbe insisted that rabbinical students immersed in Torah study and spiritual pursuits should set aside several weeks of the summer to travel to all parts of the world and bring the beauty of Judaism to Jews unable to meaningfully engage on a regular basis. Many flourishing communities and impressive dynasties today are the results of these summer trips.
On the surface it would seem counterintuitive to pull young men out of the Yeshiva setting and send them off to places like the Australian outback, rural America or tiny Pacific islands. While these visits certainly benefit the isolated communities or individuals, can one justify the students’ lost study time and spiritual growth? There are different types of Mitzvot. Some would have probably become proper human behavior even without G-d commanding us to do them - like giving charity or not murdering. Others we do only because G-d commanded us to do them, but they make sense in hindsight - like eating Matzah on Passover to commemorate the Exodus from Egypt 3,333 years ago and to inspire us to see G-d's redemptive miracles in our lives today. And then there are Mitzvot that have no rational explanation - like most details of the kosher diet. We joyfully accepted all 613 Mitzvot at Mt. Sinai and each one of them is integral to the beautiful tapestry of Judaism, but in this week’s parsha the Torah introduces the Mitzvah of the “Red Heifer” with an expression indicating that it has a foundational impact on our identity as Jews more than other Mitzvot. In Judaism there is a concept of ritual purity and impurity that has nothing to do with hygiene or morality and good behavior. Simply put, G-d decreed there are certain circumstances that make a person unfit to enter certain holy places or partake of certain holy foods. The most severe form of ritual impurity happens when touching a corpse and the purification process includes dipping in a Mikvah and being sprinkled with water mixed with ashes of the Red Heifer. Here is a fascinating detail of the Red Heifer procedure. While it has the power to purify someone from the most severe ritual impurity, all the ritually pure people involved in preparing it become ritually impure! There is no way to rationalize this law, but it teaches us a tremendous lesson in life. The highest form of Jewish service and purpose is to willingly sacrifice your own spiritual perfection to help others in need. To dedicate precious time for the benefit of others at your own expense. I wish Aharon and Mendel much success in their short but meaningful stay in El Paso. May we all learn from their example to focus our attention and energies on uplifting and inspiring our surroundings to prepare our world for a time of true peace and tranquility for all with the arrival of Moshiach.