This Shabbat:

Friday Candle Lighting: 7:50 pm
Shabbat Ends: 8:38 pm

Torah Message:

 Symbiosis

“And he will wash his clothes…” (19:7)

The pure becomes defiled and the defiled become pure.

Touching a corpse causes spiritual contamination. Purification from this contamination is achieved through the sprinkling of a mixture of water and the ashes of a red heifer. An anomaly of this process is that while the ashes purify the person who is contaminated, they sully those involved in its preparation.

The red heifer was atonement for the sin of the golden calf. The Talmud (Tractate Avoda Zara 4) explains that, in truth, the people of the generation who sinned with the golden calf were on a high level that was not befitting this sin, but G-d allowed them to stumble so that their repentance would illuminate the path for those to come.

In other words, through this generation’s punishment, salvation emerged for generations to come.

The pure becomes defiled and the defiled become pure.

• Source: Chatam Sofer