Life and Death Matters

By RABBI PHIL MILLER

Parashat Ki Tissa (Exodus 30:11-34:35)

Many years ago, living in Bogota, Colombia, I volunteered for an organization that worked with gamines, homeless street kids, who lived on the mean streets of Bogota. After a night of driving these streets, meeting with kids and giving them food and medicine, we returned to the Church where we had started. Lying on the street, in front of the Church, was the murdered body of a young man. "A former gamine," the group leader told me. I was stunned and revolted. I was not prepared for this encounter. Being with living gamines was intense enough. The encounter with this young man's corpse brought me to that nexus of life and death: his and my own.

This week is Shabbat Parah, one of the four special Shabbatot leading up to Passover. The additional reading on this Shabbat (Chapter 19 of Numbers / Bamidbar) outlines the mysterious ritual of Parah Adumah (Red Heifer). This ritual process serves the purpose of bringing Taharah (spiritual purity) to someone who has come in contact with a corpse. This contact and encounter with death makes one Tamei (spiritually impure) and unable to enter the Mikdash (Holy Sanctuary).

The Parah Adumah involves a complex process. An entire Talmudic tractate is devoted to its explanation. The Rabbis outline in elegant detail the experience of the person who would prepare the ashes of this heifer for the Taharah experience. One entire week before the ashes were to be prepared, this person would be separated from the community and brought to the Beit Hamikdash (the great temple in Jerusalem) where he would remain confined.

This process is identical to the experience of the Kohen Gadol (High Priest) in the week prior to Yom Kippur. The ultimate purpose of separating this person was to insure that he would be in a complete state of Taharah for the Yom Kippur or Parah Adumah rituals. Indeed, the Beit Hamikdash itself was seen in both Biblical and Rabbinic literature as the ultimate source of spiritual purity and of the life force itself in the world. Only having immersed oneself in the spiritual ambiance of this sacred place, is one ready to engage the presence of death in this world.

The Parah Adumah experience forced the preparer of these ashes to identify face to face with a person who has shared a room or possibly even held in their hands someone who has died. As I learned all too well on that night in Bogota, that is a deeply troubling place to be. Yet, it does not mean we must hide from these encounters.

Tikkun Olam work, which brings us to face death in the world, is essential now more than ever. Whether in our own cities or around the world, we can only save lives by being in places where death is present. However, the ordeal of the Parah Adumah seems to teach us that we must prepare ourselves for this experience. Before we can encounter death in this deep, profound way, we must first encounter and embrace life in all its fullness and vibrancy. We must take time, whether a week, a day or a few hours, to enter our own Beit Mikdash, (holy temple), a place of ultimate life and vitality. Only then will we be ready to emerge rooted and committed to bringing the promise of life to a world all too familiar with death.