Tazria Metzora - Reconnect With The Source Of Life

Hi, this is Evan Allansky with the Parsha in 5, in 5 minutes we try to give you some insight into the Parsha that will be meaningful to you. And this week is a double Parsha, we got a lot of them in Vayikra this year. Tazria Metzora, the two of them are together. I don't know if that gives me the Parsha in 10, but I'm going to keep it as Parsha in 5 anyway, yeah? We talk about tumah. We talk about yoledet. We talk about zav and zavah. We talk about nidah and ba'al keri. And these tumahs the different forms of of tumah. All of them involve at some point going to a mikvah. Now, I have to be fair because what we call mikvah is not really a mikvah. A mikvah is a collection of natural water. Uh usually rainwater and you tovel. Now, um there are some places where they have an actual mikvah. What does that mean? They have like a big open bore, uh pool, uh pit, whatever it is, and it gets filled with rainwater. Yeah? Um there are certain appliance stores that have a mikvah on premises, outside, and it's just gathered rainwater, and you can go out and tovel anything that you bought. And uh you know, it's available for you, uh keilim mikvah. So uh that's a regular mikvah. Where most people go to the mikvah today, they are not going into the mikvah. Because as you know, most mikvahs, you may or may not know, yeah? Most mikvahs today look like little swimming pools. Sometimes they look like very large bathtubs, depending where you are. But it's going to have to be a pretty impressive bathtub, right? Cuz it's it's to be three minimum three amos by one amah by one amah, right? And uh I met somebody in Bnei Brak who built a mikvah in his bathroom underneath. I don't know how exactly he gathered the water, but he says he had a floor that he put over it, and he could pull it back and just go and tovel whenever he wants. So there's a real mikvah, but most of us go into these little pools. That's not the mikvah. That is a mikvah adjacent. And so there's an actual bore and there's a little pipe that connects to this, and that's the halacha. The halacha is that a little bore that's attached to the real bore can be used. So what do they do when they want to clean it? They close the little tube that connects it, so the bore remains intact. And they drain the little swimming pool and they wash it, yeah? And then they refill it with water and then they open up the little pipe again, so the water remains uh remains clean and yet it's still connected to the bore. Yeah? So uh that's a mikvah. There's another thing where uh in certain instances that's not enough, you need a ma'ayan, which is a natural spring. There are in a few places here in Eretz Yisrael natural spring where you can go. The Ari's mikvah in Tzfat is fed by a natural spring, which is why it is so freezing cold. I mean, even the summer people go into the Ari'zal mikvah and they say it's just freezing, freezing cold. Um uh there I took my I have eight girls, you know, so one one year during uh Seder night we went tovel, we went to to do tashlich, and there was this little spring somewhere near Motza that we knew about. We went there to say tashlich. And these three Breslover Hasidim showed up. Apparently they meant to tovel in the spring. And what they said to me was, "If you don't want your girls to get a rapid education, I suggest you go now." >> [laughter] >> And I did. I appreciated that. But I don't know what was wrong with them that they needed a ma'ayan. Maybe they just thought that that would be cooler, but there are certain types of things when you need a ma'ayan. So what is the what's the key? How does this work? Why should that work? So in the very beginning of the Torah it says and four rivers came out of Eden and watered the garden. So Gan Eden came out of Eden through the river and watered the Gan. And these four rivers are discussion what these four rivers are, and the Nile, the Euphrates, different questions of of what these rivers are. Uh and that's before the whole that's before human beings are being created. We hear about these four rivers that are watering the garden. Why is that? It's to tell me that there has not been any sin in the world yet. And therefore there is no decree of death. And when Adam and Chava sin and eat from the tree, death comes into the world. And the only way to remove that death is to go into water which existed before there was death. All natural water has its source in pre-death world. And therefore you bend down inside going into a fetal position to be able to come out and become pure, to reconnect with the source of life. Tumah always has its source in death. A metzora is considered like someone who's dead. You know, um a nidah is called a whisper of death. There's always death associated with tumah. Obviously a dead body is the obvious obvious source of tumah, right? It's main source of tumah. And the way that we remove that that radiation, that death radiation, is by connecting with life. May it say Hashem tzur Yisrael v'go'alo, v'go'alenu Hakadosh Baruch Hu should which we call mikvah Yisrael should be able to to uh help all of us achieve that taharah and that purity. Shabbat shalom.