[Avodah] Chukas Para Aduma

[Micha Berger via Avodah]

On Fri, Jul 15, 2016 at 12:46:01PM -0400, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote:
: A question asked is how can something tamei purify and so the paradox
: continues.
: For what it's worth, I've always given the example of X-Rays.
: Over exposure to X-Rays can cause the very thing X-Rays are used for
: to cure.

Which is a pretty good mashal for RSRH's take on the subject.
<https://books.google.com/books?id=LOqbqkbO1R4C&lpg=PA438&pg=PA438> See
pg 438, which speaks in terms of medicine vs bread. Everyone needs bread,
but someone healthy shouldn't be taking medicine he doesn't need.

His talk about "someone's mind had been infected by thoughts prompted by
a coprse" vs someone whose mine hadn't suggested a different mashal to me.

When I was a kid, there was a "thing" where you would bet someone they
would be thinking about a pink elephant 5 sec from now. Now, for normal
people who otherwise never would have thought about pink elephants,
you just planted the idea in their head and made the thought inevitable.

However, if you just hapened to been obsessing on the subject until
then, perhaps the bet will be just what it takes to get you to fight
the obsession.

Or think of the difference in the meaning of the sentence:
    Don't believe what everyone is saying, your partners isn't embezzeling
    funds from the business.
When someone really had heard this rumor vs if they were first hearing this
allegation for the first time when you say it.

The parah adumah breaks that focusing attention on man-as-mammal. But
if someone didn't already have that focus, it needlessly raises that topic.


The problem I have with these meshalim are that they explain too much. The
only person who becomes tamei is someone is someone who carries enough
ashes to be able to sprinkle them.

Now if *that* person "took the medicine", was over-exposed to X-rays, or
had thoughts of pink elephants or embezzling business partners, wouldn't
the person who actually does the sprinkling all-the-more-so be impacted?

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Spirituality is like a bird: if you tighten
micha at aishdas.org        your grip on it, it chokes; slacken your grip,
http://www.aishdas.org   and it flies away.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                            - Rav Yisrael Salanter