Parshat Naso 5782
Rabbi Jablinowitz
We read in this week’s parsha the laws relating to those who are impure and who needs to be sent out from which camp. There were three camps; מחנה שכינה, מחנה לויה, ומחנה ישראל. The law is as follows. Those who were טמא מת, their impurity was based on some contact with a dead body, were sent out from the camp of the Shechinah. The next level, those who became impure through a bodily emission, were sent out from the camp of the Levi’im. And finally, those were מצורעים, were sent out even from the camp of Yisrael.
This parsha is brought towards the beginning of the parsha right after the completion of the counting of the Levi’im and the establishment of the encampments of Clal Yisrael. The thing that needed to be done next was to establish its purity. The Torah states this explicitly as we read (Chapter 5, Pasuk 3), ולא יטמאו את מחניהם. The reason to send out those with impurities from their respective camps is in order not to defile the camps. Or as the Ramban explains, שיהי' המחנה קדוש וראוי שתשרה בו שכינה; your camp must be holy in order that the Shechinah should be able to reside there. And the Torah teaches this explicitly later (Devarim, Chapter 23, Pasuk 15), והיה מחניך קדוש.
The Ohr Gedalyahu compares the different camps and the different forms of טומאה sent out from each one to the human body. Just as different parts of a healthy body cannot withstand certain impurities or bacteria, so too the different camps, each based on its level, “force out” different levels of טומאה which are inconsistent with its essence. For example, the מצורע is sent out from the camp of Yisrael. This is because Chazal teach that the טומאה of צרעת comes about through the use of slander and לשון הרע. Therefore, such an individual can’t reside within a community of people. The idea of a community is to live together and create commonality, while he is creating divisiveness with his speech.
The Maharal applies the same concept to explain the Mishnah in Avos (Chapter 5, Mishnah 7), which lists different miracles which occurred in the Beis Hamikdash. Two of the miracles on the list are that the Kohen Gadol never became a בעל קרי on Yom Kippur and that a fly was never found in the slaughterhouse of the Beis Hamikdash. He explains that one is a particularly low form of impurity, and a fly is something which is particularly disgusting. It is totally inconsistent, he explains, to have such repulsiveness in the holy Beis Hamikdash. This inconsistency necessitated these miracles in the Beis Hamikdash.
These different camps of Clal Yisrael also apply in each individual member of Clal Yisrael as well. The Shelah Hakadosh on this parsha teaches that each person has three different camps as well; his mind, his heart, and his stomach and its accessories. And just as different forms of טומאה are sent out from the different camps of Clal Yisrael, so too one must keep his own camps pure as well and send out whatever doesn’t belong.
Using this analogy, he explains the Gemara in Yoma 29A הרהורי עבירה קשו מעבירה; thinking about doing a sin is worse than the actual sin itself. How could just thinking about sinning be more severe? He explains that the mind is the purest part of the human body. It has less tolerance for impurities than any other part of the human. Therefore, polluting the holiest camp we have is more severe than impurities in the more physical limbs of a person, similar to the Mikdash not being able to endure even a little disgusting fly.
The same thing is true of the second holiest camp, the heart. The pasuk says in Tehillim (Chapter 51, Pasuk 12), לב טהור ברא לי אלוקים; we strive to have a pure heart, and Chazal teach us the importance of a good heart, of a לב טוב. We learn from all this that right after the Torah establishes the encampments, it establishes laws to maintain their purity. And ultimately, the purity of the camp of Clal Yisrael is dependent on the purity of its individuals and their individual parts as well.
Good Shabbos
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