Parashat Hukat says, “Zot Hukat HaTorah/ This is the Hok the non-understandable part of the Torah, and it goes on to talk about the contamination of the dead, and how we undo it by sprinkling the ashes of the red heifer. It talks about a man who dies in a tent and that is where we learn the concept that there is something called Tumat Ohel. If a person is in a tent with a dead body, he becomes contaminated. But that law only applies to a Jewish corpse. A kohen is not permitted to enter a Jewish funeral home because there is Tumah there But these laws do not apply to a non-Jewish corpses. The contamination of a Jew is on a higher level than that of a non-Jew. But why is that? Why should there be more contamination for a Jew, who is seemingly holier than a non-Jew?
The Or HaChaim HaKadosh answers that although Tumah/Contamination is a negative thing, God gives everything life, including contamination. Tumah lives off of holiness. As long as a person is alive, his Neshama is so powerful that there is no room for the Tumah to creep in. But when he passes away, the Or HaChaim HaKadosh says that it’s like an empty jar with a little bit of honey leftover. Flies go after the jar with the honey in it. They don’t go after the jar with the water in it. The remnants of the Jewish soul attract flies, so to say.
The reason that we pray at a Sadik‘s kever/grave is because there are still some remnants of his soul. That is the power of a Jewish soul, even after a person passes away. That is a fundamental in our belief-We believe in souls and neshamot, both when a person is here, and when a person passes on.
When a person does it’s not just another one bites the dust. Rather, their soul continues on. One of the Rashba’s students asked him a question- Is it important to light a candle on yarzheit?
He answered that anything that you do in memory of somebody has a benefit, even if you do some thing that technically doesn’t work. For example, if you decided, for arguments sake, to stand on your head to uplift someone’s soul, you have accomplished something. The act of standing on your head is a testimony to the fact that you believe that the person who passed away’s soul still exists, and furthermore, you believe that you can do something for that person’s soul.
Those two statements of belief were caused by the person that passed away. When you do something in someone’s memory,
regardless of what it is that you do, you are making a statement of faith, and that is the biggest thing you could do for them. That is what Kaddish is all about. When a son says Yitgadal V’Yitkadash Sheme Rabbah… God’s name should be great, for a parent, it is a great support, because you brought Emuna into the world. That is the greatest thing that you can do for somebody who passes away. Anything that you do… learning and Sedaka, and of course, lighting a candle helps too. But even if what you did doesn’t help inherently, it helps because you have made a statement of Emuna. That statement is that:
A, you believe that souls continue, and B, we can do something down here to help somebody upstairs.
I recently spoke at an arayat of somebody that passed away 70 years ago, and I mentioned a story that I heard recently at the shiva of a young mother of 8 children who passed away tragically at age 36, after a six month illness. She told her family the following story:
In the times of World War II, Rav Aharon Kotler was in America, but many of his old students, from his Yeshiva in Kletsk, were in Siberia. Throughout the war, was no official postal service or UPS, but they found ways to send packages on the black market. Throughout the war years, Rav Kolter would send packages to his students in Siberia. But he had no communication and he never know if the packages got there. However, just in case, he kept on sending the packages.
After the war, many of his students that did survive came to him and told him that they had survived on his packages.
Before this young lady passed away, she told her family that story and she told them, “You see from this story that you can send people packages, and keep sending them packages, even though you never get a return card or thank you note. Please keep sending me packages when I pass away.“
That is a powerful line. I feel personally connected to this young lady, because her sister is married to my brother’s son, and I wanted to do something for this young lady. I wanted to send a package up to her.
So I felt it befitting to give out some USBs on a series of 10 classes on Ahavat Yisrael. If anyone is interested, you can email me your pledge to rabbisutton@gmail.com,
send a QuickPay to rabbisutton@gmail.com
or mail a check to
Rabbi Sutton
1059 East 10th Street
Brooklyn NY 11230
Tizku lemitzvot