Parshas Key Seesaw - Parah

This drasha should be sponsored by Chic fil -A. The two Torahs that were read this shabbos make up a tale of two cows.
The first is the golden calf. The golden calf was made when pieces of gold were thrown into the furnace. Out came the calf. When Moshe returns he grinds up the calf throws the dust into water and has the people drink the water. Those that had participated in the golden calf perished (Yoma 66b).

The second is the red heifer. When a Jew is in the presence of a corpse he becomes defiled and may not enter the Temple. To purify the defiled person a red heifer is slaughtered and burnt. Its ashes are mixed with mayim chayim spring water and sprinkled upon the defiled person. The defiled person is purified and may resume a full spiritual life.

Both of these cows are difficult to understand. The red heifer is even the classic 'chok' or inscrutable law. Lets examine the golden calf first. Everybody struggles to understand why the Israelites built the calf. Just three months from the exodus, a mere forty days from the ten commandments and they proclaim "these are your Gods Israel which took you out of Egypt"? The most popular approach to this issue contends that the people were not rejecting Hashem for an idol. With Moshe now presumed gone they were looking for a tangible representation of Hashem in their midst. In the Book of Ezekiel we read of Ezekiel's vision of Hashem borne on a chariot. The chariot is made up of four beings a man , an ox, an eagle, a lion. If the people were looking for an earthly representative of Hashem with the man Moshe gone they turned to the next vehicle of Hashem the ox. Their mistake was that they thought it was in their power to establish the manner in which they interfaced with Hashem. Rabbi Meir Shalom Cohen of Petach Tikva , Israel in his work Meshech Haparsha views this as gaavah haughtiness. Their punishment was to have the calf ground into dust and consumed.

The red heifer is used when a person has come into contact with death. Rabbi Cohen quoting kabbalistic sources approaches this homiletically. Death is what comes from a mitzva preformed without joy. Mitzvos are performed without joy when we strive to understand them and our intellect becomes the gatekeeper of our mitzva performance. When we only do that which makes sense, we don't really do any mitzvos with joy. The joy in a mitzva can only come from the awareness that we are connecting to Hashem thereby drawing life from the performance of the mitzva. This is true whether or not we understand the mitzva. When the cow representing our haughtiness is burnt and its ashes are mixed with mayim chayim living water we are rejuvenated. On Friday night after we sing Lecha Dodi we make a large circle and dance around the shul. Some people don't like to dance. 'Dancing is a Rabbi Friedman shtick' or 'I just came to daven'. The reason I want the shul to dance is because I want the shul to be known as a place of joy. Our children may grow up and say they don't like our shul or Judaism for a variety of reasons but don't let them say there was no joy in that congregation. If we do not perform our mitzvos with joy they are dead mitzvos and our children will not repeat them.
The holiday of Purim is devoted to this idea. The day of joy when we drink ad dlow yada until we don't know. Not that we are unconscious or lose our minds but rather we drink until we don't know we just feel. We don't think about the mitzva we just feel the joy in it. This Purim I had an exceptionally joyous experience. On Purim morning I placed $7200.00 cash into envelopes marked with the names of needy persons in our community and Israel. Our small congregation had give that sum for matanos laevyonim gifts to the poor. This year the congregation gave more that double the average of past years. No one was coerced or even solicited. Everyone who gave, gave with joy. As I walked out of shul to my car to begin the deliveries I held the envelopes up to Hashem. "look at what your children have done" I proclaimed. Then I thanked Hashem for allowing me to be the messenger for this mitzva.
I hope we will be able to grind down our golden calf and mix the ashes in living water. Then we will preform mitzvos with joy. We will be joyous because we have connected to Hashem the source of life.